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Calif. Earmarks $10.4M for Key Step in Payroll Modernization

The money, allocated by a budget trailer bill, will enable the California State Payroll System Project to hire a system integrator. The initiative, underway since 2016, will replace a significant piece of legacy.

In this collage, a businessman analyzes data on a laptop, behind which a cityscape appears.
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After eight years, the California State Payroll System (CSPS) Project is approaching a major milestone toward implementation: The hiring of a system integrator (SI).

On June 29, Gov. Gavin Newsom signed Senate Bill 108, a budget trailer bill, allocating $10.4 million to the State Controller’s Office to contract with an SI. However, SCO won’t get the money until CSPS completes Stage 4 of the Project Approval Lifecycle process. It’s currently in Stage 3.

The SCO is already out to bid for the SI contract, according to a May Budget Change Proposal from the office. An office spokesperson told Industry Insider — California* that it aims to award the contract in April.

The $10.4 million SI funding is a re-appropriation from last year’s CSPS budget.

To support the SI, SCO also hopes to release three solicitations by September for business analysis, IT services and Independent Verification and Validation (IV&V) services.

The project will modernize the Uniform State Payroll System, the statewide system developed in the 1970s. California has been trying to replace that system since the 1990s, but abandoned two previous efforts before beginning CSPS in 2016.

Since the system is in place across the state, the project is massive and complex. Goals for the new system include:
  • Moving state employees from monthly to biweekly pay
  • Improving end-user functionality, including employee and manager access to update bank information, tax withholdings and more
  • Better online view capabilities for payroll, employment history, leave balances and tax information
  • Enhanced reporting, including user-friendly ad hoc reporting tools
  • Automated point of entry and compliance checks
The payroll system will support more than 300,000 state employees. The current timeline calls for development of CSPS to begin in 2025 with implementation by 2030.

*This story first appeared in Industry Insider — California, part of e.Republic, Government Technology's parent company.
Ben Miller is the associate editor of data and business for Government Technology. His reporting experience includes breaking news, business, community features and technical subjects. He holds a Bachelor’s degree in journalism from the Reynolds School of Journalism at the University of Nevada, Reno, and lives in Sacramento, Calif.