IT Expenditure Coding Requirements
Please see the Roadmap Home page for the most current information on this topic.
April 13, 2009–The IT Expenditure Coding Requirements project started with the Legislature’s request to improve the administration and coordination of state information technology.
As a result of this request:
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Section 962 of the 2007-09 Operating budget created the IT Pool and the IT Work Group
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The IT Work Group issued their report to the Legislature in November 2007
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Both the IT Work Group Report (2007) and the Enterprise Data Definitions Report (2008) conclude that better enterprise accounting of IT expenditures is required by the Legislature and other users of state financial data
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The IT Subgroup was formed to look at IT Coding Requirements and propose a solution using our current enterprise systems
The Roadmap Team has been leading the coding requirements effort since mid-2008 in conjunction with other subgroup members.
To date, the subgroup has conducted five meetings on this topic in which the group identified specific needs of the Legislature, and then explored ways to standardize IT expenditures in AFRS before proposing, and agreeing upon, a solution that can use our existing enterprise systems.
AGENCY COMMUNICATION
Once the solution to use AFRS Project coding was identified and agreed upon by the IT subgroup, agency communication included the following:
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The Roadmap Team reviewed the new requirements with agency staff at Washington State Patrol, Evergreen State College, the Small Agency Client Services (SACS), Departments of Revenue, Health, Licensing, Transportation, Ecology, Labor & Industries, Social and Health Services, and several Higher Education institutions, individually and collectively. Agency fiscal staff, and in many cases IT staff, attended these meetings.
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The February 17, 2009 FMAC meeting, attended by 21 agencies, provided details on implementing the solution http://www.ofm.wa.gov/accounting/fmac.asp.
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Email correspondence on this change was sent to agency Fiscal Officers on 2/20/09 and 3/27/09.
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The Roadmap Team held a meeting on 3/26/09 with agency IT and Fiscal Officers to discuss definitions.
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There have been ongoing internal meetings with the OFM Information Services Division on how best to assist agencies in implementing this change.
PROGRESS TO DATE
Additional work has been undertaken including creating, testing and adding the necessary IT coding changes into AFRS.
NEXT STEPS
The ultimate goal of this project is to map expenditure sub-object codes in AFRS to the reporting of IT costs to DIS. Automating this would greatly simplify the level of effort currently required to compile and report IT costs.
Work to achieve this goal includes aligning definitions for IT categories on the Portfolio report to the definitions in the SAAM policy manual.
If you have questions, please contact Sadie Rodriguez-Hawkins at 360-725-0179 or Sadie.Hawkins@ofm.wa.gov or the accounting consultant assigned to your agency.