CalWIN
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CalWIN, the CalWORKs Information Network, is an automated information system to automate eligibility determination and case maintenance functions for specific county-administered social services programs in the state of California, including CalWORKs, Food Stamps, Medi-Cal, CAPI, General Assistance, and Foster Care.
CalWIN was developed by Electronic Data Systems (EDS), which also built, owns, and operates other major health and benefits information systems in the state. Under the CalWIN contract, state and county consortium pay EDS more than $800 million for the system. EDS is promoting the same technology in several states for proportionally equivalent fees; the Colorado Benefits Management System, now in operation, is one such variation.
CalWIN is a Windows-based software package radically evolved from its predecessor, the mainframe, 'green screen' style Welfare Case Data System (WCDS), also developed and maintained by EDS. Much WCDS core technology, including legacy COBOL code, was ported into CalWIN, but the latter system is far more complex. While WCDS had about 100 data collection and display screens, CalWIN has over 1,000. Transition from WCDS to CalWIN is complete, having taken place in phases throughout 2005 and 2006 in 18 counties representing 40% of the state's caseload.
Major operational problems, delays, and systems failures are occurring on a frequent and regular basis. Service requests to correct such errors are backlogged to the point that a two-month delay between a county filing and initial EDS response -- usually a rejection taking the form "Functions As Designed" -- is the norm. A period of debate and negotiation follows the rejection, consuming additional weeks. If EDS ultimately agrees to make the change -- or if the county pays for it -- actual implementation takes another six months or more.
Among significant problems: The California Department of Health Services, which operates California's Medi-Cal (Medicaid) system, has notified EDS that CalWIN's monthly automated termination of health coverage for tens of thousands of beneficiaries is illegal. The system does not reliably generate correct required correspondence, and does not achieve rudimentary functionality in languages other than English and Spanish. CalWIN creates inaccurate and malformed reports of client data, erring on even basic quantification tasks: From the beginning it has undercounted the Medi-Cal population by 15%-20%, failed to accurately report monthly approvals and terminations in programs, misreported basic fiscal transactions and data including check issuance and collections, and failed to accurately track and manage overpayments and claims.
CalWIN programmers do not keep pace with regulatory changes: A relatively simple adjustment in income limits for the Food Stamps program, published early 2006 and taking effect November 1 of that year, was not programmed in time for the change. Instead, EDS recommended that counties employ a manual budget system, and has not set an estimated target for releasing accurate code in this area. Regulations published in 2005 and implemented in early 2006 requiring CalWORKs and Food Stamps clients to report financial information on a quarterly basis have not been fully or correctly incorporated as of October 2006. Counties are implementing manual workarounds, and system updates are not expected until late 2007.
System corrections and updates that are finally implemented, usually after significant delay, frequently fail or cause untanticipated problems elsewhere. A minor update in early August inadvertently changed benefits levels for thousands of Medi-Cal beneficiaries. Efforts to fix the error proceeded haltingly over a period of three weeks, and in the process case history was overwritten in many records. In the end counties resorted to manual correction of many cases.
As partial response to a sustained high volume of county complaints and increasing scrutiny from state officials and health, welfare, and legal advocates, in October 2006 EDS assigned a senior vice president to visit counties and meet with state welfare directors to discuss problems and possible remedial strategies. Other than possible replacement of the EDS representative to the California Welfare Directors Association, however, no substantive plan has so far emerged.
Other automated systems used by the 40 non-CalWIN counties are: ISAWS (35 counties representing 13% of the state caseload); C-IV (Consortium IV -- four counties representing 13% of the state caseload); and LEADER Los Angeles County, managing 34% of the state welfare caseload.
