Get Full Government Meeting Transcripts, Videos, & Alerts Forever!
Get email alerts on the Financial Systems Modernization topic
No spam. Unsubscribe anytime.
State agencies outline long-running plan to modernize aging financial management systems
Summary
Agency leaders told the Joint Committee on Information Management and Technology that a full replacement of the statewide financial management application (SFMA) will wait until payroll modernization is complete, while agencies will tactically modernize subsystems such as forecasting, cash flow and invoicing to reduce reliance on legacy mainframe components.
Co-chair Manning and members of the Joint Committee on Information Management and Technology heard from Department of Administrative Services Director Betsy Eimholt and Oregon Department of Transportation officials on Sept. 30 about plans to modernize the state’s financial systems.
Betsy Eimholt said the statewide financial management application was implemented in the mid-1990s and that the department will sequence work so payroll modernization — driven by recently negotiated pay-practice changes — is completed first. "The finance system... impacts every expenditure that the state of Oregon makes," Eimholt told the committee, emphasizing the need for enterprise governance and careful requirements work before a full SFMA replacement.
ODOT Chief Information Officer Thomas Amato described ODOT’s Teams accounting ecosystem, implemented in the 1980s, and said it has grown into a complex set of connected subsystems that include forecasting/cash-flow tools, federal billing (FedBills), fuels-tax collections and inventory/asset-management modules. Amato and his team argued that some agency-specific systems should be decoupled and modernized tactically before any statewide migration, citing COBOL-era components and the difficulty of replacing tightly integrated services.
Committee members pressed agency leaders on timing, security and cost. One legislator asked whether the state intends to continue relying on the 30-year-old system; lawmakers raised concerns about data-security safeguards and whether newer ERP-style systems and artificial intelligence capabilities could improve transaction matching and reconciliation. Agencies said they will provide follow-up materials, including a requested prioritized timeline showing near-term vs. longer-term modernization targets.
Harvey Matthews, legislative director for the Department of Corrections, described that agency’s AFAMIS system (Automated Financial Accounting and Management Information System) as first implemented in 1991 and upgraded in 2008 and 2019. Matthews said AFAMIS supports corrections-specific functions outside SFMA (inventory, warehouse and procurement, summary payroll) and is currently "in an indefinite sustaining support maintenance mode" pending identification of an SFMA replacement.
Agencies acknowledged they do not yet have firm cost estimates for a full SFMA replacement and stressed that projects of this scale are expensive, complex and carry significant implementation risk. Committee members asked for concrete near-term dates for targeted subsystem work (cash-flow/forecasting, time-and-attendance, maintenance management, inventory) and for clarity on how new programs such as a road-usage charge will feed into accounting interfaces.
The committee said staff will coordinate with agencies to collect timelines and follow-up answers to outstanding technical and resilience questions. The committee adjourned the financial-systems portion of the informational meeting after the agencies committed to providing more detailed schedules and documentation.
