Independent Project Oversight Report (IPOR) Rating

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 Red for August 2026 due to the current assessment of the following focus areas. -- Time Management and Quality continued Red: There is a significant risk to the health of the project. The backlog of product and data conversion defects are impacting Production Simulation and V1 Go-Live preparation activities. -- Governance, Cost Management, and Transition Readiness continued Yellow: Caution, risks/issues exist. V1 Go-Live Readiness Checkpoint #3 was held on August 24 and conveyed that 37% of in progress readiness tasks (33) are currently behind schedule. A special Board of Directors meeting is planned for early September to review conditions and decide the path forward. -- Scope Management adjusted to Green: Satisfactory. During August, several decisions were approved that clarify the remaining V1 scope. -- Resources, Risks/Issues, continued Green: Satisfactory, no corrective action necessary. • The Board-approved Production Simulation environment is available. As of August, 23,118 users have been invited. Of those, 15,459 (67%) users have logged in at least once. • Product delivery continues with 30 milestones complete, 6 are in progress. The system scope includes core product development, infrastructure, interfaces, shared services, data conversion, scenario testing, rework based on user feedback, and design blueprints. • As of August, there are currently 7 high-priority issues and 2 high-priority risks. • In the project’s July 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 Yellow	The Governance rating continues Yellow in August 2026. The Yellow rating is not an indicator that project governance is ineffective. Rather, the rating adjustment reflects increased risk. A major stakeholder (i.e., CWDA) is formally seeking intervention outside of the established governance structure on one of the Project's most consequential decisions. The triggering condition is a governance/escalation event, and the potential consequences extend to Time, Scope, Budget, and Resources. -- The CWDA sent a letter to the Legislature on July 14, 2026, expressing concerns about V1 launching on October 26, 2026, referencing several risk areas. -- During August, the CDSS-OTSI responded to the CWDA letter, and Senate Budget Subcommittee 5 met to listen to both perspectives. • V1 Go-Live Readiness Checkpoint #3 was held on August 24, and conveyed that of the 90 total readiness tasks, 22% (20) are complete, 41% (37) are on schedule, and 37% (33) are currently behind schedule. -- A special Board of Directors meeting is planned for early September to review conditions and decide the path forward. Key assessment considerations include: -- Pre-Launch Stabilization -- Data Validation -- County Operational Readiness • The last approval document, SPR 6, was approved in May 2023. -- The project schedule was re-baselined on July 3, 2024. -- The Production Simulation environment/approach was approved on December 18, 2025. • The FFY 2027 APDU was submitted to the ACF on August 26, and acknowledged by the ACF on August 28. • V1 Go-Live Readiness includes four checkpoints: -- Checkpoint #1 held on June 29. -- Checkpoint #2 held on July 27. -- Checkpoint #3 held on August 24. • The Production Simulation are in progress. -- A Daily Prod Sim report is shared with stakeholders that provides feedback, defect, and incident reporting metrics. • Daily morning and evening leadership meetings occur regularly with working sessions held in between. • Seven decisions were made via the Decision-Making Framework in August: -- 635: Impact of Data Fixes on Last Modified By / Last Modified Timestamp / Audit History. -- 634: Solution for not being able to view prior Screenings, Referrals and Cases in Child Welfare History. -- 633: Rename Milestone CARESV1-48743 from "Rework" to "Backlog". -- 632: Release Plan for prioritized backlog stories was approved by ELT. -- 631: Prioritization of "backlog/rework" stories approved for Go Live (~313 stories). -- 630: Caseload Issue Solution for Non-Case carrying users. -- 629: Binti conversion postponed until after Go-Live. • Constituent engagement includes regular communications to constituents, including communications, data, external systems, and implementation activities. • ACF Monthly Report on User Engagement & Adoption – August report with key accomplishments and stakeholder topics was prepared and submitted describing July activities. -- Expanded Production Simulation to full statewide availability, supporting active testing across all 58 California counties. -- Concluded Train-the-Trainer (TTT) and advanced On-Demand Learning ahead of Instructor-Led Training (ILT). -- Hosted Stakeholder Briefing #9 and prepared for the final Stakeholder Briefing before Go-Live. -- A total of 18 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 August FPE value of 88,148 is consistent with values since December 2025.
