More than a decade in the making, the state's Financial Information System for California (FI$Cal) appears to be gradually changing trajectory as it moves from strictly being an IT project to becoming a service-oriented, customer-focused organization.
Miriam Barcellona Ingenito, FI$Cal's new executive partner who came aboard about six months ago, said in a recent interview with Techwire that much of FI$Cal has been built from a technology standpoint, so the focus now is beginning to shift to creating a sustainable environment where 154 departments can successfully utilize the tools and functionality that have been created within the new system.
A big component of this transition is a proposal to make FI$Cal a department unto itself. Ingenito explained why this is a necessary move.
"The way this project was set up was unique in a lot of different ways. Usually a project is sponsored by a [single] department, and it's usually an existing department that is going to maintain a system once it's online. But we have four partnering [agencies], and it is a system for all of them, along with 154 departments. So it currently exists in statute as the 'FI$Cal Service Center.' We're amending that statute to a full department, the Department of FI$Cal, in order to make sure we can maintain a technical piece — the technology division — as well as the Service Center and change management and client relations units. Because those are really key to the long-term success of FI$Cal.
"As time has gone on, we've started to realize what it's going to take to maintain a system the size of FI$Cal, and it is going to need a standalone department, that can have the advice and counsel of those four partners when it comes to the system. The four partners retain their policy direction; they each have their statutory responsibilities, and we implement that using the system and make sure it doesn't break. And if it does break, that it gets fixed in order to do business."
Along with this reorganization plan, FI$Cal is requesting at additional $110 million in budget authority to add a full year of knowledge transfer activities, fund additional time to retain contractors, bring in additional dedicated staff to the department, and extend the project timeline by two years.
Ingenito said she believes the Legislature will approve the changes. "I believe this is a project that's really important to them. The transparency, and where our money goes, has been a high priority for them," she said.
Ingenito noted that by design she has a different background that her predecessors in the role of FI$Cal's executive partner.
"I don't have a technical background; I bring a different skill set, which complements Neeraj Chauhan, the project director, very well. He can do the day-to-day technology piece and I'm starting to set up the department and the long-term customer service. Because at the end of the day, FI$Cal is a customer service department," she said.
Most recently, Ingenito was chief deputy director of the California Department of Toxic Substances Control, which was one of the departments that implemented FI$Cal in Wave 2. She said she's leveraging the lessons learned and "significant struggles" of that rollout now that's she's at the helm at FI$Cal. She also previously was a deputy secretary at CalEPA, and spent time at the Department of Finance during the Brown and Schwarzenegger administrations.
FI$Cal is attempting to create a central financial platform for the state, streamlining 2,500 legacy financial systems. Approved in 2005, the system was initially projected to cost $1.6 billion but was revised down to a total cost of $672 million. Adding $110 million in new spending would increase the project to roughly $782 million.
"[The budget] got cut, but now we're seeing what it's going to take to deliver all the services we actually need. So it's never been done before, so we are learning as we go," Ingenito said, acknowledging there have been bumps along the road. "We've been very fortunate to have the support of the Legislature and the four partners in recognizing that we don't just want to build something because it comes within scope and budget. We want to deliver a quality product that actually meets the needs of the state of California."
Some parts of FI$Cal already have been rolled out. The project has implemented accounting, budgeting and procurement functionality for Wave 1 and Wave 2 state agencies and departments. The Governor’s Office processed the 2015-16 budget in FI$Cal using the Hyperion solution, and late last year the Department of General Services and FI$Cal launched an online portal for statewide procurement, called Cal eProcure.
