By Miriam Barcellona Ingenito, Director of FI$Cal
Let’s kick off the New Year by celebrating your successful transition to the FI$Cal system.
I understand we are all feeling the growing pains of this very difficult transition and yes, there is more work ahead. But take a look at our vision that is now being realized.
Department of FI$Cal will become a trusted, innovative solution provider that protects the accuracy, reliability, availability and integrity of the state’s financial information; inspires confidence through our commitment to serve; and evolves to meet the changing demands of our customers.
We now have 18,000 users in 154 state entities operating within the system, and some $2 trillion in bank transactions are taking place yearly. The governor’s budget has been produced using the FI$Cal system for the last four budget cycles, and we are almost finished bringing STO/SCO functionality into the system. With the addition of the state’s final 64 departments in July 2018, $305 billion, or 65 percent of the state’s projected expenditures for FY 2018-19, was transacted in the FI$Cal system.
The Department of FISCal’s focus has changed after years of dedication to expanding system functionality. Since bringing the final departments onboard, we have shifted our emphasis toward helping users transact successfully in this new system, including intensive training on closing month-end and year-end books.
In 2019, we collaborated with our end-users and together came up with many new tools and customer-support initiatives, some born out of our design-thinking workshops. These included more intensive user training, new and enhanced tools such as Department 360, the month-end close (MEC) automation tool, and a major refresh for our chatbot. We also added more access to our subject matter experts, including the launch of and the revival of quarterly forums.
In FY 2018/2019, FI$Cal provided more than 750 User Support Lab sessions where our customers were invited to bring your work in for personalized help.
Much more lies ahead to bring us ever closer to our vision. We are working to launch a statewide Workforce Development Center for end users to excel in the FI$Cal system. And our IT Division is planning a business intelligence tool in the cloud that will provide our end users with a more efficient reporting experience.
All of these efforts to bring new tools and training to our users will pay off in the years ahead, as departments operate efficiently in a system that no longer will be so new to them.