A struggling, computerized payroll system that has already cost the UW System $25 million and five years of labor has drawn criticism from the university's information technology experts and state legislators. According to a UW System statement, the system plans to re-evaluate the installation of the project, called the Appointment, Payroll and Benefits System, or ABPS.
The system will handle payroll and human resource functions for 43,000 UW System employees.
UW officials have stressed a need to re-evaluate the complex system after difficulties operating the system were more prevalent than initially expected, leaving their own experts apprehensive and drawing criticism from state lawmakers.
'I don't understand why the UW administration would continue down a path of wasting taxpayer money when their own experts tell them that is what will happen if they don't abandon the project,' said state Rep. Scott Suder, R-Abbotsford. 'The current path isn't working and won't work.'
Experts on the project, a council of leading information technology officers, have suggested that the UW System completely abandon the software they are currently using for the payroll system. They maintain that an Oracle/PeopleSoft software product would be a better fit for the project than the Lawson software product currently in use.
'They think PeopleSoft would be better cost-wise over 15-20 years, but there aren't numbers necessary to back that up either,' said Donald Mash, UW System executive vice president and ABPS committee chair, who stressed a need to thoroughly consider the best way to proceed with the project.
The decision to carefully assess the current state of APBS implementation has taken into consideration the chief information officer's belief that another product would be better, he added. However, the UW System wants to attain facts to back up those opinions.
'What we would have in front of us in six to seven months is a detailed cost estimate and a time frame that it would take to complete the Lawson project. At that point, we have to decide whether to proceed based upon those numbers,' Mash said.
'It's a step-by-step process,' he said. 'This is a process'you make one decision after another decision. We've made one; that doesn't mean it's the end of the decision- making process.'
