JITOC staff flags continued risks, vendor change and contract updates in state ERP/Workday project
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Summary
Legislative fiscal reviewers told JITOC that the state's ERP (Workday) implementation remains high risk, a prior business‑process vendor (IJA Strategies) ended its contract and a new vendor (Attain) was engaged; several unknowns remain about data migration, integrations, cost, and schedule.
A Joint Fiscal Office review presented to JITOC on Aug. 26 said the state’s enterprise resource planning (ERP) project, implementing Workday, remains a high‑risk, complex undertaking with recent contract changes and outstanding questions about scope, historical data, and integration costs.
Lisa Gobin told the committee that the business process reengineering vendor originally under contract, IJA Strategies, ended its engagement amid solvency concerns and that the state has engaged a replacement vendor, Attain. Gobin said Attain’s contract incorporates staff who were primary personnel on the earlier engagement and that the Attain contract extended the vendor period and raised the contract cap from about $2.3 million to $2.7 million. She said the new contract’s scope includes completion of business requirements for human capital management and budgeting and that the state regards the new firm as an advocate for the state and the business owners.
Gobin reiterated previously expressed concerns about ERP projects generally and identified specific risks: incomplete planning, the number of system integrations required, unknowns around migrating historical financial and timesheet data, and the potential need for substantial additional funding to replace legacy interfaces (one independent review cited $20–$30 million as a benchmark for some replacements). She also said the project uses time‑and‑materials contracts for business‑process work, and she has requested more detailed deliverables and accounting of work completed under the prior vendor contract.
Staff said they will continue active oversight and follow up with agency business managers and the enterprise project team to obtain contract documents and deliverables for JITOC review. No appropriation or JITOC approval vote occurred at the meeting.
