Friday, January 31, 2003

Government Financial Systems This quote amazes me: “Every budget cycle, I get money thrown at me,” Mann said. He called the overhaul of NASA’s financial systems “the highest priority project in the agency.” In part because, he said, the project has never missed a deadline, and in part because his program has enough money, Mann said, “I go to sleep every night thinking, ‘acceleration.’”  - GCN NASA has already spent $180 million with another $80 million ready to go for this year.  The sysem uses SAP software.  Our SAP-based payroll system will go live on March 3rd.  It cost the state about $4 million.  We will roll out the employee self-serve functionality by the end of the year. 9:03:40 AM

Public Pension Funds For various reasons, the Utah legislature has chosen to spin off certain types of entitites from under the control of the executive branch.  Among these are Utah Retirement Systems (URS), Workers Compensation Fund of Utah, Public Employees Health Program (PEHP), UCAN, the State Fairpark, State Trust Lands, and Utah Housing.  They form a group of entities known as quasi-government agencies.  They are not subject to many of the controls that State agencies have.  They can pay their executives more money and lose some of the common administrative services functions.  I have mentioned before some of the innovative egovernment solutions implemented by quasis. URS is now the subject of an audit by the SEC.  Public pension funds have lost billions over the last couple of years due to the market downturn and corporate fraud.  A federal audit of Florida's fund was begun last fall due to its massive losses in Enron investments.  Another big pension scandal occured in Wisconsin - this one of a very different nature. 8:04:14 AM

© Copyright 2003 David Fletcher.