Colorado State Archives

Executive Orders from the Administration of Governor Bill Owens 1999-2005

(DENVER) – Gov. Bill Owens today announced that the state has retained the firm of Deloitte Consulting to conduct an extensive post-implementation assessment of the Colorado Benefits Management System (CBMS).

"While most components of the benefits management system are functioning correctly, there are still some remaining operating problems that must be resolved. Deloitte will conduct an independent review of the system and identify the necessary steps to improve its operation and maximize efficiency," Owens said.

At the beginning of March, the Governor determined that a third party independent verification and validation of the system would be necessary in order to address the remaining operating problems. The CBMS system was activated September 1, 2004, but a backlog of cases quickly developed when the vendor did not provide sufficient server capacity. At Owens' direction, Electronic Data Systems (EDS) agreed to double the capacity with additional servers that were brought in at the end of that month.

The state reported last week that significant progress had been made in reducing the backlog from 29,361 cases that were in the system on November 30, 2004 to 9,521 cases on February 28.

The state has yet to accept the system and Owens has discussed the situation – and his decision to hire an independent evaluator – with EDS this week. EDS indicated they would cooperate fully with the review. The Governor also plans to meet with county officials to discuss how they can help with the independent assessment.

CBMS is a joint state and local government project that provides a single automated system to support benefits issuance and reporting for 36 public assistance programs. These programs annually distribute over $2 billion in benefits, processing over 380,000 cases.

The Deloitte review will be in two phases. Phase one will review the three major components of CBMS operations (technical, business and project management) to identify areas for improvement. Phase two will include detailed recommendations to improve operation.

The review, costing between $325,000 and $365,000, is to be completed within six weeks.

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