Report 2018-037 Recommendation 11 Responses

Report 2018-037: California Department of Housing and Community Development: Its Oversight of Housing Bond Funds Remains Inconsistent (Release Date: September 2018)

Recommendation #11 To: Housing and Community Development, Department of

To ensure that it maximizes the benefit of the funds it has invested in CAPES's development and to support its ongoing efforts to improve CAPES's usability, HCD should, by January 1, 2019, determine to what extent the programs could be using CAPES at its current level of development to capture information.

Annual Follow-Up Agency Response From September 2020

A decision has been made to phase out the CAPES system and implement a new program management system. HCD has transitioned two of our federal programs to the new eCivis grants management system, in order to meet federal program management and reporting standards. The pilot rounds of funding for these programs through the eCivis system will be reviewed to see if this could be a path forward for the management of our other loan and grant programs.

California State Auditor's Assessment of Annual Follow-Up Status: Fully Implemented

1-Year Agency Response

Initially the department added the items identified as a result of the CAPES utilization assessment to the IT system enhancement list to be prioritized pending a final decision on the continued use of the CAPES system. The department has now decided to replace CAPES in phases to be implemented over the next few years, and will implement only the necessary enhancements to maintain CAPES through the replacement period. The enhancement list will need to be re-analyzed, by 12/31/19, to determine which enhancements, if any, meet this short term necessity test.

California State Auditor's Assessment of 1-Year Status: Pending

6-Month Agency Response

The assessment is 100% complete. IT has collected all tracking spreadsheets currently utilized outside of CAPES. The purpose of each spreadsheet has been identified by IT. CAPES support unit, in coordination with IT, has incorporated the functions of the spreadsheets into a consolidated tracking spreadsheet, known as the CAPES system pain points tracker. The system issues identified on the pain points list have been categorized as follows: training, need for system enhancement, system defect/bug, business process issue, or other. Issues categorized as other are currently being researched to determine if they could be resolved by system enhancement, or if they are outside of the system capacity. Issues identified as enhancements are being prioritized and added to the system enhancement list, and the pain points list is being refined.

California State Auditor's Assessment of 6-Month Status: Pending

60-Day Agency Response

The assessment is 50% complete. Uses of spreadsheets outside of CAPES have been identified and are being analyzed as to what extent functionality exists in CAPES or should be built through enhancements. From this an enhancement list will be generated and prioritized.

California State Auditor's Assessment of 60-Day Status: Pending

All Recommendations in 2018-037

Agency responses received are posted verbatim.