DENVER—Turnover in leadership, inadequate technical expertise and ineffective management are among the problems cited in a new report on the latest state computer system to develop severe problems.
The report released Tuesday describes the status of the Department of Revenue’s $10 million automobile registration computer, Colorado State Titling and Registration System, or CSTARS, and presents options for fixing it. Options include sticking with the existing system, considered just a short-term solution, and rewriting the new program.
The system, which started late last year, was intended to be an upgrade that could be integrated with county systems. It was shut down in April after the department determined it was losing data.
“The system we have is very old and inflexible,” said Roxy Huber, executive director of the revenue department.
The new system, however, isn’t viable, said Huber, who took over as director in January.
“We need to make some pretty significant changes,” Huber said.
In February, Gov. Bill Ritter shut down an office created to fix problems in the state’s welfare computer system.
The $200 million system was responsible for processing welfare benefits that include Medicaid, food stamps and Temporary Assistance to Needy Families. The Colorado Benefits Management System office was created in May 2005 after counties blamed it for causing a backlog of nearly 30,000 cases and the state was sued for failing to provide benefits.
Before the office was created, two departments—the Department of Human Services and the Department of Health Care Policy and Financing—oversaw the operation of the system. An executive order signed by Ritter requires those two departments to again take on that job.
The state was also forced to cancel two major contracts—one for a computer system to manage unemployment insurance and another for voter registration—after the vendor failed to deliver.
According to the report on CTSARS, written with input from county officials and state staffers, the Department of Revenue didn’t seriously look at improving the business processes when it developed the new system, instead focusing on simply rewriting the existing system.
Other problems listed in the report were:
— ineffective executive sponsorship of the project
—the department’s environment wasn’t open or collaborative
—lack of accountability
—high turnover and transition of responsibility
—ineffective project and program management/governance
—adversarial individual and team relationships
Huber said the Legislature and the governor’s office of information and technology will review the report as the state decides how to proceed.
