State Seeks to Modernize Payroll, Time, and Attendance

State Comptroller Douglas Murdock. State of Hawai’i photo.

Led by the Hawai’i State Department of Accounting and General Services, in partnership with the Office of Enterprise Technology Services, the State of Hawai’i has issued a request for proposals to modernize its payroll and time and attendance systems.

The changes would provide functionality and efficiency in serving the state’s more than 75,000 full and part-time employees.

The Enterprise Payroll and Time and Attendance Modernization project would provide opportunity to further the efforts of Governor David Ige’s administration to transform the culture of government to embrace and accelerate the adoption of more efficient, less paper-dependent ways of doing business.

There are two key components of an “enterprise resource planning” system addressed within the RFP. The system would integrate and manage core administrative functions of a large enterprise like state government.

Examples of ERP functional areas are acquisition, assets management, budget, finance, grants management, and human resources, in addition to payroll and time and attendance.

“Following through on Gov. David Ige’s call for a more results-driven strategy for ERP, payroll and time and attendance have been identified as targeted projects we can accomplish now,” said Comptroller Doug Murdock. “By repurposing requirements gathered during previous efforts, the state is in a good position to expedite and launch this ambitious modernization initiative using existing capitol improvement project funding.”

Pay checks and deposits are provided through the DAGS central payroll system across all Executive Branch departments, as well as the Judicial and Legislative Branches, the Office of Hawaiian Affairs, and the Hawai’i Health Systems Corporation. The DAGS system, however, is over 40 years old, runs on the mainframe, and is heavily reliant on paper-based processes.

“Our state payroll personnel do an amazing job each pay cycle, especially considering that the current system is extremely manual and paper-based,” said Murdock. “We appreciate their work and look forward to building on that foundation to add 21st century payroll capabilities and efficiencies.”

The initiative is being governed by newly implemented processes for IT project to ensure its success.

“This modernization initiative, and all major IT projects moving forward, are subject to the state’s new IT governance process, launched last December,” said Chief Information Officer Todd Nacapuy. “In addition, we recognize that a multitude of internal payroll processes have evolved under the current system, so we have identified individuals in each department and jurisdiction to serve as subject matter experts, as appropriate, to review specific sections of proposals.”

After receiving offers or proposals, a period of formal review and evaluation will include assessment of offers or references and viability, cost realism, technology review, functional review, and final scoring based on RFP requirements.

An award of a contract is expected to come no sooner than June 2016.

In other ERP functional areas, the state’s strategy is to identify targeted projects as necessary funds and resources are available. The strategy intends to integrate the subcomponents as they are established.

State of Hawaii ERP projects that went live in 2015 include the Human Resources Management System upgrade and the Statewide Building Asset Management project.