New Mexico contract seeks better financial controls

New Mexico Office of the Chief Information Officer

New Mexico state government officials have awarded a two-year, $14 million contract to Maximus to help implement a system to provide better financial control and accountability for statewide services.

The Statewide Human Resources, Accounting and Management Reporting System (Share) will provide integrated financial, payroll, human resources and procurement functions, using Maximus to help provide better financial controls.

Currently, obtaining information from those disparate systems is difficult because it is labor intensive and complex. State agencies operate more than 70 independent accounting systems. Many of the systems are also becoming difficult to maintain and upgrade. Maintaining separate systems will cost the state more in the long term, according to a fact sheet on the state chief information officer’s Web site.

The new system will provide several benefits including:

• Increased oversight and legal compliance for accounting, procurement and human resources activities.

• Reduced total costs of maintaining systems.

• Better timeliness and accuracy of information.

• Improved efficiency and accuracy of the budget process by linking accounting with human resources and payroll.

• Improved quality of hiring employees through a better recruitment and selection process.

The company has installed similar systems in North Dakota, Indiana and Oklahoma. It will install, configure, test and deploy a PeopleSoft Enterprise Resource Planning software in New Mexico.