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Texas Attorney General's Over-Budget, Postponed Tech Project Finally Under Control

The Texas Attorney General's nearly $500 million technology upgrade serves as a warning for future IT projects on allocating the appropriate resources necessary and being prepared for unexpected obstacles.

(TNS) -- A decade-long, problem-plagued technology project at the Texas attorney general’s office will be $200 million over budget and two years delayed by the time it wraps up, state officials said Friday.

T2 — a massive technology system upgrade intended to handle child support payments and investigations at the attorney general’s office — will ultimately cost $420 million. But officials say they finally have control over the runaway project. T2 is expected to go live Dec. 3, 2018. If the project is not completed by then, Accenture, the technology company spearheading the remaining work, will be fined $340,000 for every week it is late.

“We’re confident we’ve explored the problems and identified the solutions,” said Steve Pier, director of intergovernmental relations and strategic initiatives for the attorney general.

The new price tag includes $145 million for Accenture. The rest has been going to state employees and other contractors and for the use and maintenance of existing state technology.

The federal Office of Child Support Enforcement is paying two-thirds of the cost.

That agency has raised objections to the state in recent months, demanding reforms and freezing its T2 payments in December. Earlier this month, however, the federal office signed off on the state’s plans to save the project and resumed its funding, saying the attorney general had “a clear go forward strategy focused on ensuring good management of the project.”

The T2 project has been a thorn in the state’s side for years.

In 2007, Gov. Greg Abbott — then attorney general — decided to upgrade the old system, which was built in 1994 and struggled to handle the growing number of child support enforcement cases. Officials wanted a more nimble system that would make it easier to deal with investigations, track customer information and process child support payments. They hoped to get rid of paper case files, develop the ability to access the system remotely and revamp ways to handle other tasks.

The agency currently handles 1.5 million child support cases, and more 5,000 families sign up every month, said Mara Friesen, deputy attorney general for child support.

By the time T2 hit the development stage, the endeavor was crippled by bloated bureaucracy, substandard work and unrealistic deadlines. Numerous reports by University of Texas researchers hired to review the project raised red flags about the troubles, which continued anyway.

And the costs kept skyrocketing. The initial estimate was $220 million. By January 2015, it had jumped to $275 million. In December, the agency told clearly frustrated legislators that it would cost $310 million.

“I am kind of speechless,” Rep. Helen Giddings, D-DeSoto, said at a hearing that month.

While Accenture has publicly taken the biggest hit for the technology debacle, officials say they, too, shoulder the blame for what happened. Accenture had to take on a lot more work because the state had trouble finding qualified employees, which drove costs even higher. The state agency also didn’t plan well enough for a project this big and complicated, Pier said.

“You need to do it with open eyes, and you need to try and anticipate all of the needs up front rather than as you go,” Pier said.

T2 fell under state scrutiny in March 2015 after Paxton took office. Friesen later reported to the Legislative Budget Board that without immediate action, the project “would have resulted in runaway development costs, overly complex systems, increased maintenance costs and significant delays — even as much as well past 2020.”

Agency officials say they are now satisfied that, when all is said and done, they will have a state-of-the-art computer system that allows them to process child support payments quickly and efficiently.

“It’s going to allow us to continue being a national leader,” Pier said.

©2016 Austin American-Statesman, Texas Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.