disruptive egov

Government Back Office

SystemsThe high cost of success and failure

State Back-Office Systems

Since in Hawaii our Tax/ Revenue system needs to be replaced, I’ll focus on those. But this really applies to most government back-office systems.

• Big

• Expensive

• Clunky

• Horrible

• Get disruptive

Big

• There are no small tax systems

• 500K > State Populations > 37M

• Subsystems:• Intake: Mail, electronic, payments• Inquiry (Customer Service, Research)• Collections• Audit• Refunds• Licensing• Accounting• Imaging• Archives

Expensive

• Four primary vendors have 75% of the business

• Some states grow their own.

• The cost between a failure and a success is not that different!

Expensive

• Upfront costs are enormous • Between $25 and $100 million

• Annual Support is Staggering• $2 - $10 million

Expensive: Cost per year!

0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7$0

$1,000,000

$2,000,000

$3,000,000

$4,000,000

$5,000,000

$6,000,000

$7,000,000

$8,000,000

Tax System Projects

Clunky

• Based on old technology by definition

• Lifecycle is 12 years

• Project today starts with 6 year old tech

• User interface style even older

Horrible

• In the last 12 years 5 states have sued the vendor over the system delivered.

• Others (like HI) have opted to tread onward.

Crap! What now?

• So the vendors charge a bazillion $

• The solutions can cause more problems than they solve.

• It can’t be that hard to do!

Examples of Other Disruptive Systems

• Cashiering Systems• Paper and drawer• Adding Machines – with audit ribbon• Computer aided• Networked (NEC)• PC Based• Cell Phone Based (Square)


• Data Storage• Stone• Paper• Images (Cold Storage Systems)

• Photoelectric• Magnetic• Optical

• Data• Ledger• Computer data structures

• Cloud


• Publishing• Printing Press• Offset Printing• Software based design• Ink-jet and laser printing• Print on demand services• Costco…

Why Not Open Source It?

1. Execute an RFI for the perfect Integrated Tax System.

2. Create a contest for an Open Source Integrated Tax Solution leveraging the RFI!

3. Set awards of $1M, $500K and $300K to the top three.

4. Contract or use state IT to manage the contest, evaluate and host the system

$3M could do a lot!

• We could afford two tax systems and choose features from the best one!

• State owns the code and opens the source to other states/ nations.

• World Peace follows. (possible over optimism)

Other Systems Too

This approach could work for much more!

• Election system back-ends

• Enterprise Resource Planning

• Legislative Data Systems

• More..

Resources

• http://radar.oreilly.com/2013/03/github-government-bureaucat-open-source.html

• http://linuxuser32.wordpress.com/2008/12/30/what-if-public-sector-software-systems-were-open-source

• http://thenextweb.com/insider/2013/01/12/the-norwegian-ministry-of-finance-may-open-source-cash-registers-to-prevent-tax-fraud/

• http://www.propublica.org/article/how-the-maker-of-turbotax-fought-free-simple-tax-filing

http://radar.oreilly.com/2013/03/github-government-bureaucat-open-source.html



http://linuxuser32.wordpress.com/2008/12/30/what-if-public-sector-software-systems-were-open-source




http://thenextweb.com/insider/2013/01/12/the-norwegian-ministry-of-finance-may-open-source-cash-registers-to-prevent-tax-fraud/





More

• This deck is incomplete.. The actual plan pending.

• Lets change the world!

• Follow up with [email protected]

disruptive egov

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