Case Study: State of California, Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR)

State of California, Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR)

Strategic Offender Management System (SOMS) Procurement Project

CDCR contracted with PCG Technology Consulting (PCG TC, formerly Eclipse Solutions) to develop the following in support of their objective to procure a single centralized Strategic Offender Management System:

• A Business Process Analysis (BPA);
• An Alternatives Analysis; A Feasibility Study Report (FSR);
• An Information Technology Procurement Plan (ITPP);
• and A Request for Proposal (RFP).

In addition, as part of the engagement, PCG TC provided acquisition support for the SOMS procurement project, addressing all adult and juvenile offender management information in the Institutions and Parole program areas.

CDCR operates 33 adult institutions plus 12 community correctional facilities, 40 camps, and 5 prisoner mother facilities, housing approximately 172,000 adult offenders. In addition, it has 8 youth correctional facilities and 2 camps, housing approximately 3,000 juvenile offenders. CDCR institutions employ a series of processes to manage offenders during confinement. In addition, from nearly 100 locations throughout California, parole agents supervise 114,000 adult parolees and 3,000 juvenile parolees. The SOMS system would replace a number of aging legacy systems with a single solution supporting up to 45,000 users.

In the initial phase, PCG TC worked closely with the CDCR to conduct a BPA of all adult and juvenile offender management processes necessary to develop a compelling business case for the SOMS project. Subsequent phases included:

• Performing market analysis by communicating with vendors (via a formal Request for Information), other states and local agencies, as to how they managed offender information;
• Performing alternatives analysis to determine which alternative would best address the objectives. The alternatives analysis also included a function point analysis to validate the estimated costs of the new system;
• Development of formal documents to address California control agency requirements, including:
• An FSR documenting the business case, the proposed solution along with alternatives considered, Project Management, including estimated timeframe and Work plan, Risk Management, and the estimated costs;
• An ITPP describing a sound procurement approach for implementing the solution described in the FSR.

After successfully supporting the CDCR during the FSR approval process with the California Department of Finance (DOF), PCG TC developed an RFP founded on the emerging “Solutions Based” procurement process that was initiated by the Department of General Services (DGS).

The 6 month BPA and FSR effort followed by the subsequent 12 month procurement effort resulted in:

• An FSR with approximately $400M in one-time development costs, which was approved by DOF even after consideration of the State’s fiscal distress;
• An RFP approved by all stakeholders which was released to the vendor community in June 2008;
• An RFP that, due to time constraints, was developed in only 12 weeks from contract execution to vendor release.