County Expense Claim Reporting Information System (CECRIS)

The CECRIS Project: Building a New County and Expense Claim Reporting System 

Project Objective

The objective of the County Expense Claim Reporting Information System (CECRIS) Project is to develop and implement a single integrated automated solution that replaces the County Expense Claim (CEC) and County Assistance Claim (CA 800) systems.

Problems CECRIS Will Address

The existing CEC system and its supporting business processes enable County Welfare Departments (CWDs) to obtain billions of dollars in state and federal reimbursement for costs incurred in the administration of public assistance programs. Data from the CEC system is used to meet federal reporting requirements, process payments to CWDs, and to invoice other state departments for funding. The current CEC system has limited functionality and is very difficult to modify due to the low quality of the source code and lack of a cohesive system design. The system’s ability to add new codes is nearing capacity and will not be able to accommodate fiscal and policy updates. The increase in public assistance programs, federal requirements for additional fiscal detail and reporting and staff attrition has compounded the difficulty of maintaining the system at a level which effectively supports the program function of the CEC and fulfills federal reporting requirements.

The county assistance payment reimbursement function is currently handled through the CA 800 process. The CA 800 is the mechanism by which CWDs are reimbursed for assistance payments made to recipients throughout the state. Data from the CA 800 is used to meet federal reporting requirements and process payments to CWDs; however, CWDs reconcile the actual recipient payments at the county level. Completion of the current CA 800 requires several labor intensive manual processes that are prone to errors and therefore require additional staff time to validate accuracy. The CA 800 is an antiquated system that has limited functionality, is nearing capacity to accept new data, and cannot be easily or adequately modified to meet evolving program changes to support accounting and reporting requirements.

Since the CA 800 and the CEC systems are separate stand-alone data repositories, reports that require data from both must be manually produced. This is a complex process that requires staff to compile and validate data from two separate sources.

CECRIS Project Goals

The primary CECRIS Project goals are:

  1. Provide a single integrated system that supports end-to-end processing of the CEC and CA 800 processes to fully meet the business needs.
  2. Create a flexible and expandable system to accommodate federal and state mandated modifications and reporting requirements.
  3. Comply with federal and state program guidelines and standard accounting principles.
  4. Comply with state IT and security standards.
  5. Meet the CECRIS S-M-A-R-T objectives of reducing time and effort to build and process the county claims.

Testimonials

- Judy Stafford, Senior Accountant - Tuolumne County Department of Social Services
“I am impressed with the new CECRIS PRF Application and thank you for the presentation.
The Dashboard will be helpful. Also, it’s great that there’s the ability to customize the view and drill down for a form status and history. I’m looking forward to next products, “Prepare County Allocations” and “Administrative (CEC) Claim”.
Thank you for your hard work and dedication.”