Key Questions

Is the project on track to satisfy the customer's business objectives?Yes

Is the project on track to achieve the objectives in the approved timeframe?Uncertain

Is the project on track to achieve the objectives within the approved budget?Uncertain

Project Overall Health

Comments

Red

The Project Overall Health rating is assessed as Red in February 2026 due to the current assessment of focus areas. -- Time Management and Quality continued Red: Escalated for immediate corrective action. All remaining Milestones were due to be completed in December 2025 – January 2026 timeframe, and many remain in progress. The backlog of defects, combined with build and testing delays, is impacting EUST 3. -- Cost Management, Resources, and Transition Management continued Yellow: Caution, risks/issues exist. Federal funding requested in the APDU for FFY 2026 has not yet received final approval. Production Simulation planning continues with County engagement. -- Governance, Scope, Risks/Issues, continued Green: Satisfactory, no corrective action necessary. The Board of Directors and Executive Leadership Team are actively engaged. • The ACF is reviewing the FFY 2026 APDU and provided provisional approval on December 31, pending submission of clarifications. • In lieu of the previously planned Pilot, the Board approved a Production Simulation approach for V1 readiness. • Product delivery continues with 16 milestones complete (Blue), 20 behind (Red), and 1 TBD. • The system scope includes core product development, infrastructure, interfaces, shared services, data conversion, scenario testing, rework based on user feedback, and design blueprints. • In February, 1 new high-priority risk was opened, and 1 high-priority issue was closed. There are currently 2 high-priority risks and 9 high-priority issues. • In the project’s January 2026 Project Status Report (PSR) submission to the CDT, OTSI responses continued as “Uncertain” for the Key Questions: -- “Is the project on track to achieve the objectives in the approved timeframe?” -- “Is the project on track to achieve the objectives within the approved budget?”

