CSPS Project Newsletters
In this edition:
With Thanks, Farewell Notes from
PPSD Division Chief Jil Barraza and CSPS Project Director Chris Maio
Jil E. Barraza, Personnel and Payroll Services Division Chief
I have been honored to serve the State of California’s HR community for almost 35 years with passion and dedication.
I began my career working for the California Environmental Protection Agency’s Boards, Departments and Offices, serving in numerous roles performing personnel and payroll administrative functions to leadership roles over those same functions. Serving in these roles provided me with many opportunities to hone my technical and managerial skills while also establishing working relationships with the State’s control agencies, such as SCO. I recommend and encourage each of you to make opportunities to connect with your peer HR professionals and develop your own relationships through the many forums SCO leads.
When I was presented with an offer to join SCO in 2007, I was eager to accept. During my time here, I have met and worked with the best of the best with the common goal of serving our state colleagues and all Californians at the highest level possible. I am filled with gratitude and pride when I think about the daily contributions of our central and decentral team members in the HR community. It takes courage and optimism to be in this line of work. Through all your collective efforts, we together, ensure accurate and timely payroll for state employees so that they can focus on the critical work they were hired to perform.
Just as I have used these driving factors throughout my entire career, I trust you will also be successful if you use common sense, logic, and reason as your own guiding principles while you continue the perennial work you do.
Even though I will miss you all, I am looking forward to this next phase of my life. I will never forget the professionalism, collaboration, trust, and friendship I have experienced with all of you. Thank you for the valuable work you do.
I cannot imagine ending my public service career anywhere else. I wish you all the best!
Chis Maio, California State Payroll System Project Director
After serving the people of California for the past 35 years, and after much planning and consideration, I have decided to retire. My last day of work was November 30. Over the course of my career, I witnessed a great transformation in how work is performed as we transitioned away from typewriters to personal computers, networks, email, websites, and remote access to everything from anywhere. As a technologist, I was a key player in shepherding the growth of automated systems in every organization I was part of. As much as I really enjoyed working with technology all these years, as my career ends, I look back and recognize that I do not really remember much about the numerous individual systems I created as much as I recall the people who I worked with to create them. No computer or program has brought me as much joy as the people I was surrounded by. I would like to take this moment to thank every peer, manager, mentor, and family member who shaped me into who I am today. It is for you that I am eternally grateful.
This is not to say that I am not proud to have been part of a few greater achievements. Prior to my joining SCO, I was the Chief Information Officer (CIO) at the Secretary of State during the first implementation of the online voter registration system. In just nine months, I led a team of developers and infrastructure staff to create a modern secure application that interfaced to our legacy systems that brought voter registration to the palm of the hands of all Californians. Sound familiar? While I did not play nearly as large of a role, I am very proud to have been a strong advocate for the CEC project. Just as transformative as the voter registration system was for California citizens, the Connect suite of products has been for all state employees and state HR professionals.
While I am proud of my professional achievements, I owe much of my recent success to the staff and management of this organization. The California State Payroll System (CSPS) Project team truly is one of the best organizations I have ever led, and I take comfort knowing they, in partnership with PPSD, will continue to charge ahead and successfully transform the delivery of personnel and payroll services for our enterprise and ultimately for the State of California and the people we serve. I only lament that I will not be paid by the resulting system before I go.
I will miss my daily interactions with all of you and hope you continue to have fun doing the work you do, queuing up your favorite tunes along the way.
Remember, it is not what you worked on but who you worked with.
Farewell wherever you fare.
Team Member Spotlight – Welcome New Team Members
Aadarsh Brar CSPS Agency Change Expert
Aadarsh Brar joined the California State Payroll System (CSPS) Project’s Organizational Change Management (OCM) team in October as an Agency Change Expert or ACE. Aadarsh is an alumnus of UC Davis with a degree in Economics. Prior to joining CSPS, he spent two years serving California workers at the State Fund and working in the real estate industry. The Economics degree has served him well. He loves to work with numbers and to collaborate in a team environment.
“What drew me to this agency was the impact my work will have on the people who work for the state, and I’m excited about helping create the change necessary to implement a new solution”.
When not at work, Aadarsh is an explorer. He loves to plan road trips seeking far-away vistas. Often, he finds those lovely views by visiting a national park. With over sixty national parks to discover across the country, many more road trips await him in the future. Something you may not know about Aadarsh is that he enjoys cooking. Ever the intrepid explorer, he is always learning and trying out new recipes. Welcome to the team Aadarsh!
CSPS Project Update
In September, the California State Payroll System (CSPS) Project concluded vendor negotiations without awarding a contract. This means that the project was unable to come to terms agreeable by the state and the vendor but the procurement remains active. The Executive Steering Committee (ESC) and other oversight bodies decided the most beneficial action to take is to revise and reissue the CSPS solicitation. The project management office has worked closely with CDT and CalHR to finalize the solicitation schedule based on the revised procurement approach, and continues to update required documentation. The project’s objectives, goals, and scope remain the same. Following this updated procurement approach, the CSPS project aims to award a contract around December of next year.
The Functional team is dedicated to refining use case inventory and narratives, describing how end-users interact with the system. They continuously improve their template as they go through the process. Interface business leads meet regularly to validate mapped interfaces against detailed requirements, ensuring smooth future data integration. Simultaneously, the CSPS Technical team is addressing data fixes, creating a data validation tool, and collaborating with the Functional team on building the interfaces inventory.
As the project team progresses through procurement, the Organizational Change Management (OCM) team intends to continue to engage departments in purposeful and meaningful ways. For example, Agency Change Experts (ACE) will be sharing the new Department Agency Readiness Team (DART) roadmap for 2024. The OCM team is also developing a detailed communications plan for informing and educating stakeholders on biweekly pay, also known as "Modernizing Pay Day”.
We are dedicated to information sharing and continuing to keep you updated on progress and milestones of the CSPS Project. If any questions or inquiries arise, please feel free to reach out to us at CSPShelp@sco.ca.gov. We also invite you to explore our website at: California State Payroll System (CSPS) Project
New to the CSPS Project?
Let’s catch you up on the basics!
The California State Payroll System (CSPS) Project will modernize the human resource management, travel and business expense, and payroll system used by approximately 300,000 state government employees to provide accurate and timely personnel and payroll services with quality customer service. SCO has developed and modified the current systems over time as the business requirements became more complex. As a result, SCO must exert an enormous amount of effort to maintain and modify the current systems to meet the ever-changing needs of California.
The objectives of the project focus on providing user-friendly information that is validated timely to reduce rework. This includes enabling greater employee and manager self-service functionality for ease of use, such as online view capabilities for payroll, employment history, and tax information to name a few. Additionally, it will provide a user-friendly interface for all human resource and payroll transaction specialists who input and interact with the system daily.
There are six primary capabilities in scope of the project:
- Personnel Administration which includes management of employee records and status changes
- Benefits Administration
- Time and Attendance Administration, which includes entering and approving time and attendance
- Payroll including calculating and processing payroll
- Position Control Administration
- Travel and Business Expense
Each of the areas within scope affects roughly 45 different state processes that will span many business rules and requirements.
The Back Page
A note from the editor
Based on feedback from you, the readers, the Project Update article for this quarter is written in a direct, information-only style. When asked last quarter, 96 percent of respondents said the length of the newsletter is “just right”. Thank you for sharing your voices.
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