The State Worker

Officials overseeing California's troubled financial computer system project say it will cost nearly $1 billion less than earlier estimated, according to a new Bureau of State Audits report.

The latest projections by the the Financial Information System for California, or FI$CAL, figure that the massive hardware and software makeover will cost $616.8 million, down from a 2007 estimate of $1.6 billion over 12 years.

California's ca.gov website has received an "A-" grade from Sunshine Review, a national nonprofit that promotes government transparency.

The state's Internet portal was one of 214 government websites to receive an "A-" or better, the standard for receiving a 2012 Sunny Awards.

The judges graded 6,000 government sites against a checklist for information such as budgets, meetings, lobbying, financial audits, contracts, academic performance, public records and taxes. The panel considered websites for states, cities, counties and school districts.

California's was one of 10 state government websites to receive recognition. The others: Delaware, Indiana, Maryland, Massachusetts, New York, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Washington and West Virginia.

A total of nine state and local government websites from California made the Sunny list. Florida government sites garnered the most awards with 28, followed by Texas (21), Illinois (19), Virginia (14), Ohio and Pennsylvania (10 each).

Click here for the Sunshine Reviews' take on California's state website. This link opens an announcement that includes a sortable list of all 214 award-winning websites.

With just 400 to 450 words for our weekly State Worker column, some of what we learn each week never sees print. Column Extras give you the notes, the quotes and the observations that inform what's published.

Our State Worker column in today's Bee looks at how CalPERS is continuing to deal with nagging problems concerning its $500 million-plus computer system. This time the trouble touched about 4,200 retirees whose health insurance premiums were incorrectly withheld. Twice.

Here are some snippets of email correspondence this week between The State Worker and CalPERS spokesman Brad Pacheco that we've arranged in a Q&A format, and the text of a letter sent to affected members on Feb. 22 and Feb. 23 that explained the withholding mistakes and the fixes.

As noted in today's State Worker column, the FI$Cal project is struggling to find funding and skilled employees to execute the plan to merge departments' array of dissimilar IT finance and operations systems into one.

It seems like any time the state takes on an ambitious project that it runs into trouble: cost overruns, staff who jump ship, vendor problems, service contract cost overruns and the like. Take our poll to register what you think:

With just 400 to 450 words for our weekly State Worker column, most of what we learn each week never sees print. Column Extras give you some of the notes, the quotes and the observations that inform what's published.

Our column in today's Bee outlines State Auditor Elaine Howle's update on the Financial Information System for California, the biggest information technology project in state government.

Click here to read Howle's latest FI$Cal report, which has more details about the project than we could cram into our column.

The Bee reported last week that about 25 percent of the 54,000 or so state wireless lines audited so far were unused in December at a cost to government of more than $300,000.

The state Office of Technology has been looking at the issue for more than a year, long before Gov. Jerry Brown said he wanted departments to cut their phone inventories by 50 percent. The results, according to Validas, a Texas-based a mobility service advising firm, was $2.6 million saved from using wireless devices more efficiently and negotiating lower-priced rates.

Here's the Validas report:
State of California Wireless Savings Report: January 27, 2011

We can never get everything we learn into a news story. "From the notebook" posts give you some of the extra details behind the news.

Our story in The Bee today dissects a recent DMV "request for quotation" from companies interested in performing -- for free -- a system security check for the department.

Here's more about some of the people and companies mentioned in the story, plus documents that informed our reporting:

DMV's Request For Quotation #EXE10-0024, which sought to "to acquire a Contractor to perform a no-fee security risk assessment of the Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) current security operations processes."

Here are the questions raised by potential bidders about the RFQ for a freebie and the state's answers (click on it for a larger image):

Clicking here opens the homepage for A Martin Inc./WebEnforce, the San Ramone firm that literally couldn't give its service away to DMV.

Here's DMV's rejection letter to WebEnforce.

Clicking here opens IT expert Michael Krigsman's IT blog on ZDNet. This link opens the homepage of Krigsman's IT consulting firm in Brookline, Mass., Asuret.

And here are two earlier State Worker posts about Krigsman's assessment of success claims by the Office of the Chief Information Officer (now the dubbed the California Technology Agency) and his subsequent reassessment.

IMAGE: www.freeclipart.com

Talk about irony.

Work on a massive state computer hardware and software system to improve its financial reporting continues, but no one seems to know for sure how much the project will eventually cost or how to pay for it, according to a new state report.

The uncertain future of the Financial Information System for California project, or FI$Cal, and former Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's hiring restrictions translated into high turnover among the project's key staff and hurt efforts to hire qualified replacements.

That further hampered work on the project, which aims to integrate the state government's vast and varied accounting, human resources and procurement systems into one. Currently, the state's financial data networks are a patchwork of dissimilar systems built piecemeal over many years.

State Auditor Elaine Howle's five-page update on the project notes:

State IT watcher John Thomas Flynn reports on his TechLeader.TV blog that the state has signed a deal to consolidate its e-mail systems. Computer Sciences Corporation, based in Falls Church, Va., won the contract. Click here for more info.

Hat tip to blog user R for flagging this report for The State Worker.

Paul Benedetto, director of the Office of Systems Integration at the California Health and Human Services Agency is scheduled to be interviewed Thursday at 11:30 a.m. on TechLeader.TV. The show, hosted by John Thomas Flynn, will touch on several aspects of the state's tech efforts, including the Unemployment Insurance Modernization Project.

Click this link for more info about the show or to watch Thursday's interview, which will be archived on the TechLeader.TV site.

