In the business of politics, the way to avoid controversy is to play it safe and not take on new challenges that bring the risk of criticism.
But I have always operated under the assumption that taxpayers deserve better than that from their elected leaders. And that is why I am willing to take some heat for leading what I consider one of state government’s greatest technological achievements of the past decade.
This undertaking has brought the enormous computer system that runs most of Connecticut state government out of the technological Stone Age and into the 21st Century in a very short period of time.
Launched in late 2003, the Core-CT system now runs all of the state’s accounting, payroll, human resource management and financial reporting functions — processing thousand of transactions representing many millions of dollars every day.
This system also allows the state for the first time to track where every tax dollar is spent, which can help policymakers and voters decide if that money is being spent wisely. That is powerful information.
Inquisitive Residents
As I travel around the state, I find that people are genuinely interested in knowing details about how much money the state is collecting and where it is going. The state’s old computer system simply could not do that. In fact, it was so antiquated that the state was on the verge of being unable to obtain software upgrades to support it.
Core-CT can track every expense, from how much the state spends in total on education or transportation to how much a particular agency spends on office supplies. In other words, with Core-CT there is nowhere to hide where the money is going.
And that is a very good thing for the taxpayers of Connecticut.
Prior to Core-CT, it was difficult, if not impossible, to track certain state expenditures. As incredible as it sounds, no one could accurately report exactly how many employees worked for the state.
Have there been glitches along the way? Of course. Anyone who uses a personal computer at home or at work knows what kind of problems and frustrations can pop up just with one machine, let alone a system that runs a major portion of state government.
The reality is that Core-CT presented not only an enormous technological challenge, but a tremendous change for our state employees, who had to learn an entirely new way to do their jobs.
Personnel Problems
And just as we were ready to turn the system on in October 2003, the state lost about 5,000 experienced employees due to layoffs and an early-retirement program that took away many of the workers who had been trained to run the system.
The layoffs targeted technical and financial staff that were crucial to getting the project off the ground. That meant we had to find new people to take over who had to be trained from scratch. The system also incurred some software problems that were the fault of the vendor – and that have been resolved at the vendor’s expense.
This combination of factors led to my office not being able to file some financial reports on time, which resulted in some not-so-positive headlines recently in this newspaper. It is important to point out that these issues were noted in a state audit dating to 2005, and that my agency is now on track to meet all reporting deadlines.
Our state employees have overcome a multitude of obstacles to make Core-CT a sophisticated, efficient system that provides unprecedented insight into government finances.
If a little criticism comes my way for leading this transformation, that is a small price to pay for an achievement that will benefit taxpayers for years to come.
Nancy Wyman is comptroller for the state of Connecticut.
