Opinion: California Puts Lipstick on its Porcine FI$Cal Technology Project

The state authorities’s continual incapacity to make use of excessive expertise in a well timed and cost-effective method is nowhere extra evident than in a challenge referred to as “Monetary Info System for California.”

That awkward title was devised in order that it might be referred to as by the catchy title of “FI$Cal,” however by no matter moniker, the trouble to create a single program for managing state funds has been nothing however hassle, consuming almost twenty years of political and bureaucratic time and costing taxpayers at the very least $1 billion.

The state auditor’s workplace, tasked by regulation with monitoring FI$Cal’s progress, or lack thereof, has issued a string of stories detailing its missed deadlines, incomplete options and ever-rising prices. At one level, the auditor even blew the whistle on an effort to have the challenge declared full, although it was removed from being completely operational.

Earlier this yr, the auditor as soon as once more catalogued FI$Cal’s shortcomings, together with its apparent incapacity to satisfy a June deadline for completion, noting that crucial last step — making it useable by the state controller’s workplace to provide annual complete monetary statements — “has fallen delayed.” The report warned that if the state can’t “publish correct and well timed monetary statements,” it dangers having its credit standing lowered and never qualifying for federal funds.

“These monetary reporting delays could in the end show expensive for the state,” the auditor warned.

The Legislature has been annoyed by the challenge’s sorry report and because the June deadline approached, each legislative homes voted for extra oversight. They handed a invoice requiring detailed annual stories on the quantity and size of unplanned outages and modifications to make FI$Cal perform effectively sufficient to adjust to federal necessities.

The measure’s creator, Assemblyman Rudy Salas, a Bakersfield Democrat, instructed his fellow legislators in a press release, “As FI$Cal enters its 18th yr at a price of roughly $1 billion, it’s clear that stronger oversight and transparency must be established,” including, “This invoice will assist set up higher oversight and performance with a high-risk state challenge, and assist get FI$Cal again on monitor.”

Eight days after passing Salas’ invoice on June 23, the Legislature did one thing else about FI$Cal, though few lawmakers have been in all probability conscious of what they have been doing, because it was buried in one of many many price range “trailer payments” which can be handed with little scrutiny.

The trailer invoice merely declared that “the system’s challenge targets … are decided to be full as of July 1, 2022. Due to this fact, no additional reporting pursuant to Part 11546 on system growth, implementation, enhancement, upkeep and operations, safety, or associated workload is required.”

In different phrases, the trailer invoice put into regulation what challenge managers had as soon as tried to do on their very own — declare FI$Cal to be full although it’s clearly not. The laws additionally eliminated the state auditor as an unbiased overseer of your entire challenge, relegating it to a much-narrower position, and in essence gave the challenge’s managers one other 10 years to make it totally useable.

Final month, Gov. Gavin Newsom accomplished the fictional train of declaring the clearly incomplete FI$Cal to be completed by vetoing Salas’ invoice.

“Whereas I admire the intent to enhance performance of the Fl$Cal system, this invoice is pointless,” Newsom mentioned in his veto message. “This concern was resolved within the last 2022-23 price range settlement contained in Meeting Invoice 156, which expanded legislative reporting necessities whereas additionally facilitating the transition of a number of departments into the Fl$Cal system. For these causes, I can’t signal this invoice.”

It’s paying homage to the previous saying about placing lipstick on a pig.

CalMatters is a public curiosity journalism enterprise dedicated to explaining how California’s state Capitol works and why it issues.