The State Controller's Office is having internal discussions about using agile methodologies if it restarts work on a new state payroll system, State Controller Betty T. Yee said Tuesday.
In testimony to a legislative budget subcommittee, Yee said the Controller's Office is working with the California Department of Technology and the Government Operations Agency to identify a path forward for the project.
Chris Maio, who is overseeing the payroll project as part of his duties as chief of information systems in the State Controller Office’s Personnel and Payroll Services Division, said the payroll system project will go through the Department of Technology's new project approval lifecycle process introduced last year. The project would reset back to the planning stages, Maio said.
If the state's payroll project uses agile procurement and development, it would join other big state projects going in that direction -- notably the modernization of California's child welfare system.
Yee said the state's current payroll system is old but still functioning, and manual workarounds are being used to accommodate newer workloads. Maio said state IT staff know the existing system well. The State Controller's Office is requesting $1.1 million from the state's General Fund to support the mainframe-based, legacy system called the Uniform State Payroll System.
The payroll project was suspended in 2013. Yee confirmed that about $300 million has been spent to date on the failed 21st Century Project, also known as MyCalPays.
Yee said she's as optimistic as she's been since taking office last year that the state will prevail in its court case against SAP, the integrator that worked on MyCalPays. The state is still open to negotiating a settlement with the vendor, she said.
Yee added that the state will incur $39 million in external and internal legal costs associated with the 21st Century Project litigation through 2015-16. If the state wins the trial -- it's scheduled to begin in May and could last two months -- California could be awarded as much as $156 million. SAP reportedly is seeking $55 million for work it did on the 21st Century Project.
A study completed last fall determined that it could cost anywhere from $107 million to nearly $200 million to pay a system integrator to complete California’s statewide payroll system.
