State Assemblymember David Chiu, D-San Francisco, is calling for a widespread update of California’s information technology systems following several failed or delayed efforts to modernize them over the past few years.
“Our state’s IT systems have been decentralized, disjointed and dysfunctional, and the experience for everyday Californians of government has been incredibly confusing and stressful,” Chiu said in an interview.
The state of California has more than 130 individual IT shops across its various departments, each managed individually. Some of the state’s largest agencies, including the Department of Motor Vehicles and the Employment Development Department, rely on COBOL, a decades-old computer programming language, for some of their operations. During the pandemic, EDD has had numerous issues with its systems, resulting in delayed unemployment checks and billions paid out in fraudulent claims.