At a hearing Friday, lawmakers expressed concern that the state’s Integrated Eligibility and Enrollment project has no price tag or formal end date.
The project would streamline information about Vermonters using the state’s public benefits programs and create a website to replace Vermont Health Connect, the state’s health insurance exchange. A 2018 report found the human services IT system to be “obsolete.” The Vermont Health Connect website was recently completed at vast expense with federal dollars, ultimately costing more than $200 million.
At a Joint Information Technology Oversight Committee meeting Friday, state officials told lawmakers that the project came in under budget for fiscal year 2019, but has no foreseeable end date or overall price tag.
Plans for the Integrated Eligibility program have been in the works for nearly a decade.
Sen. Randy Brock, R-Franklin, said he’s concerned the project is too “murky” and the state is pursuing it without knowing what the total cost will be.
“We have an obligation to accountability,” Brock said. “When we establish a never-ending chain of costs we will never know how much we’re spending. And it’s very difficult to look back over a three- or five-year period and say ‘Did we do the right thing?’”
“I can’t buy the fact that we can’t quantify this,” Brock said.
The project’s budget for fiscal year 2019, including both federal and state money, was $17.8 million. The state spent $13.3 million.
Sarah Clark, chief financial officer for the Agency of Human Services, told lawmakers that the project is being built piecemeal and that any leftover monies from 2019 will be used for future work. The Integrated Eligibility budget is $19.2 million for fiscal year 2020 and $16.8 million for fiscal year 2021.
Because the system is being built in components, it’s difficult to predict how long the project will take, said Dan Smith, a contractor with the Joint Fiscal Office. If the state had built the system all at once through one vendor it would have cost a great deal more, Smith said. The trade off is that a final price can’t be established.
“It’s going to be a year-to-year exercise,” Smith said. “We have to say, ‘What must we do, what do we want to do, can we afford it and do we want to afford it?’”
Rep. Laura Sibilia, I-West Dover, also shared Brock’s concerns and said she would like to see a total cost estimate at the next meeting of the Joint Information Technology Oversight Committee.
