Board hears timeline to move tax appeals into CAMS; officials say training and phased rollout will limit disruption

Chair Michael Allen and agency leaders told the Unemployment Insurance Appeals Board on Feb. 18 that the agency is preparing to move tax appeals into the California appeals management system, CAMS, in a phased rollout intended to improve portability and case matching across field offices.

The change will allow judges in any field office to pick up tax cases in a portal-based system rather than working in multiple legacy systems, Chief Information Officer (unnamed) said, adding that the migration remains on track for completion by the second quarter of the calendar year. "We remain on track to complete the rollout by the second quarter of this calendar year," the CIO said.

Judge Koutre told the board the Office of Tax Petitions has been working with IT and that the release into CAMS will be gradual. "Once [tax petitions] is complete, that will allow us to help spread that tax work out to the field offices," he said, and the agency will evaluate training needs so judges are prepared to hear tax cases. Board members pressed how the move would affect scheduling and whether the Employment Development Department’s tax branch would be overwhelmed; Koutre and other managers said complex tax hearings generally require in-person sessions with voluminous exhibits and will continue to be assigned to experienced judges, with travel or local coverage used as needed.

Board member Laura Kent Monning asked whether field judges historically specialize in certain subjects; Koutre said judges are expected to be able to hear all subject areas but that the agency uses volunteers and more experienced judges for specialized areas such as tax until broader training is completed. "Historically, the classification that our ALJs belong to ... should be able to hear all of our subject matter cases," he said.

The board and managers agreed the pilot-like, phased approach and close-in-time training aims to minimize disruption to hearings and to EDD operations. The CIO framed CAMS as a tool that will reduce the logistical burden of moving banker boxes of exhibits and enable judges to access cases more readily across offices.

What happens next: managers said they will schedule training tied to the migration timetable and provide regular updates to the board as tax appeals are progressively moved into CAMS.