Focus Area/Rating	Comments
Governance Green	The Governance rating continued Green in February 2026. The scope and character of decision-making authority are documented, and governance bodies meet regularly. • The last approval document, SPR 6, approved in May 2023. -- The project schedule was re-baselined on July 3, 2024. -- The Financial Analysis Worksheets (FAW) do not yet delineate the Production Simulation costs. • The ACF provided provisional approval of the resubmitted FFY 2026 APDU pending submission of clarifications. The CDSS sent the clarifications with APDU to ACF on January 6. -- The ACF is in progress of its 60-day review, with a response anticipated in March. • Two As-Needed APDU are in progress regarding amendments to several contracts, with some expiring in 2026. -- The ACF is in progress of its 60-day review, with responses anticipated in early April. • Planning continues for the Production Simulation approach, which was approved by the CWDS Board of Directors in December 2025. -- Three new County Advisory Committees convened multiple times during the month to discuss the V1 Path Forward activities. • War Room (leadership working sessions) activities that began in October 2025, have stabilized into a weekly meeting series with active engagement from project leaders, managers, and contributors. • Seven decisions were made via the Decision-Making Framework in February: -- 597 Remove Kern eAdopt system from CARES V1 Data Conversion Scope -- 596 One Time Case Link - CalSAWS Case link approach for FC, AAP and KinGAP -- 595 Using Public Groups for RBAC -- 593 Remove Los Angeles County AIS from CARES V1 data conversion scope -- 591 EUST 3 Testing Approach for RFA & FFPSA Portals -- 590 Security Posture for Production Simulation Environment and CASB Direction • Constituent engagement includes regular communications to constituents, including Pilot Announcement, Progress & Engagement Summary, Explorer Newsletter, Staff Survey, and Data Dictionary update. • ACF Monthly Report on User Engagement & Adoption – February report with key accomplishments and stakeholder topics was prepared and submitted. -- Conducted Extended User Scenario Testing (EUST) 3 planning and launched EUST 3 to support statewide readiness -- Hosted Stakeholder Briefing #5 to provide project updates and demonstrate system functionality -- Prepared for Communication Effectiveness Survey #3 to evaluate stakeholder engagement and inform communication strategies -- A total of 11 communications were sent to stakeholders and users • Per an SPR 6 approval condition, the project utilizes Earned Value Metrics (EVM) to monitor project health. The Total V1 Scope is measured in Function Point Equivalents (FPE). The FPE value of 88,148 is consistent with values since December 2025.
Time Management Red	The Time Management Focus Area rating continued Red in February 2026. • Although product milestone progress continues, delivery has not consistently aligned with baseline expectations, resulting in downstream impacts to testing and validation activities. -- Contingency plans are approved and executed to mitigate downstream impacts. • 16 (no change from last month) of 37 product and interface milestones have completed the Service Delivery Life Cycle (SDLC) stage. All product milestones and interfaces have been mapped to EUST testing/validation cycles. -- EUST 1 finished May 2024. All 3 milestones are SDLC complete (blue). -- EUST 2 finished April 2025. All 9 milestones are SDLC complete (blue). -- All 21 EUST 3 milestones were due to finish in the months of December and January. Currently, 4 are SDLC complete (Blue), 17 are overdue (Red). -- Federal and State Reporting milestones continue with in progress development and testing activities and remain overdue (Red). • The project is responding to 2 high priority issues related to Time Management: -- RI-341: Impact from scope delays in Build Drops 1,2, and 3. -- RI-360: Sprint velocity is inadequate to achieve the SPR 6 milestone schedule. • IV&V observations corroborate these project issues, including: -- 1.4.4.1 PaaS SI Poor Delivery Performance Increasing Schedule Risk and Declining Quality. • The EUST 3 Build Drop (BD) plan is sequenced using service area feature-sets and milestones with the goal of achieving SIT Done. -- As of February end, of the total 26,179 issues (e.g., stories, tasks) across all build drop cycles, 22,170 (85%) are Done. -- 436 stories are in a blocked status. • Sprint metrics are varied between the State PMO and PaaS SI. IPO recommends increasing the use of Jira canned dashboards and reports to show real-time data. As of February end: -- State PMO monitors overall Sprint metrics for inclusion in the monthly PSR. Historical Overall Sprint Velocity (percentage of user stories completed versus committed) is 25.05 (BD1) = 24%, 25.06 (BD2) = 33%, 25.07 (BD3) = 40%, 25.08 (BD4) = 36%, 25.09 (BD5) = 22%, 25.10 = 12%, 26.01 =16%, and 26.02 = 24%. -- PaaS SI Sprint Commitment and Closure reports focused on Build and SIT metrics. Historical Velocity for Application Functionality and Component stories (e.g., Salesforce, Interfaces, DocGen, DocuEdge, and Security) is 25.05 = 57%, 25.06 = 88%, 25.07 = 58%, 25.08 = 79%, 25.09 = 49%, 25.10 = 94%, 26.01 = 62%, and 26.02 = 37%. • The monthly PSR is reporting “uncertain” that project objectives will be achieved within the approved timeframe. • The