by Sen. Irene Wrenner

Who doesn’t love a bargain? Especially with the holiday shopping season in full swing.

How about a quantity discount? Count me in, said the State of Vermont back in May 2022, as it sought a cloud-based replacement for its aging mainframe-based HR, Finance, Budget, Labor and Transportation systems.

Vermont, among several other states, worked through a 3rd party to examine the available integrated software systems to help their governments function better.

State officials signed a contract with WorkDay ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning), a suite of applications to help optimize business operations and processes, for $28.875 M over the next 10 years.

Just one problem: The purchase didn’t abide by the state bid process, in which multiple vendors and products are measured against defined business needs.

Therefore, this software-as-sold may or may not address Vermont’s needs. Before it can be installed, someone will have to define what are expected to be sizable gaps in functionality. They will also need to estimate the cost of adapting WorkDay to our way of working, and how we store and manage existing data.

That someone is called a Preferred Implementation Vendor (PIV), and their services will cost additional money. If the PIV determines WorkDay won’t work for Vermont, we start over, having wasted millions of dollars on software with no benefit over several years. If the PIV determines that at least part of WorkDay is viable, the process of tweaking this complex system begins.

I serve on the five-member Joint Information Technology Oversight Committee, which is charged with reviewing such projects and releasing money that the legislature has allocated toward the larger ERP installation.

Four days before my November 25th JITOC meeting – our first since June – I received a 33-page document detailing the dilemma we’re facing. It estimated a total cost of nearly $72 M to get this system up and running by 2031.

The author who reviewed the situation summed up her findings as follows:

1. Project Justification (Is the project necessary and beneficial?): STRONG
2. Clarity of Purpose (Is the definition of success established?): POOR
3. Organizational Support (Does the business fully support the project?): WEAK
4. Project leadership (Does the project have strong and effective leadership?): WEAK
5. Project management (Is the project management staff appropriate and will they conform to state standards?) POOR
6. Financial Considerations (Is funding secure and sufficient for the anticipated life of the system?) POOR
7. Technical Approach (Are the proposed technical solutions achievable, realistic, and appropriate for the project?) POOR

I noticed this was an internal review, not the outside independent review I expected. That arrived a day later, after a pointed request. A consulting firm from Michigan seems to have done a thorough job in their 69-page report, which offers its own red flags, and a higher cost estimate: $88 M.

I must say: for a Governor who rails about Affordability, I’m not seeing frugality from some of his administration. I do see statutory requirements skirted by staff and consultants who have each other’s backs on a variety of technology projects.

Then there are the rules, such as providing us independent reviews within three days of release, that staff breach. JITOC received that 69-page report, published in April, just three days before, affecting our ability to thoroughly attend to it.

At our meeting, JITOC members were expected to make a decision on short notice, about paying a PIV and moving forward with WorkDay, in a small meeting room with more than a dozen stakeholders present.

There’s no clear path to getting this computer system transition done right, no matter how much cash the state spends. And it pains me to type those words. I know residents are reeling from tax increases.

The person(s) who didn’t follow statutory guidelines and signed this WorkDay contract in 2022 has moved on. Those who remain are left with few viable choices. Legislators are being handed a dilemma about an ERP that, like the yield bill that funded school budgets, will make no one happy.

I asked about sunk costs. Less than $4 M, we were told by the Secretary of the Administration and the Secretary of Digital Services.

Total expected cost through 2031, for a system that is not guaranteed to work as expected: $88 M.
Going forward, the state estimates we would pay another $5 M per year in operating costs post-2031.

I voted No on proceeding.
Four members voted Yes, and a fifth was absent.

The author is the State Senator for the Chittenden-North Senate District.