Michigan Liquor Control Commission outlines $10M IT replacement, defends inventory controls

Kristen Belzer, chair of the Michigan Liquor Control Commission, told the House Oversight Subcommittee on Public Health and Food Security on Oct. 26, 2025, that the agency is replacing its decades‑old liquor sales and inventory system with a new platform known as SIPs Plus and is targeting a fall 2025 go‑live.

The upgrade responds in part to a performance audit of the MLCC’s IT systems and follows the commission’s corrective action plan. “SIPs Plus ... is in the works right now. It's over a $10,000,000 project. It is scheduled to go live later this year,” Belzer said during the presentation. The commission also described interim controls it restored after pandemic‑era disruptions, including resumed quarterly physical inventories and using an ADA (authorized distribution agent) “zero inventory” reconciliation when staff could not access warehouses.

The Nut Graf: The MLCC told lawmakers the new system will combine seven current modules — sales and inventory, product registration, listing (e‑quote), ordering and invoicing — and link the three ADAs that warehouse and deliver spirits for the state. Committee members pressed the agency about why the new system cost more and whether it will provide near‑real‑time tracking for bottles, given public concern about inventory discrepancies during the pandemic.

Most important facts first: Belzer and MLCC business manager Carrie Krohn said the commission manages a high volume of transactions and licensees that complicate IT modernization. MLCC reported more than 14,000 retailers can order spirits weekly, 20,000 retail licensees statewide, more than 1,200 manufacturers and more than 9,000 special (event) licenses annually. The commission said its ADAs make roughly 16,000 deliveries per week and pick more than 1 million bottles weekly to fulfill retailer orders.

Krohn and David Marvin, the commission’s executive services director and IT lead, described why the system upgrade took longer and cost more than originally estimated: the SIPs project is larger than initially scoped, vendor experiences in other states raised caution, and the commission incorporated additional audit recommendations into the design to reduce future findings. Krohn said some prior system defects fixed after the audit period caused inventory timing and release problems; she credited DTMB for a later fix. “We have been very limited over being able to do enhancements in that system,” she told the committee about the legacy COBOL‑based platform.

Rep. Andrew Green (R) repeatedly pressed the agency on whether SIPs will provide end‑to‑end, real‑time bottle‑level tracking. Krohn answered that SIPs will improve invoicing and inventory controls and that each order will flow through the online ordering system (Mylo) with cross‑referenced order and invoice numbers, but she did not promise instantaneous, bottle‑level GPS‑style tracking.

The MLCC emphasized its corrective actions beyond SIPs: updating administrative orders and finance bulletins, revising the ADA handbook, restarting physical inventories in 2022 after pandemic restrictions and expanding FTEs in the financial management division. Krohn also noted the agency’s revenue scale: preliminary 2024 spirit sales were about $1.9 billion and 10.5 million cases (financial audit for 2024 pending final release), and the commission distributes hundreds of millions of dollars annually to state and local funds.

Ending: Committee members accepted the presentation and indicated follow‑up questions may be requested. The committee recorded a separate procedural motion at the start of the meeting: Representative Brad Paquette moved to approve the May 20 minutes; no objection was recorded and the minutes were approved.