Time Management Red	The Time Management Focus Area rating continued as Red in August 2026. Although product milestone progress continues, previous delivery has not consistently aligned with baseline expectations, resulting in downstream impacts to testing, validation, and implementation activities. • CWS-CARES Go-Live Readiness Checkpoint 3 was held on August 24, 2026, and indicates that 37% of tasks are behind schedule 60 days from Go-Live. CDT IPO recommends a Go-Live date assessment be performed. • Per SPR 6 and the July 2024 schedule rebaseline, all 37 product milestones were estimated to be finished by December 2025 – January 2026 timeframe. -- 5 milestones completed their Service Delivery Life Cycle (SDLC) activities in August. -- 6 continue in progress; all are greater than 95% done. -- 1 interface milestone (i.e., 23.2 CECRIS) finish date was changed through governance. -- 1 has been determined to not be needed (Milestone 31) • There is 1 high-priority issue and 1 high-priority risk for Time Management -- RI-376 (High Issue): Inadequate time to complete development for SDM and CARES Live before Mock 2. • July 2026 IV&V MAR reports findings that may impact time. -- 1.4.4.1 PaaS SI Poor Delivery Performance Increasing Schedule Risk and Declining Quality. -- 1.5.27 Agile Planning and Delivery Misalignment Risk. • 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 August end: -- PaaS SI schedule variance metrics show the overall project is on track at 96% (-2% from last month) complete, with 87 tasks Overdue and 23 Behind Schedule. • As per the SPR approval conditions, the Project is using EVM to gauge performance. The Schedule Performance Index (SPI) adjusted to 1.0 as of August 15, indicating the project is on schedule with a variance of less than 5% from the target of 1.0. • The PaaS SI V2 Maintenance and Operations procurement was estimated in SPR 6 to be completed in August 2026. It is currently on hold, to allow focus on V1 product and implementation activities.
Cost & Contract Management Yellow	The Cost & Contract Management rating continued as Yellow in August 2026. • The monthly PSR is reporting “uncertain” that project objectives will be achieved within the approved budget. The project clarified that V1 costs align with the SPR 6 budget, and a future SPR 7 will update V2 costs. • State funding is approved for State Fiscal Year (SFY) 2026-2027: -- Spring Finance Letter (SFL) 2026-2027 BCP was approved in the budget signed by the Governor on June 30, 2026. -- The FFY 2027 APDU was submitted to the ACF on August 26, with disposition pending a 60-day review period. • 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. • 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. -- Total One-Time Cumulative Expenditures are reported as $759,714,787. -- SFY 2026-2027 Cumulative Expenditures are calculated at $48,340,283. • As per an approval condition, the Project is using EVM to gauge performance. -- The 1.110 CPI reported as of August 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 13 service contracts for delivery of the CWS-CARES solution. -- 4 procurements are planned or in progress. -- 4 contract amendments are in progress.
Scope Management Green	The Scope Management rating is improved to Green in August 2026. • In August, four governance decisions were made clarifying the remaining scope for Version 1. -- DMF 631: The list of ~313 stories have been approved on 8/14/2026 by ELT with CWDA. Those stories were spread across Go-Live Release 1.0, Release 1.1 (Dec), Release 1.2 (Feb) and Release 1.3 (Apr). -- DMF 632: Approval to implement the proposed release plan. -- DMF 633: Milestone #48743 Rework was created on 7/23/2024 to house any stories created after Business Requirements were completed and transitioned to Design Phase. The baseline functional user stories reported to the CDT on 10/31/2024 are either done or in state-QA process. Renaming the milestone to "Backlog" describes the type of stories housed within and aligns with the standard Agile naming convention. -- DMF 381: The files necessary to test the CECRIS application were not received by CWDS Project until 7/27/2026. Consequently, the end date for State QA and Joint Review is being moved to Friday, 9/18/2026 to allow for detailed testing and final reviews with the vendor and CDSS. • The August 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 4,201 (no change from last month) user stories categorized into 37 product and interface Milestones (plus Rework, Forms, and Shared Services), 147 Building Blocks, and 515 Epics. IPO observes: -- 3,840 (91% of total) user stories have completed the SDLC phase. -- 1,610 (90% of EUST 3) out of 1,784 user stories specific to EUST 3 are Done. • There are 8 external interfaces in scope for V1. All, except for CECRIS (see decision), are SDLC complete. • As of August, there are 2 major IT systems used by one or more counties for which Data Conversion (DC) activities are in progress. -- RFA System, Contra Costa County, Milestone 26. -- Resource Family Homes, San Luis Obispo, Milestone 26. -- DMF 629: Binti data conversion for 43 counties delayed to post-V1. • Development of 435 Statewide forms continues in progress with 406 done. • County-specific forms continue in progress by counties, supplemented by vendor support, using a dedicated county development environment maintained by CWS-CARES. 489 forms are development complete as of August. • V2 scope definition is delayed, dependent on V2 procurement, which is currently on hold.
