Financial Services Asks for $75M for IT Work in the Midst of PALM

The Florida Department of Financial Services (FLDFS) is requesting a total of $75 million for several technology initiatives in its legislative budget request (LBR).

Of that total, $55.9 million is tagged for the massive Florida Planning, Accounting and Ledger Management (PALM) Project to replace the FLAIR system. That project — which shows up in other agencies’ LBRs as they work to update their own systems and applications for PALM — will replace the state’s internal enterprise accounting system.

FLDFS’ PALM requests are spread across several individual asks:

• $46.7 million for deliverables and production support services
• $3 million for unforeseen expenditures related to implementing Florida PALM
• $1.6 million for staff augmentation support
• $1.5 million for 10 full-time equivalent positions to increase production support
• $1.3 million for a project manager, organizational change manager, three other personal services staff and two user acceptance testing coordinators
• $991,440 for system remediation efforts
• $641,520 to ensure adequate staffing in case of turnover
• $91,125 to integrate the department’s Risk Management Information System with PALM

The PALM implementation will occur in “waves.” The CMS wave went live in 2021, providing treasury functionality to all state agencies. The department’s LBR will support the maintenance of live functionality and the implementation of new capabilities if approved by the governor and Legislature, providing funding for year 12 of the Florida PALM project and year eight of its SSI contract.

Other department IT-related requests include:

• $6 million to replace the Office of Financial Regulation’s Regulatory Enforcement and Licensing (REAL) system 
• $5.4 million for the second year of a multiyear project to replace the Division of Rehabilitation and Liquidation’s rehab and liquidation claims system 
• $2.8 million to support ongoing system support and maintenance for the department’s consumer services customer relationship management solution 
• $1.5 million to modernize the Division of Insurance Agent and Agency Services and the Division of Funeral, Cemetery and Consumer Services licensing system
• $857,738 to replace the application delivery controller approaching end of life in January 2026

More information about the department’s legislative budget requests can be found online.