Volusia CTO says ERP implementation 75% complete; Focus finance go-live targeted for April 2026
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Summary
Chief Technology Officer Matt **** told the board the district has migrated terabytes of HR and finance data, added independent verification, and aims to move finance and budget to the Focus ERP in April with full transition by the July fiscal year changeover; staff forecast annual licensing savings.
Volusia County Schools' chief technology officer provided the board with a progress report on the district's enterprise resource planning (ERP) implementation, outlining accomplishments, remaining work, costs and timeline.
Chief Technology Officer Matt **** said the district has consolidated operational systems into a Focus ERP build and is approximately 75% through implementation. He told trustees the previous environment ran two ERPs (Oracle and Crosspoint) in parallel and that Crosspoint was turned off as an operational system last July; Crosspoint is retained only for historical records until archival extraction is complete.
Matt reported large-scale data migration: roughly 5.8 terabytes of HR data and 3.3 terabytes of finance data have been migrated after a data-cleaning process. The team identified and corrected a migration error affecting supplemental-pay taxability for some employees. Matt also described the complexity of the payroll module (it runs every 15 days and must incorporate recent legislative parameters, such as a performance-pay experience requirement) and said automation is required across 8,000+ employees.
The implementation includes integrations with several systems that will remain connected rather than absorbed: AIM (operations), SmartFind Express (substitute management), Prime Benefits, Bank of America's transaction system, ClassLink and TimeClock Plus (partly onboarded). Matt said SmartFind-Focus connectivity issues were recently resolved and that the district is tracking about 115 Focus support tickets.
To add an outside layer of quality assurance, the district hired Robert Half contractors to provide independent verification and validation (IV&V); Matt said IV&V will operate for the coming six months to test implemented solutions independently. He described the implementation team as roughly 20 people from the district plus Focus staff and praised key contributors, particularly Audrey Delio.
On cost, Matt said the current mix of legacy licensing costs about $1,150,000 per year; projected annual licensing costs once the ERP is fully implemented would be roughly $639,000 (a 44% reduction). He said the prior partial implementation cost around $7.8 million; by contrast, the current implementation cost through July is estimated at $684,000 (about a 91% reduction compared with the earlier spending). Matt cautioned these figures assume successful parallel testing and that Oracle may be retained on a month-to-month basis if additional support is needed.
Trustees asked about continuing Crosspoint maintenance costs (Matt estimated about $50,000 per year for legacy server upkeep while the district extracts historical data) and requested an updated report at the July meeting showing realized savings, remaining legacy costs, and whether any legacy contracts extend beyond the transition. No formal vote took place; the presentation closed with board appreciation for the staff and contractors working on the implementation.