A Missouri state accounting system that was supposed to integrate all state financial operations on one platform is late and over budget — and the program’s top executive can’t say when it will be working or how much more it will cost.
The Missouri Vital Enterprise Resource System, or MOVERS, has been criticized heavily by lawmakers since the first phase was activated in the summer of 2024. The state has spent about $110 million of the $250 million allocated for the project. After seeing the implementation problems outlined in a report from Guidehouse, a technology consultant, two additional phased implementations have been put on hold.
During a hearing Monday of the House Subcommittee on Appropriations – General Administration, interim program executive Anna Hui said the pause is so a state team, working with software developer Oracle, could reset what can be expected from the new system.
“The pause offered us that opportunity to think through that,” said Hui, who is spearheading the project while retaining her permanent post as director of the Department of Labor and Industrial Relations.
“Will it cost more money and more time and more people?” Hui said. “I think it will.”
State Rep. John Voss, chairman of the subcommittee, asked if she thought continuing would be better than starting over.
“Is it fair to say, in your heart of hearts, that you absolutely believe we should continue to invest in the MOVERS program?” Voss asked.
“I do,” Hui said.
“Both as a taxpayer and as a leader of our state?” Voss continued.
“I do,” she replied.
Voss told her he agreed, if only because starting over would not reduce the overall expense.
“Is it over budget and off schedule? It is,” Voss said in an interview after the hearing. “That alone is frustrating. But I’m certainly not close enough to really dig in and understand the details to where I could provide my own spin or my own bias on where they should be.”
Missouri began looking for a new state accounting system in 2018. The existing systems were obsolete, based on mainframe computers using applications that few programmers were competent to update and unable to efficiently communicate across systems.
The state hired Accenture to make software from Oracle usable to track spending, handle payroll accounts and purchasing and to allow better financial planning across state government.
“It touches upon pretty much every aspect of how state government delivers services, from the intake of revenues to the ability to pay our bills and make sure that benefits go out to individuals to making sure our own people are paid at the end of the day,” Hui said as she described the capabilities the system is supposed to have.
During the 2025 legislative session, when the first phase was supposed to help lawmakers as they modified the budget, the problems became clear. And while Voss is ready to give it more time, patience has run out for at least some lawmakers.
Last week, when Republican state Sen. Lincoln Hough of Springfield presented an alternative budget plan, he cut $56 million for next year’s payment for the MOVERS system. The state should stop paying, Hough said, until the system shows it is capable of performing its designed functions.
“I would never keep throwing money at something that isn’t working,” Hough said.
And state Sen. Maggie Nurrenbern, a Kansas City Democrat who serves on the Senate Appropriations Committee, said she agreed that MOVERS was not functioning properly.
“These so-called upgrades have really caused a lot of headaches for the folks that are just trying to do their jobs every day, just tons and tons of headaches,” Nurrenbern said.
Missouri has received costly lessons when it has tried not paying technology firms when it is dissatisfied with the results. Last year, the Missouri Supreme Court refused to hear an appeal of a $23 million award for a Department of Social Services contractor fired in 2016. As a result, the state was forced to pay the award, plus 9% interest dating to May 2015, for a total of more than $40 million.
During Monday’s committee hearing, lawmakers wanted assurance that Oracle was working to make its products usable by the state and that the potential cost would be estimated soon. The company’s No. 2 executive is working closely to help guide updates, Hui said.
The process of revising expectations for the system’s capabilities will be ready by the middle of the month, Hui said.
“We anticipate having quite a few details ready before the passage of the budget bills this year,” Hui said.
Changes to the information technology marketplace mean Missouri will have to pay to keep the portions of the system currently in use, for appropriations and purchasing, functional, Hui said. The state is leasing, not buying the systems, and must maintain its subscription payments for updates.
“This is a very expensive paperweight,” she said, “if you do not accept the updates that come with it.”
Artificial Intelligence
Before digging into the problems of the MOVERS project, the committee received an update on how the state is adapting artificial intelligence and other computing advances into its systems for operating the state.
The state began consolidating computing systems into a central division in 2007 and every state department except the departments of conservation and transportation are now served by the Information Technology Services Division of the Office of Administration.
In January, Gov. Mike Kehoe issued two executive orders, one to “investigate, review, and develop a strategic framework for the safe and effective integration of artificial intelligence within state government operations” and the other to examine state operations to “promote efficiency, accountability, and transparency through the elimination of outdated, unnecessary, and costly state programs and practices.”
Artificial intelligence holds great promise for speeding routine work and allowing state employees to work on more complicated questions, said Tim Marczewski, director of AI and Innovation for the IT division.
A pilot program used a chatbot as an assistant to human resources workers answering questions about benefits and other employment policies, he said. Without the assistant, the average response time was 45 minutes for finding answers and forms and getting them to the employee.
The chatbot cut that time down to two minutes, he said.
“When you average that out, it comes to like 80 hours a day saved over 17 people,” Marczewski said.
Missouri started a major upgrade to its aging computing systems in 2020, Tara Dampf, deputy chief information officer, told the committee. The initial consolidation in 2007 capped the state’s annual cost at about $125 million a year but the need for upgrades has been pushing costs up.
The state is now spending about $300 million a year on IT systems and it will cost an estimated $345 million a year to continue the updates, material given to the committee show.
Four of the state systems being replaced, called “legacy” systems, are based on computer languages like COBOL and have been in use for 25 years or more.
State Rep. Louis Riggs, a Republican from Hannibal, said Kehoe, when he was lieutenant governor, explained the issues facing state agencies. The Department of Revenue system, Kehoe told him, was based on COBOL programs, Riggs said.
“He said at the time that there were like four people left in the state who could actually make it work, and one of them died,” Riggs said. “So I’m just wondering, do we have a little deeper bench now for that backbone, or are we still hanging by a thread?”
John Laurent, chief of the IT division within Missouri’s Office of Administration, said the state can call on about a dozen programmers who have the skills to keep legacy systems running. The goal, he said, is to replace all the legacy systems.
“Is there a timeline for any of these retirements so we can throw a party?” asked Riggs.
“They deserve it, for sure,” Laurent replied.
Artificial intelligence can be part of maintaining legacy systems until they are replaced as well as helping speed work on the new systems, Marczewski said.
“We’re approaching it with cautious optimism, and it can help us with that technical deficit,” he said.
AI is not ready to replace state workers processing benefits claims and other routine work, Marczewski said.
Voss agreed, and said he sees AI as a tool to help, not supplant, state employees..
“Most of our team members today are not going to be replaced with a computer,” Voss said, “but we’re going to offer them increased tools where they can be much more effective at how they do their job.”
Missouri Independent, part of States Newsroom, originally published this story.
