Michigan secretary of state defends new campaign finance portal amid migration problems and fixes

Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson told the Michigan House Committee on Oversight that the Michigan Transparency Network — the new, unified campaign-finance and lobbyist filing portal (referred to in testimony as "Mitten") — is being actively fixed after performance and data-migration problems during its rollout, and that the state and vendor are working under a corrective-action plan and a contract that includes service‑level credits.

Benson said the vendor, Tyler Technologies, will refund the state for downtime to date ("The current refund stands at $166,000," she said) and that the five‑year fixed‑fee contract totals $9,000,000. She contrasted that with the previous maintenance contract for the legacy system (MERTZ), which she said cost $18,000,000 over nine years, or about $1,800,000 annually; Benson said Mitten’s annualized cost is about $1,200,000.

The new portal aimed to combine decades of campaign finance, lobbyist and filing records into a modern, searchable database; Benson and staff said migrating roughly 24 million legacy records from MERTZ created unanticipated data‑normalization and search‑performance problems that contributed to the troubled launch. Benson said the department has prioritized user support and staged monthly software releases to fix issues, and she told lawmakers she accepts responsibility for the rollout: "I take full responsibility," she said.

Committee members pressed Benson and state staff on several topics: why the department did not extend maintenance on the legacy MERTZ system while the new portal was stabilized, how the procurement and evaluation process handled the vendor’s prior acquisition of Michigan Interactive/NIC (which had operated MERTZ), and how PDFs submitted by filers will be incorporated into the searchable portal.

Benson and her staff said the procurement was an open competitive process, that Tyler disclosed prior acquisition activity, and that some vendor work had to surge beyond planned resources after migration issues emerged. A Tyler Technologies representative (speaking to the committee) confirmed the acquisition of Michigan Interactive/NIC closed in February 2021 and explained that acquiring companies often brings legacy software into the buyer’s portfolio.

On filings, Benson said 47 personal financial disclosures were submitted through the Mitten module for the June deadline, while 112 were submitted as emailed PDFs; the department posted the PDFs to the public page but does not yet have an automated mechanism to convert those PDFs into fully searchable database records, and staff will have to manually enter PDF contents into the module until a migration process is implemented.

Benson outlined recent and upcoming fixes: software patches and search improvements released May 31 and June 17; a third, larger release planned for July 12 that will add a campaign filing summary report, better public search features (including cumulative contribution searching and easier data downloads), improved lobby‑registration flows and credit‑card payment for committee and lobby fees. She said search response times have improved markedly in June (staff told the committee search latency improved by roughly 97% between June 6 and June 20).

Lawmakers raised additional concerns: Representative Green called the rollout "a broken failure to launch system," and several members said the system’s instability made it difficult for filers to meet statutory deadlines. Committee members asked whether the state could have negotiated keeping MERTZ running while Mitten stabilized or secured larger financial credits; Benson and a DTMB procurement representative said contract terms include service‑level credits and that the fixed‑fee contract holds Tyler responsible for additional hours needed to complete the work.

The department said Tyler doubled the staff assigned to the project without charging additional fees beyond the fixed contract and that the state will continue to evaluate the vendor’s performance and the contract remedies available. Benson told the committee the goal is to have the system fully functioning by the end of the year to avoid major changes during an election year.

The hearing included a broad question-and-answer period on user support, contingency plans, data validation and how the portal can enable journalists and researchers to connect filings, treasurers and addresses across previously siloed datasets. Benson and technical staff emphasized ongoing user research and iterative improvements, and invited members to contribute feature requests and bug reports.

Votes at a glance: Representative Regas moved to approve the minutes of the committee’s June 3 meeting; the motion carried by unanimous consent (no recorded roll call). Later, a motion to excuse absent members (moved by Representative Bierlein) also prevailed by unanimous consent.

Benson closed by thanking committee members for oversight and saying the department would continue releasing fixes and increasing support for filers as the Mitten project progresses.