Trainings/Briefings Attended County CAL-Card user Training Program County Purchasing User Group Meeting, November 20,

The 2002-2003 Grand Jury made several findings regarding the expense, practicality, and obsolescence of the county’s mainframe system. The County agreed in substance with this assessment. These findings from 2002-2003 included: • ISD uses mainframe computer hardware first introduced in the 1990s, which was an upgrade from an earlier version. • Mainframe architectures are expensive to sustain and difficult to evolve to current industry best practices such as web access. • The County continues to use a mainframe internal billing structure to allocate ISD expenses across county operations. This requires administrative personnel involved in determining and allocating costs of mainframe usage for the purpose of interdepartmental billing. • ISD understands the ultimate need to eliminate the mainframe computer operations by migrating to less expensive current technology, but does not have a formal plan or time line for accomplishing this. No Response Required

On more than one occasion prior Grand Juries have found that outdated software applications are impacting the performance of county departments, such as the Sheriff’s Office and Planning. The County has agreed that the systems need updating. Response: County of Santa Cruz Board of Supervisors – AGREES 40 Information Services Department – Stagnation or Migration? 2008–2009 Santa Cruz County Grand Jury Final Report with Responses

In 2009 the County relies on substantially the same hardware, although software upgrades and revisions have been implemented in the intervening years. Response: County of Santa Cruz Board of Supervisors – PARTIALLY DISAGREES The County has utilized the same IBM Mainframe hardware and software platform for the last 8 years. However, other hardware (Windows servers) has continued to be replaced on a cycle based on manufacturer end of life support (normally every 4 – 5 years). Furthermore the County has moved towards virtual servers (VMWare) on IBM blades which lower the cost of ownership and ease replacement cycle impacts on existing software applications.

Currently only two ISD employees are thoroughly trained and familiar with operating and supporting the mainframe. Both employees are eligible for retirement. Response: County of Santa Cruz Board of Supervisors – DISAGREES ISD has 6 mainframe programmers and 6 operators that support the mainframe environment. Each of those mainframe programmers is skilled in different business applications, and some cross-support is in place. While half of the mainframe programmers are eligible for retirement, none have indicated they plan to retire before migrating their primary application off the mainframe.

On April 1, 2007, IBM stopped offering support for mainframes such as the County’s 7060-H50. Response: County of Santa Cruz Board of Supervisors – DISAGREES IBM ended support of the MVS operating system for 7060_H50 on April 1, 2007. The County has never run MVS on their mainframe systems. Currently, the County is fully licensed and supported for both hardware and software for the existing mainframe platform that is in place.

In the fiscal 2008 year-end report submitted to the Board of Supervisors, the county’s independent auditors, Caporicci & Larson, noted that: “The County’s Disaster Recovery Plan was developed 25 years ago and was not updated to address the new technologies. The Disaster Recovery Plan details the actions required should a disaster occur that affects the computer operations of the County.” Response: County of Santa Cruz Board of Supervisors – AGREES ISD has started work on a Continuity of Government plan with a tentative schedule of completion in three years. This is much larger than an IT disaster recovery plan and will involve most departments at the County. Information Services Department – Stagnation or Migration? 41 2008–2009 Santa Cruz County Grand Jury Final Report with Responses

In 2002, ISD began a project to transition the Planning Department’s code enforcement system from the mainframe-based Automated Land Use System (ALUS) to a non-mainframe Hansen® system. As of today Planning is still relying on ALUS for permits and land use planning, while running certain code enforcement processes on a dual-entry basis (entering information into both ALUS and Hansen®). Response: County of Santa Cruz Board of Supervisors – PARTIALLY AGREES In 2007, Planning began using the Code Enforcement module of the Hansen application. All new Code Enforcement cases were entered into Hansen exclusively. Old cases remained in ALUS as did Planning and Building Permits. So, while two systems are in use currently, there is no dual-entry and data is only stored in one system. When Hansen goes into production with the remaining modules, data from ALUS will be migrated to Hansen. At that time, ALUS will be retired and Hansen will become the one and only system used. The production release date is currently scheduled for the end of calendar year 2009.

In 2009 the following county departments still rely on applications running on the mainframe: County Administrative Office, Treasurer/Tax Collector, Assessors Office, Auditor Controller, Purchasing, Payroll/Personnel, Planning Department, Probation Department, Recorder’s Office, Sheriff’s Office and the District Attorney’s Office. Response: County of Santa Cruz Board of Supervisors – PARTIALLY AGREES In fiscal years 2008-09 and 2009-10, the County’s IT mainframe migration strategy called for 8 mainframe business applications to be migrated off of the mainframe. The District Attorney’s system was migrated off the mainframe in 2003. In 2009, the Budget system, owned by the CAO but used by all departments, was migrated to a web-based application. The Payroll/Personnel system was migrated to a web-based application in 2009. The Sheriff’s Records and Jail Management systems are currently slated to be migrated off the mainframe in fall of 2009. The Probation Department’s Case Management System is also planned to migrate off the mainframe by the end of 2009. The Planning Department will complete its migration in 2009. For more details on the Planning Department’s applications, see also the answer to question 7. The new Property Tax system, used by the Auditor, Assessor and Tax Collector, is the third and final phase of the project plan and will be moved into production by 2011. The General Ledger and Purchasing systems will be the last applications to be migrated off the mainframe, dependent on County resources to pay for and implement the project.

Within the last year, the County has approved projects that will move the following operations off the mainframe: • Tax system ($2,530,000 contract awarded August 5, 2008) 42 Information Services Department – Stagnation or Migration? 2008–2009 Santa Cruz County Grand Jury Final Report with Responses • Sheriff’s records management system and jail management system ($475,505 jail management and $478,370 record’s management contracts awarded January 13, 2009) • Probation case management system ($474,988 contract awarded January 13, 2009) • Recorder’s system ($246,843 contract awarded March 3, 2009) Response: County of Santa Cruz Board of Supervisors – PARTIALLY AGREES The Recorder’s system was replaced on July 20, 2009. It was not a mainframe application.

As applications are shifted off, the cost of maintaining the mainframe has been allocated among departments still using it. The number of users has decreased, so charges to each remaining department have increased, although in the 2009-2010 department budget enough cost reduction has been achieved so that there is no need to increase charges to users. Response: County of Santa Cruz Board of Supervisors – AGREES

ISD is working toward being mainframe-independent within four years. Response: County of Santa Cruz Board of Supervisors – PARTIALLY AGREES The County’s mainframe migration plan currently has Board-approved plans and funding for migrating eight applications off of the mainframe. In fiscal year 2008-09, two applications were migrated off the mainframe to web-based solutions. In 2009- 10, an additional six migration projects have been funded and five applications are currently scheduled to be replaced. The remaining project is entering its third and final phase and is targeted to be migrated off the mainframe in 2011. The few remaining applications on the mainframe do not currently have project plans or funding sources to replace them. Nonetheless, ISD and the County remained committed to the goal of mainframe independence.

A new ISD Director was appointed in 2007. Prior to his appointment, the department operated with a mindset of internally developing and supporting custom applications based on the mainframe architecture. No Response Required

All the county employees this Grand Jury met with thought that ISD communication and responsiveness had improved over the last couple of years. Information Services Department – Stagnation or Migration? 43 2008–2009 Santa Cruz County Grand Jury Final Report with Responses No Response Required Conclusions