Committee debates requiring baseline cost and schedule in IT project reports

The House Energy and Digital Infrastructure Committee on Feb. 19 continued discussion of committee bill 250896, a proposal to change how the state reports on large information-technology projects so legislators and the public can compare current cost and schedule status to an original baseline.

Deputy State Auditor Tim Ash urged lawmakers to “go behind door number 2” — improving the bill to define a clear baseline and require modest additions to reporting — rather than passing the bill as-is or doing nothing. “Without the baseline information, you will rarely find yourself in a position to even know when to ask the question about what's going on,” Ash said, adding that modest statutory changes could give the legislature earlier notice of cost and schedule changes.

Lisa Dockman, IT consultant with the Joint Fiscal Office, told the committee that the most useful baseline is the estimate in force at contract execution and that the committee should track both that execution start date and the contract-cost figure. “When the blue arrows end and the green arrows start, that that is execution start date. That's when the contract work begins,” Dockman said. She recommended adding an “original implementation” estimate alongside current budget figures in the…