In the spring of 2018, Vermont’s chief education officials signed a deal worth about $5.2 million for finance and HR software called eFinancePlus.
eFinance was intended to simplify school financial data and make it easier for state and local officials to record how education is being spent. That spring, the state legislature passed a bill requiring all school districts to implement her program by 2020.
Nearly five years later, it still hasn’t happened. After repeated delays and multiple complaints that the software behaves poorly, a new report recommends that Congress repeal the law.
As schools implemented their programs, “it became increasingly apparent that important and necessary features in eFinance were either missing or not fully developed,” from the Education and Digital Services Authority, Dec. 16. report concludes.
For years, state officials and legislators have tried to standardize school finances in Vermont.
A single statewide system would provide better data on where and how schools are spending, help state and local officials analyze spending, and save taxpayers. officials say it will.
In a January 2018 memo, educators said, “The new system will provide more consistent, comparable, and high-quality school financial and personnel data.”
That March, then-Secretary of Education Rebecca Holcombe announced that the agency had selected PowerSchool’s product, eFinancePlus. PowerSchool, a software company that operates multiple education-related programs such as SchoolSpring and Naviance, according to its website:
PowerSchool touts eFinance as “the only integrated finance, HR and payroll solution built specifically for K-12.” According to promotional materials, the software allows administrators to manage expenses, salaries, attendance, and grants.
Vermont’s approximately $5.2 million contract runs from 2018 to 2025 and called on PowerSchool to provide installation and technical support for the new program.
At that point, switching to the statewide system was optional for school districts. But later that year, lawmakers voted to have all districts adopt the new system by 2020.
it didn’t happen. In 2019, Congress extended his adoption deadline to 2022. By 2021, school officials have publicly voiced their concerns about the new software.
In testimony to lawmakers that winter, about half a dozen school district and supervisory union officials asked lawmakers to extend or make eFinance’s expiration date an option.
“Simply put, the Vermont Department of Education did not follow an effective bidding process. It took far more work just to do it,” wrote a member of the 3 Kingdom East School Board.
“I have experienced and overseen several accounting software implementations over the years,” wrote Michelle Baker, then director of finance and operations for the Harwood Unified Union School District, in a testimony. increase. Switching to eFinance was “the most challenging and frustrating thing I’ve ever done,” she said.
An external audit firm, RHR Smith and Co., found that eFinance lacked “many basic accounting needs that any accounting software should be able to handle,” and used technology commissioned by a joint accounting firm. The review found the project to be “in a difficult situation.” position. “
“Projects are not on schedule, some users are frustrated, and a phased rollout of the solution does not provide all the functionality users need when they expect it,” reports the report. Daniel Smith, author of .
In 2021, lawmakers have again extended the implementation deadline to December 31, 2022. In this past session, lawmakers extended his third deadline to December 2024.
Lawmakers also asked state officials to report on whether the system “continues, ceases, suspends, or delays implementation.”
About a third of the state’s oversight unions and districts have eventually switched to eFinance, according to that report by Education Secretary Dan French and Interim Digital Services Secretary Sean Naylor.
Only about a quarter of the eFinance users surveyed said that the product “perfectly meets their business needs.” About half say the software does not meet or only partially meet their needs.
However, school administrators had a much more favorable view of the various software systems. Nearly 80% of his school staff who have used systems other than eFinance say the program fully meets their needs.
“Access to good financial data on school system operations remains an important and worthy goal, but as field studies show, the adoption of a single statewide (software) system is clearly working. No,” the report’s authors wrote.
Although the authors recommend removing the eFinance installation requirement, we will continue to provide support to schools that have already adopted eFinance.
Education Administration spokesperson Ted Fisher said school districts reported data very differently before pushing for a standardized reporting system.
“The goal was to make sure everyone really spoke the same language,” he said.
He said the state’s intentions haven’t changed, but he hopes officials will be more flexible about how to pursue them.
“We still strongly believe in speaking a common data language when it comes to tracking financial data,” said Fisher. But as the report notes, “it doesn’t necessarily have to be the same software system.”
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