(The Center Square) – The Washington Auditor’s Office (SAO) is sounding the alarm about ongoing delays in replacing the state’s aging software system that handles billions of dollars in budget data for more than 100 state agencies.
One Washington, led by the Office of Financial Management, was created by the legislature to oversee replacing 1960s-era technology with a cloud-based system for finance, procurement, budget, HR, and payroll processes.
The new system is called Workday and Phase 1a of the program includes replacement of the Agency Financial Reporting System (AFRS), a project that is already three years behind schedule.
“One reason this is so critical is that this project is estimated to cost nearly a half billion dollars, so it’s a huge undertaking for the state and it’s a reasonable expectation that taxpayers would want the project to go off as smoothly as possible when it comes to implementation,” Patrick Anderson, senior performance auditor at SAO, told The Center Square.
“Another reason we looked at it is because we’re talking about the system that is preparing the financial statements for the state and having a transparent understanding around that is very important to us as state auditors with oversight of public dollars,” said Anderson.
The launch of Workday is still scheduled for July 1, 2025, but according to the audit, delays in the system design have put critical testing and end-user training at risk.
“One Washington has had complications in terms of turnover in the agency,” said Anderson. “I think COVID played a role in that, and One Washington ran into staffing turnover and delays.”
The audit report also raised concerns about planned implementation coming at crunch time for state agencies.
“The people that are needing to receive training is planned for a very busy time when fiscal year-end financial statements need to be prepared, so that creates some double duty,” said Anderson.
“We saw that as risky, and they acknowledge that but say they have plans to administer the training and feel confident,” he said.
Another risk the audit report found is the lack of a backup plan.
The report found: One Washington and OFM have not yet finalized contingency plans for project failure or severe complications. Until One Washington finalizes its contingency plans and its criteria for making a go/no-go decision, this area remains a project risk that could affect the state’s financial reporting accuracy.
“We did not identify a formal contingency plan, however One Washington informed us that they are developing a plan, should the new financial system run into issues,” said Anderson.
“That would essentially be to run AFRS, the current system, concurrently until they are ready,” he said.
SAO spokesman Adam Wilson told The Center Square, “One of the reasons Pat McCarthy (WA Auditor) thought it would be good to do this audit ahead of time is that we might be able to identify a few things that would help them, in time for course corrections,” said Wilson. “We don’t see a formal contingency plan and if things don’t go well, you should have one.”
The audit did not make any projections about added costs due to delays for the project already estimated to cost taxpayers $465 million.
“Anytime you have to extend a project out, you’re going to increase costs, but we didn’t do any analysis around that,” said Anderson.
The audit summary says the hope is the findings will “help Washington succeed in adopting the new system, so its agencies can continue to deliver important services efficiently and with the same level of transparency the public enjoys today.”