LITTLE ROCK — The head of the state’s new computer accounting system said persistent errors or delays in getting paychecks to state employees are the fault of untrained state workers, not the computer.
Randall Bradford, executive chief information officer, also said his office is providing the training, but state agencies aren’t taking advantage of it.
“There have been occasions where somebody didn’t get paid for eight hours, or 24 hours,” Bradford told the House and Senate Advanced Communications and Information Technology Committee. “It was all attributable to human error and not following the process.”
Bradford has been with the state for three months as head of the Arkansas Administrative Statewide Information System, or AASIS.
During that time, he said he’s attended to numerous complaints and concerns about AASIS.
“I’ve investigated every one of them and corrected every one of them and responded to every one of them,” Bradford said. “Since I’ve been here for the past 90 days, there was only one occasion where it was truly a system issue versus a process or human-error issue ... somebody didn’t follow the process right, somebody didn’t approve the time they were supposed to, or something along those lines.”
Rep. Steve Schall, R-Conway, asked Bradford what lawmakers should do when they get calls from people who are “incredibly frustrated” with the new payroll system.
“It’s one thing for you to sit there and say, ‘well, the hardware works and the software works, go figure it out,’ Schall said. “That’s not a very compassionate response to somebody whose payroll continues to be messed up.”
Bradford said lawmakers should call him if they hear of specific problems.
In response to a related question, Bradford said problems he described with the AASIS system can be attributed to a lack of training.
“Training is our greatest need,” he said.
But he said that, too, is a fault of the agencies who don’t use the training his office provides.
He said the AASIS support office has three classrooms available for training every day, as well as training to help AASIS users learn specific computer functions.
“My challenge is to work with agency directors to get their people through the training that we have available,” Bradford said. “We have more supply of training than we have demand.”
Sen. Brenda Gullett, D-Pine Bluff, said the state should consider requiring that all employees be proficient users of the system.
“I think it is absolutely critical that people demonstrate competency prior to being able to actually be turned loose in an agency to do the work of the people,” Gullett said. “I think that would solve a myriad of problems.”
Bradford said that will be required as new pieces of the AASIS system are put into place.
“We agree wholeheartedly,” Bradford said.
In response to questions by Sen. Kevin Smith, D-Helena, Bradford said that AASIS may have a few glitches when producing W-2s.
Smith said he was skeptical that AASIS would be able to correctly produce employees’ W-2s in light of the numerous errors in employees’ pay last year. Some were overpaid and had to return the money. How the overpayments are reflected for tax purposes gets complicated, Smith said, which makes him skeptical of the system’s ability to produce accurate W-2s.
“Just like Wal-Mart, I can’t say 100 percent, every single W-2 will be absolutely correct, but for the most part we are ready to go,” Bradford said.
“I can just see a big problem on the horizon there,” Smith said.
Bradford also assured Smith that he is in charge of AASIS, despite some confusion about who to hold accountable if something goes wrong.
“Clearly, under the governor, I am the single person in charge of AASIS,” Bradford said.

Times Record

-- Anonymous, January 17, 2002