PHOTO: Paul Benedetto / www.osi.ca.gov

The California Department of Public Health has a new mobile application to locate hospitals and long-term care facilities around the state.

The app provides info for more than 500 hospitals and 2,500 long-term care facilities. Click here for more details.

IMAGE: Department of Public Health

The California Department of Fish and Game has released a Fishing Guide web application with tons of fishing info, including fishing locations, latest fish planting sites and where to buy a fishing license. The app works on iPhone, Android and Blackberry smart phones. Check it out at www.dfg.ca.gov/mobile.

Click here to read more about the DFG app.

Dale Jablonsky, the Employment Development Department tech chief who said he'd quit if he failed to fix the department's technical troubles, is leaving for an executive officer job at CalPERS. He'll take his new post, replacing fund CIO Teri Bennett, on Aug. 2.

You may recall that Assemblyman Charles Calderon, D-Whittier, put Jablonsky on the spot during an Insurance Committee hearing in February examining $80 million in tech project cost overruns at the department. According to this Feb. 9 Bee report, this was how the hearing went for Jablonsky:

EDD technology boss Dale Jablonsky told legislators his department's systems currently run ancient COBOL programming language and they've been behind many of the delays in processing claims and getting checks out.

Modernization projects have also been stalled or delayed because scarce staff needed to be reassigned to prepare the state's systems for the string of federal benefit extensions, Jablonsky said. That includes projects funded with stimulus money.

But Calderon said that if EDD had met its own initial deadlines to modernize its systems, instead of missing them repeatedly, it could have been ready for the current unemployment crisis.

The assemblyman asked Jablonsky if he'll resign if he misses his next deadlines.

"Yes," Jablonsky said.

Several blog users sent The State Worker an e-mail that went out last week to EDD staff about Jablonsky's upcoming departure for CalPERS. We confirmed its authenticity with department spokeswoman Loree Levy before posting it, unedited, here:

As we reported last week, the state has set telework and remote computer access standards. We wonder how many people do some work from home and whether that number will grow with the state's new policy in place. Which leads to our poll question:

And as always, we're interested in your comments.

Editor's note: This poll was posted on Monday and then posted again with today's date to hold it on The State Worker home page.

The Office of the State Chief Information Officer on has released new policies for state employee telework and remote computer access.

The need to implement telework and remote access solutions is becoming increasingly important. In addition to the traditional benefits of reduced traffic congestion, improved air quality, and increased employee productivity and job satisfaction; today's business drivers include disaster and pandemic preparedness planning. However, the cybersecurity risks and incidents associated with unmanaged use of remote access and telework arrangements can be costly and impact the ability to deliver essential public services.

Click here to read the rest of the OCIO press release. This link opens the jargon-laced Information Policy Letter 10-03, which lays out the policy.

State Chief Information Officer Teri Takai will announce a new social media policy today that requires agencies and departments perform due diligence and consider a number of factors when using twitter, Facebook, YouTube and the like.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and several state departments already use those kinds of tools to reach the public. The governor had 1,656,153 people following his tweets as of 4 p.m. on Thursday. About two dozen state agencies, departments and programs have Facebook accounts.

The Department of General Services has this myspace page. DMV uses YouTube to deliver education videos like the one at the top of this post.

Takai is supposed to officially release the state's social media policy today around noon.

Click here to read the new social media standard. This link opens Takai's IT Policy Letter to agencies and departments.

TechLeader.TV will feature a live interview with Mark Weatherford, director of the California Office of Information Security, on Thursday at 11:30 a.m. The show will be archived on the Web site if you want to check it out later. Click here for more info about the Webcast.

IMAGE: www.cio.ca.gov

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger on Tuesday signed Executive Order S-03-10, which establishes a new chief information officer position for all state agencies and departments.

The governor issued the order the same day that Bee reporter Andrew McIntosh reported that EDD is spending tens of millions of dollars on IT projects but still is falling behind on assisting the unemployed.

The order also gives the state chief information officer ...

... authority as provided by law over all information technology (IT) infrastructure and shared services, including, but not limited to, the following: data and telecommunications networks; data center services, including all equipment necessary to operate mission-critical and public-facing applications (e.g., servers, storage, switches, security devices, and mainframes); hosting of mission-critical and public-facing applications; and shared enterprise services (e.g., e-mail and directory).

Click here to read the order and the administration's press release about it.

California's Chief Information Officer Teri Takai is scheduled for a Web-based live interview on TechLeader.TV on Thursday at 11:30 a.m. The show, hosted by John Thomas Flynn, is devoted to California's state government technology issues.

Click here to open TechLeader.TV's Web site, which includes links to archived interviews with state officials dating back to 2008.

IMAGE: Teri Takai / recovery.ca.gov

The Center for Digital Governmenthas recognized several state departments with its "2009 Best of California Awards" for achievements in leadership and information technology.

A panel of state and local government chief information officers chose the winners from applications submitted over the summer. The center started giving the awards in 2002.

A recognition ceremony is scheduled for 3:20 p.m. on Thursday at the Sacramento Convention Center. It's part of a day-long, public sector-only event focused on how state, regional and local governments are using technology. Click here for more details.

And click the following link for a list of the award winners.

A bill that would let state employees with direct payroll deposit receive electronic earnings statements has passed the Senate on a unanimous vote and is now on Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's desk.

The measure by Sen. Tony Strickland, R-Moorpark, would save the state up to $3.7 million each year in printing costs. The caveat: "This bill will be contingent upon the funding of the State Controller's 21st century project, which will have the capabilities to carry out this function," according to a Strickland press release.

Click here to read more about the measure.

This link will take you to the press release.

IMAGE: freeclipart.com