CPRIT oversight committee approves LAR amendment to fund new grant-management platform via DIR

The Cancer Prevention and Research Institute of Texas oversight committee voted to amend the agency’s 2026–27 Legislative Appropriations Request to add a capital exceptional item for a new grant management platform procured through the Texas Department of Information Resources.

Ms. McConnell, a CPRIT staff member, told the committee that the request would allow the agency to “procure a new grant management platform or GMP, through the auspices of the Department of Information Resources.” She said DIR would run the procurement and hold the contract while DIR vendors develop and configure the system for CPRIT’s programs.

The agency presented cost estimates for fiscal 2026 that staff described as a rough order of magnitude: a technology assessment of about $560,000 and acquisition, development, systems integration, change management, cybersecurity, maintenance and help-desk support estimated at roughly $9,600,000, producing a near-term total the staff rounded to “almost $10,200,000.” Recurring costs for 2027 were estimated at about $1,450,000.

Ms. McConnell said CPRIT currently runs its grant workflow through a set of older, separate software-as-a-service products under its contract with GDIT that split application intake, peer review and post-award management across multiple platforms. She said that fragmentation makes it difficult to aggregate and analyze grant data and that the existing technology “is very old, technology and requires extensive coding,” adding that routine changes require time and expense.

The staff proposal calls for creating capital budget authority in the agency’s bill pattern so CPRIT can pursue the DIR-led procurement. Because CPRIT’s appropriated bond proceeds total $300 million, Ms. McConnell said the agency does not have new operating funds for the project and would transfer money from its grant award strategies (research and prevention) proportionately — described in the meeting as the “90/10%” split — into the operating strategy to pay DIR and vendor costs. She said this request is not for additional funds, but for the budget authority to reallocate existing appropriations.

Committee members pressed staff on timing, costs and data access. Dr. Patel, an oversight committee member, asked whether the agency was requesting new funds or only the budget authority; Ms. McConnell replied it was only to create the capital budget authority and that “it is not for additional funds.” Mr. Taylor asked about data access and segregation; Ms. McConnell said the data would remain the agency’s and that public-facing data would be easier to extract and publish through built-in connections to visualization tools such as Tableau.

On timing, staff said they plan to be off the existing GDIT platform by the end of fiscal 2027 and expect to be using the new system “definitely by 2028,” though parts of the procurement and implementation could run concurrently and might accelerate that timeline.

The committee approved the request by voice vote. The transcript records members saying “Aye” and the presiding officer declaring the motion carried; the transcript does not record a roll-call tally in the meeting text.

The committee did not adopt additional spending beyond CPRIT’s constitutional bond cap; staff noted that if acquisition costs exceed the estimate, an Appropriations Act provision allows agencies to transfer up to 25% of a capital budget with subsequent committee notification and approval steps described by staff.

The vote advances CPRIT’s plan to replace its piecemeal, legacy grant systems with a single, DIR-procured platform; staff said benefits would include improved data aggregation, easier public data publication and lower recurring costs over time compared with the agency’s current arrangement with GDIT.

Items not decided at the meeting included a detailed acquisition timeline, final vendor selection and a precise final cost; staff described the fiscal figures as estimates and said a technology assessment to inform the acquisition is the first planned step.