The Board of Equalization received an update Oct. 21 on a multi-year effort to replace the State Assessed Properties Division’s legacy mainframe tax system.

Catherine Taylor, who presented the information, said the current mainframe has reached functional obsolescence and has required frequent manual workarounds and paper-based processes. The agency has begun the California Department of Technology’s Project Approval Lifecycle (PAL) and submitted a stage 1 business analysis in March 2025 and a stage 2 alternatives analysis in July 2025; a Budget Change Proposal was submitted to the Department of Finance on Aug. 28, 2025.

Taylor said BOE conducted a request for information of potential vendors and is preparing stage 3 deliverables while awaiting final state funding approval. Deputy Controller Imran told the board staff anticipates an implementation effective date of Jan. 1, 2028, if funding is approved as part of the governor’s budget process.

Why it matters: The mainframe supports assessment, valuation and allocation processes for state-assessed property. The project aims to move BOE to a cloud-based solution to automate processes, improve security, reduce manual entries and lower long-term operational risk posed by unsupported legacy systems.

Next steps: BOE will proceed with stage 3 work while waiting for the governor’s budget decision and will provide the board with progress updates.