project maintains adequate control of the (Microsoft Project) V1 Schedule. State and Contractors’ staff collaborate and meet weekly with a standing agenda. Changes to Finish Dates require approval by the Project Director. • The project's performance in achieving the remediated and re-baselined project schedule is reported by PaaS SI to be on track. -- As of February end, PaaS SI schedule variance metrics show the overall project is on track at 76% (+1% from last month) complete, with 195 Overdue and 30 Behind Schedule. -- IPO notes a negative variance (-13%) comparing the percentage of V1 work completed (76%) and the elapsed state business days (89%) planned to complete this work. However, the schedule is duration-based and not effort-driven. I.e., the amount of work remaining may take more or less effort than the work completed to date. • As per the SPR approval conditions, the Project is using EVM to gauge performance. The Schedule Performance Index (SPI) decreased to 0.955 as of February 15, indicating the project is on schedule with a variance of less than 5% from the target of 1.0.
Cost & Contract Management Yellow	The Cost & Contract Management rating continued Yellow in February 2026. • The monthly PSR is reporting “uncertain” that project objectives will be achieved within the approved budget. • The resubmitted FFY 2026 APDU requests funding approval only for baseline costs. Provisional approval was provided by ACF in December. • An As-Needed APDU 01 was submitted on January 29, requesting funding approval for Financial Management Services, IV&V, and Security Testing Services. The $3.5 million requested is consistent with prior year funding. • On December 18, 2025, the Board of Directors approved a Production Simulation readiness approach for V1. The total estimated cost of $86.9 million includes $14.9 million for the Production Simulation and $72 million for implementation services. These costs are not delineated in the last approved FAW. -- Due to urgency, Federal funding is not being requested for $72 million in related contract amendments. State General Fund will be used. An As-Needed APDU 02 was submitted on January 30, 2026 informing the ACF. -- Funding has not yet been determined for the estimated $14.9 million needed for Production Simulation. • The Total Project Costs approved with SPR 6 are $1,711,011,443 with One-Time Costs of $1,228,909,579, Continuing Costs of $301,567,793, and Future Operations Costs of $180,534,071. • State funding requested in a Spring Finance Letter (SFY) 2025-26 BCP was approved in the budget signed by the Governor on June 27, 2025. -- Total One-Time Cumulative Expenditures are reported as $656,225,152, which is 13% less than the planned $836,121,559 Total Cumulative One-Time Budget planned for at this time. -- Current Year Cumulative Expenditures increased in February from $137,358,393 to $166,158,663 resulting from payment of contractors’ invoices. • As per an approval condition, the Project is using EVM to gauge performance. -- The 1.154 CPI reported as of February 15 is consistent with expenditures less than budgeted. The variance from the target 1.0 remains above 10% but is below the peak CPI of 1.378 in August 2025. • There are currently 14 services contracts for delivery of the CWS-CARES solution. -- 8 procurements are planned or in progress. -- 11 contract amendments are in progress.
Scope Management Green	The Scope Management rating remained Green in February 2026. • SPR 6 approval condition #1 is satisfied. The PMO continues to provide monthly extracts of the CARES Version 1 (V1) product scope. -- The February V1 Scope Extract prepared by the project illustrates that the V1 product functional scope is organized by four Extended User Scenario Testing (EUST) cycles and consists of 4,115 (-88 from last month) User Stories categorized into 37 product and interface Milestones (plus Rework, Forms, and Shared Services), 133 Building Blocks, and 506 Epics. IPO observes: -- 3,018 (73% of total) user stories have completed the SDLC phase. -- 973 (54% of EUST 3) out of 1,803 user stories for EUST 3 are Done. • There are eight external interfaces in scope. Four are SDLC complete, and four are in progress. • There are five (now three) major IT systems used by one or more counties for which Data Conversion (DC) activities are in progress. In February, the following systems were removed from DC: -- Kern eAdopt system -- Los Angeles County Adoption Integration System (AIS) • Development of 448 Statewide forms continues in progress. • Approximately 2,258 county-specific forms to be created by counties for CWS-CARES V1. A dedicated county development environment is available and utilized.
Resources Yellow	The Resources rating continued Yellow in February 2026. -- Key consulting contracts that provide specialized, skilled contract staff supporting the project will expire in 2026 and would impact implementation and readiness activities leading to Go-Live. • The approved FY 2025-2026 project budget allocates 126 positions, an increase of three positions above FY 2024-25. • The project’s overall position vacancies continued at 4% in February, with three hires made, and this is within the Project’s goal of 10%. • Total primary vendor resources decreased to 700 (-26) staff, including: -- PaaS SI – 395 (no change) -- CDI – 168 (+1) -- PVS – 41 (-9) -- Implementation – 78 (nc) -- QA/Testing – 10 (nc) • IPO is monitoring contract condition, as related to the FFY 2026 APDU and pending As-Needed APDU. Several contracts (e.g., Implementation, PM) will expire in 2026 or exhaust previously approved funding.
