The Board of Equalization is to consider approval of the selection of a system integrator for its Centralized Revenue Opportunity System (CROS) at its regular meeting on Tuesday.
CROS will replace the Board of Equalization’s patchwork of legacy systems built in the 1990s to collect and monitor sales-and-use taxes, property taxes, special taxes and other revenue streams. The system is expected to cost somewhere in the neighborhood of $300 million.
The Board of Equalization negotiated with two vendors in recent months on the CROS proposal, board CIO Brenda Fleming said last month.
Similar to the Franchise Tax Board’s Enterprise Data to Revenue system, it's anticipated CROS will use a benefit-based procurement approach that pays the vendor based on a percentage of revenue collected. Ten revenue streams will move through CROS, she said. A 2014 analysis estimated CROS could help California collect as much as $200 million annually in additional revenue.
The project will replace the current Integrated Revenue Information System and Automated Compliance Management System, and create an enterprise data warehouse, among other improvements.
Officials say the modernized system promises to give external customers more access to online services and real-time updated information that can be retrieved 24/7. CROS also should help internal users avoid duplicated data entry and reduce paper-based processes.
The procurement phase for CROS began more than three years ago, in July 2013, when a Request for Proposals was released. The procurement took longer than originally planned, as the state sought more project pre-planning and oversight.
CROS engaged in an array of "pre-implementation" activities the past few years to prepare for the arrival of a system integrator. Board staff have been defining business rules; cataloging and standardizing the 150 interfaces where data will move in and out of the system; building a comprehensive data dictionary; cleaning data anomalies; and documenting workarounds that have arisen over the years,
Fleming said last month the solution vendor would come aboard during Q4 2016 and new functionality from CROS could debut sometime in 2017.
