System selection strategies for county governments: the experience of Cook County, Illinois.

AuthorGlaser, Thomas J.

Following the lead of many major corporations across the country, Cook County recently purchased software and implementation services for a new enterprise resource planning (ERP) system. The new system is named the Financial Management Information System (FMIS) and represents an approximate $20 million investment in the decisionmaking infrastructure of county government. The project is motivated by a new vision brought to the financial management and technology infrastructure of Cook County, associated with the election of County Board President, John H. Stroger, Jr., in 1994.

There was an immediate recognition by the new administration that, as the county was being asked by taxpayers to "do more with less," the current way financial information was collected, processed, and shared could not support the organization's needs as it moved into the 21st century. Additionally, the President and the Board of Commissioners recognized that in order to effectively manage an organization as large and diverse as Cook County, both managers and elected officials were in need of access to timely information to manage and design sound public policies. An investment in tools that improved resource planning was critical. The county engaged the services of the Research Center of the Government Finance Officers Association (GFOA) to assist with system selection, contract negotiations, and project management support for the new information system.

Project Scope

With more than 5.1 million residents, 26,000 employees, and a budget in excess of $2.4 billion, Cook County provides three principal functions: the delivery of public health services through a system of three hospitals; a network of 28 community-based clinics and a public health department; the operation of the largest unified court system and the largest single-site jail facility in the United States; and the assessment, levy, and collection of taxes for all of the taxing bodies within the county. The new FMIS would encompass the management of the financial, human resource, and physical assets of the county, as well as implementation of several modules for a related, but separate, corporate entity, the Cook County Forest Preserve District.

Early in the project, the county faced a decision on whether to include the hospital system as part of the project. Many counties throughout the country face a similar decision of whether to treat hospitals as specialized enterprises or as part of the larger corporate entity in systems planning. There were advantages and disadvantages of including the hospital in the project that were discussed by the FMIS Steering Committee. The disadvantages related to the uniqueness of health care compared to other county services and the specialized functional needs, such as patient billing. An advantage of incorporating the hospital as part of the new system was that it would promote integrated fiscal management - a critical goal for the new system especially since hospital operations represent such a large component on the county's overall fiscal situation. The Steering Committee and GFOA felt that a leading ERP software provider would have the capabilities to meet the hospital's needs. In essence, the same general ledger, human resources, and payroll systems used by the county could be used by the hospital with interfaces to the hospital's patient billing system.

The Case for Action

The FMIS project was undertaken because there was consensus across the county that its legacy systems and existing processes were inadequate to support a government of its size and complexity. The need to address Y2K problems in both payroll and hospital inventory systems provided an opportunity for the county to procure a new system and to undertake the necessary business process...

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