Quality Red	The Quality rating continued Red in February 2026. • EUST 3 activities are impacted by development and testing delays. Contingency plans include a phased code release to provide additional time to complete the SDLC for unfinished milestones. • The project is responding to 1 high priority risk and 4 high priority issues related to Quality. -- RI-371 (High Risk): Performance testing environment Not Available. Without the required environments, we cannot validate system behavior under production-like load, concurrency, and data volumes. -- RI-354 (High Issue): Non-Adherence to Best Practices in APEX Custom Code Management. The PaaS SI Team is not following an established, traceable process for requesting and procuring increases in Salesforce governor limits. -- RI-345 (High Issue): Insufficient QA capacity to support Build Drop volumes. The current QA velocity is not sufficient to complete testing of all stories and retest corrected defects to support EUST 3. -- RI-342 (High Issue): Issues identified by Salesforce Code Quality Review. The analysis of the code by Salesforce has identified several quality issues that need resolution. -- RI-339 (High Issue): Automation Regression Test (ART) execution failures are poor and do not show an improvement or improving trend. The ART execution results have been showing a failing trend across majority of the Milestones that have passed manual validation within the QA environment. • IV&V observations continue without resolution, including: -- 1.2.4.2: Significant SIT Failures Leading to High Defect Volume in QA -- 1.6.13: Ongoing Salesforce Apex Code Quality Review • EUST 3 execution of scenario testing and functional validation is in progress and scheduled to finish on April 3, 2026. -- General testing includes 32 scenarios from February 2. -- Reporting testing includes State and Federal Reports from February 23. -- Internal reporting indicates that 735 users from 30 counties have participated to date. -- All user feedback items have been recorded and categorized by business processes. • New medium priority issue opened (RI-370) to resolve high defect volumes in the QA environment. Stories with defects are returned for fixes multiple times and require retesting. -- As of February, there are a total of 500 open QA defects, of which 222 are rated Critical, and 186 rated High. • The quantity of bugs/defects identified during System Integration Testing (SIT) and Quality Assurance (QA) phases increased. -- 11,210 (1,618 more than last month) defects in System Integration Test (SIT) and 8,439 (+2,764) in QA. -- 1,510 (190 more than last month) Open defects with 303 prioritized as Critical, 471 High, 611 Medium, and 125 Low. 66 defects are Fixed, in Joint Review. -- 1,207 (80% of Total) Open Development Fixes. • Rework identified from user feedback indicates that some functionality may not fully meet user expectations, requirements, or usability standards. A V1 Scope extract that also provides updates on rework. -- As of February, 668 (88%) of the total 761 Rework user stories are Done. • ADA testing continues with 44 Salesforce defects open, and 65 PaaS defects open.
Risk And Issues Green	The Risks and Issues rating continued Green in February 2026. Risk and issue management is mature, with all items recorded and updated in the Risks and Issues Jira Backlog. • The CWS-CARES team is managing 47 open project-level risks and issues, including 2 high-priority risks and 9 high-priority issues. -- RI-371 (High Risk): Performance testing environment Not Available. -- RI-365 (High Risk): User Experience in EUST 3 may impact user confidence. -- RI-354 (High Issue): Non-Adherence to Best Practices in APEX Custom Code Management. -- RI-345 (High Issue): Insufficient QA capacity to support Build Drop volumes. -- RI-342 (High Issue): Issues identified by Salesforce Code Quality Review. -- RI-341 (High Issue): Impact from scope delays in Build Drops 1,2, and 3. -- RI-339 (High Issue): Automation Regression Test (ART) execution failures are poor and not showing an improvement. -- RI-327 (High Issue): Long processing time for Micro-conversion may impact Cutover and Pilot planning and implementation. -- RI-321 (High Issue): Insufficient time and resources to complete the development of County forms needed for CARES V1 Go-Live. -- RI-260 (High Issue): Sprint velocity is inadequate to achieve the approved SPR 6 milestone schedule. • Breakdown of active Risks and Issues: -- Issues: 24 (9 High, 11 Medium, 4 are Low) -- Risks: 23 (2 High, 12 Medium, 9 Low)
