The bill, introduced by Assemblymember Marc Levine, D-Marin County, repurposed former mental health legislation that debuted earlier this year to require state agencies undertaking tech projects with price tags of more than $100 million to form oversight committees to closely watch the initiatives. AB 1055 is expected to get consideration from a Legislative committee later this month. Among the takeaways:
• These oversight committees could offer critical commentary, not cover. AB 1055 would mandate that each committee “act as the authority for critical decisions regarding the project.” At least three of its members would be chosen from three different agencies involved in the project, with that number dropping if fewer agencies take part. The group would also include at least five members “to support the ability of its members to conduct day-to-day business.”
Levine, who managed an open-source qualitative database project earlier in his career, told Techwire he believed that his former company had an ethic of doing the work necessary and being responsive to customers “rather than a profit motive.”
“I think that there is an opportunity for government to engage in oversight of their software and technology projects, to make sure that their vendors adhere to those very same values,” he said.
• Large, problematic initiatives were inspirations for AB 1055, Levine’s office said in a news release. It mentioned BreEZe, the Department of Consumer Affairs’ new professional licensing system, which it said has cost nearly $100 million; the California Department of Tax and Fee Administration’s new Centralized Revenue Opportunity System, which has cost $290 million; and the state’s FI$Cal accounting software system, which has cost $900 million.
There’s no one common problem across all three projects “except for government’s inability to manage them,” Levine said, identifying state staff turnover as an issue affecting oversight.
• That $100 million threshold could have been a lot lower. Levine said he thought about “going as far down as $10 million.” The goal is to “engage government and oversight in a way that maximizes savings but doesn’t bog it down,” he said. Committee-level watchfulness, he said, could help identify the most costly and unwieldy endeavors — and those that could “end up rising exponentially in cost” and magnitude.
• The bill could even benefit older projects like FI$Cal. If AB 1055 passes, lawmakers can’t apply it retroactively, but it could empower officials to take a closer look. Increased oversight of the Bay Bridge Project — including a Bureau of State Audits investigation of cost overruns and construction challenges at Levine’s request helped shape an oversight model for that project and control its cost, the Assemblymember pointed out.
“We should be having these agencies talk at that level about these projects early on, so that they actually work, and they work across agencies,” Levine said.
• Costs created if the bill is passed are unclear, but would be far outweighed by savings, the legislator said. He estimated AB 1055 could help the state save hundreds of millions of dollars on some tech projects.
