Get Full Government Meeting Transcripts, Videos, & Alerts Forever!
Get email alerts on the ELAP Database TNI topic
No spam. Unsubscribe anytime.
State Water Board requests $1M for ELAP database planning; proposes $10,000 voluntary full-TNI fee
Summary
State Water Board staff requested $1 million in one-time contract funds to complete planning for an ELAP database replacement (stagegate steps), and proposed an optional $10,000 flat fee for laboratories seeking voluntary full TNI certification; staff said reserves can cover the $1M without a fee increase.
State Water Resources Control Board staff told stakeholders they will request $1 million in one-time contract funding to complete the planning and project-approval steps for a secure, modern ELAP database and that the program will offer a voluntary full TNI certification option with a proposed flat fee of $10,000.
"The $1 million in contract resources will address ELAP's outdated database, which has experienced multiple system outages and data loss incidents," Cassandra White said, describing the California Environmental Regulatory Data Security Initiative to fund stage three/four work in the Department of Technology project approval life cycle.
White said the funding would pay contractors to complete the planning, market surveys and cost evaluations required to select a solution; it does not itself build a new database. "This funding is to complete that initial planning and the work associated with picking a project to move forward with," staff said. Program staff and Darren clarified that future implementation costs — if any — would be determined by the outcome of that stagegate process and budgeted later.
Staff said ELAP's current fund reserve is sufficient such that the $1 million planning request would not require a fee increase at this time. Separately, the program proposed a voluntary "full TNI" certification option and recommended a flat $10,000 fee for labs choosing it, based on comparisons with other states. "Based on staff review of other states' full TNI fees... $10,000 seems to be right in the middle," White said.
Stakeholders asked whether the TNI fee or the database BCP would create new positions or ongoing workload. Staff replied that the voluntary TNI option targets laboratories already implementing full TNI and that staff do not anticipate additional permanent positions tied to the voluntary pathway; revenue from the optional fee will be tracked as participating labs enroll.
Why it matters: ELAP's legacy database has had outages and data integrity incidents; planning for a replacement aims to protect accreditation infrastructure and data. The proposal separates a planning-stage contract cost from later implementation costs, and the voluntary TNI fee would apply only to labs that opt in.
Next step: staff said they will continue outreach to labs, involve the lab community in future planning, and report back as stagegate planning concludes.
