Welfare Client Data Systems Consortium Receives Award

The Welfare Client Data Systems (WCDS) Consortium will be recognized by CIO Magazine as one of the magazine's 2008 CIO 100 award honorees. The award program, recognizes organizations worldwide that exemplify the highest level of operational and strategic excellence in information technology (IT).

About Welfare Client Data Systems (WCDS) Consortium

The Welfare Client Data Systems (WCDS) is a consortium of 18 California counties and is being recognized for the joint development and implementation of a modern, technological solution that efficiently administers public assistance programs for their respective communities. This solution, an application called the CalWorks Information Network, (CalWIN) is an integrated online, real-time automated system with 26 subsystems to support eligibility and benefits determination, client correspondence, management reports, interfaces and case management for public assistance programs including:

• California Work Opportunity and Responsibility to Kids (CalWORKS)
• Food stamps
• Medi-Cal
• Foster care
• Adoption assistance
• County general assistance
• Child care
• Cash Assistance Program for Immigrants (CAPI)

CalWIN serves a large percentage of California's caseload across the 18 WCDS consortium counties of Alameda, Contra Costa, Fresno, Orange, Placer, Sacramento, San Diego, San Francisco, San Luis Obispo, San Mateo, Santa Barbara, Santa Clara, Santa Cruz, Solano, Sonoma, Tulare, Ventura and Yolo.

The solution, jointly designed by consortium counties and EDS, serves a large user base of approximately 30,000 county employees in more than 850 sites. The WCDS consortium systems process an average of 11 million transactions per day, with an average response time of 1 second.

"We are truly honored to be one of CIO's Magazine's top 100," said Bob Hendricks, WCDS executive director. "This award honors the tremendous efforts of our consortium counties, WCDS staff, and our vendor partners EDS and FDGS, who have worked diligently in developing a product that best assists our counties in serving their community's needs."