Transition Readiness Yellow	The Transition Readiness rating continued Yellow in February 2026. -- On December 18, the Board of Directors approved the CARES V1 Path Forward, endorsing the Production Simulation environment and approach. -- The February CWDS Connections newsletter describes key benefits, including Statewide Early Access, Workflow Practice, Data & Access Validation, Interface & Reporting Checks. -- DMF 590 decided on February 2, to proceed with Production Simulation using the existing security controls and monitoring. -- Two meetings for the County Advisory Committee were held focused on Production Simulation. Topics included Governance, System Generated Emails, and Communications. • The project is responding to 1 high priority risk and 2 high priority issues related to Transition Readiness. -- RI-365 (High Risk) User Experience in EUST 3 may impact user confidence. -- RI-327 (High Issue) Long processing time for Micro-conversion may impact Cutover and Pilot planning and implementation. -- RI-321 (High Issue) Insufficient time and resources to complete the development of County forms needed for CARES V1 Go-Live. • Overdue Go-Live Readiness tasks continued to increase. -- County-Specific Forms: 35 of 2,288 forms are complete. -- County-Specific Reports: 9 of 2,115 of Business Objects to Tableau Reports are complete. -- Most counties remain overdue in data template feedback, data volume estimates, and sample data provision. • Development of training materials is focused on EUST3 scenarios. Admin Console 100% complete, Navigation 100%, Screening Intake 100%, Case Mgmt. 100%, Courts 100%, Adoption 100%, Close Case 100%, Resource Family 100%, Reporting 100%, RFA 100%.
Conditions For Approval Green	The SPR 6 Approval Letter stipulates that the project must adhere to the following conditions (abridged language below): 1. Complete an elaboration of the Product Backlog to clarify program needs further and establish the inventory of functions and features required to complete the project. -- a) Satisfied – V1 product scope (Epics) must be elaborated into requirements (Stories) not later than October 31, 2024. IPO reviewed the materials in November 2024 and determined that it satisfies the condition. As per the CDT request, the project is also providing: 1) Tabular data that demonstrates completion progress and adjustments in total stories by milestone in future Project Status Report (PSR) and Quarterly Project Report (QPR) submissions to the CDT, commencing with the PSR due in December 2024. 2) The PSR and QPR reports include tabular data specifically on the details and progress of the "Rework" milestone stories, including identification of the original source milestone (e.g., 157 Rework milestone stories are sourced from "Milestone 03: Screening"). -- b) Satisfied – “V1 reporting and V2 Epics must be elaborated into Stories not later than February 28, 2025”. On February 28, 2025, the project submitted to the CDT materials intended to satisfy condition #1b. IPO reviewed the materials in March and determined that it satisfies the condition. CDT acknowledges that the V2 Baseline scope information must be kept "procurement confidential" now. The project is requested to provide the CDT: 1) An updated version of the V2 scope at the Epic/Scenario level immediately after the V2 PaaS SI contractor procurement is completed. (Date TBD) 2) An updated version of the V2 scope elaborated to the Story level immediately upon completion of V2 Business Requirements activities. (Date TBD) 2. Conduct annual Development Progress Demonstration for stakeholders and CDT during the first quarter of each Calendar year. -- Satisfied. The most recent annual demonstrations were held on April 4, 2024, and May 7, 2025. 3. Commence Earned Value Management (EVM) reporting in the monthly Project Status Reports (PSR) and Quarterly Project Reports (QPR) submissions beginning in October 2023. -- Satisfied. The Project began reporting EVM in October 2023. The Project continues to refine the approach and calculations using Function Point Equivalents. 4. Provide a Board of Directors-approved V1 Pilot Plan to the CDT upon completion of the SPR 6 Major Milestone in September 2023. -- Satisfied. The Project Director obtained Board of Directors approval on September 28, 2023, for the initial Pilot Plan version to satisfy the CDT SPR 6 approval condition. -- Board approval is conditional, stipulating that all future iterations be returned for approval. 5. The Independent Advisor (IA) consultant must assess the efficacy of the project’s constituent engagement, communications, and adoption model and provide a report that includes improvement recommendations to project leadership, the CalHHS, and the CDT by March 31, 2024. -- Satisfied. Per IPO request, the findings and recommendations were presented to executive stakeholders on June 3, 2024. 6. Provide an updated Vendor Management Plan that includes a revised Work Order Authorization (WOA) process that aligns with the PaaS SI and PVS vendor contract amendments described in SPR 6 before the amendments are executed. -- Satisfied. In August 2023, the CDT IPO team reviewed the new WOA Management Plan with updated WOA templates. -- Per IPO request, the WOA Management Plan was updated in October 2023 to include recurring activities, deliverables, and org readiness details for Implementation WOAs. 7. The CWS-CARES project must submit a new SPR if one or more of the following occurs: a) Estimated One-Time Cost increases by $15 million. b) Estimated Project End Date extends by three months. c) Product scope or requirements vary by 10 percent. d) Service Delivery Lifecycle (SDLC) undergoes major changes, as determined by the CDT. -- Condition has not been triggered
Corrective Action Green	Not currently applicable

• Special Project Report 6 (pdf)
• Special Project Report 5 (pdf)
• Special Project Report 4 (pdf)
• Special Project Report 3 (pdf)
• Special Project Report 2 (pdf)
• Special Project Report 1 (pdf)