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Kansas Department for Children and Families reports delays on child-support system replatform; IBM engagement under way
Summary
The Department for Children and Families told lawmakers that its child-support replatforming—intended to end reliance on a mainframe—has been delayed and modestly over budget after an unplanned federal de‑identification mandate and unresolved batch-processing problems.
Department of Children and Families CIO Tom Pagano updated the Joint Committee on Information Technology on the Child Support Services (CSS) replatform project, which moves the legacy mainframe child-support application to a modern server-based platform.
Pagano said the project began as an effort to mitigate mainframe risk and improve interfaces; the initial plan estimated 28 months and a budget of $11.7 million. The project is now 41 months into work and the agency reports a current cost of $12.7 million. The agency said the cost increase included roughly $1 million for unplanned work to implement a federal requirement to de‑identify data, a task the team did not anticipate in the original project plan.
Primary technical impediments DCF staff said another major source of delay is a batch-processing challenge the vendor Modern Systems had not resolved. Pagano told the committee Modern Systems was acquired by IBM earlier this year; IBM has since dedicated additional technical resources to evaluate and (the state hopes) resolve the remaining issues.
Procurement and risk management notes Pagano said DCF has refused further change requests tied to the delays and has been monitoring vendor mitigation plans; the agency said it would not accept additional costs without evidence of concrete technical progress. He said the agency would present a recast schedule after IBM provides remediation options and a delivery plan.
Ending: The committee was told DCF is awaiting IBM’s proposed remediation plan and expects to provide a recast schedule when IBM defines the approach and timeline.