Resources Green	The Resources rating continued Green in August 2026. • Key consulting contracts that provide specialized, skilled contract staff supporting the project are available for implementation and readiness activities leading to Go-Live. • The approved FY 2026-2027 budget allocates 131 positions, of which 124 are filled. • The project’s overall position vacancy rate continued as 5% in August, with no hires. This is within the Project’s goal of 10%. • Total primary vendor resources increased to 852 (+34) staff, including: -- PaaS SI – 416 (no change) -- CDI – 191 (+4) -- PVS – 46 (-2) -- Implementation (KPMG) – 192 (+32) -- QA/Testing – 7 (no change)
Quality Red	The Quality rating continued Red in August 2026. Several product milestones are overdue and remain in QA at over 95% complete. Users may experience challenges in Prod Sim from unresolved product and data conversion defects. • The project is responding to 5 high-priority issues related to Quality. -- RI-378 (High Issue): RBAC Gaps for Sealed/Sensitive Records: High Defects; Converted Data Untested. -- 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-344 (High Issue): Separation of Business Rules. -- RI-342 (High Issue): Issues identified by Salesforce Code Quality Review. Salesforce's code analysis 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 an improving trend. The ART execution results have shown a trend of failures across most Milestones that have passed manual validation in the QA environment. • IV&V observations continue unresolved, including: -- 1.2.6 Big Bang Go-Live Risks -- 1.4.7.1 Failed Salesforce Apex Test Methods in the QA Environment -- 1.5.26 Incomplete Implementation of Safety Alerts Feature in CARES -- 1.5.28 Cyclic Defect Dependencies and Improper Defect Traceability • The QA completion rate is 98% as of August end, indicating a positive trajectory. • Significant volume of open Application defects. The backlog increased from 443 in July to 600 at August end. -- 600 open Product defects, with 63 Critical, 287 High, 213 Medium, and 37 Low. -- 334 (56%) Product defects are a Development Fix. • Significant volume of open Data Conversion defects. The backlog increased from 444 in July to 702 at August end. • Rework was renamed in August to “Backlog”. -- 741 (98%) of the total 758 Rework/Backlog user stories are Done. • Automated Regression Testing is performed for selected (not all) milestones with an average pass rate of 96% as of August. • There are 15 system environments configured for different activities, with 7 containing production data. • ADA testing continues with 10 open defects; 10 Salesforce; 0 Image Trust; 0 PaaS SI.
Risk And Issues Green	The Risks and Issues rating continued Green in August 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 32 open project-level risks and issues, including 7 high-priority issues and 2 high-priority risks. -- RI-378 (Issue): RBAC Gaps for Sealed/Sensitive Records: High Defects; Converted Data Untested (Quality) -- RI-376 (Issue): Inadequate time to complete development for SDM and CARES Live before Mock 2 (Time) -- RI-345 (Issue): Insufficient QA capacity to support Build Drop volumes (Quality) -- RI-344 (Issue): Separation of Business Rules (Quality) -- RI-342 (Issue): Issues identified by Salesforce Code Quality Review (Quality) -- RI-339 (Issue): Automation Regression Test (ART) execution failures are poor and not showing an improvement or improving trend (Quality) -- RI-327 (Issue): Long processing time for Micro-conversion may impact Cutover and Pilot planning and implementation (Transition Readiness) -- RI-385 (Risk): Failure to migrate to Service Cloud on 9/4 (Time) -- RI-326 (Risk) Insufficient time or resources to develop County reports by the Go-Live date (Transition Readiness) • Breakdown of active Risks and Issues: -- Issues: 18 (7 High, 7 Medium, 4 Low) -- Risks: 14 (2 High, 7 Medium, 5 Low)
Transition Readiness Yellow	The Transition Readiness rating continued Yellow in August 2026. County users may experience quality issues until all V1 functionality has finished the Development and Quality Assurance phases. -- Of the total 37 product milestones, 5 continue in progress, all of which are >90% done in state-QA. -- On August 14, agreement was reached on a Release Plan that includes additional user stories in the V1 Go-Live (DMF 632). -- There continues to be a significant volume of critical and high-severity application and data conversion defects needing resolution. • The project is responding to 2 high-priority issues related to Transition Readiness. -- RI-327: Long processing time for Micro-conversion may impact Cutover and Pilot planning and implementation. -- RI-326: Insufficient time or resources to develop County reports by the Go-Live date. • IV&V observations continue unresolved, including: -- 1.2.6 Big Bang Go-Live Risks -- 1.7.6.1 User Onboarding Planned Before Full Operational Readiness of RBAC-Enabled Tableau and Snowflake Environments • Production Simulation metrics are recorded daily. As of August, 23,118 users were invited; 15,459 users logged in at least once; 5,727 users logged in during August; 100,973 records were created/modified; 3,724 support tickets were escalated to Tier 2 and 3. • Stakeholder Briefing #10 held on August 26: -- V1 Go-Live remains October 26, 2026. -- All historical data from CWS/CMS, CARES-Live, SDM, and RFA Greenfield* will continue be available as read-only in CWS-CARES. -- Support model is changing starting September 30 to utilize a centralized help desk. -- Binti data conversion moved to post Go-Live. All historical information will remain in Binti until data conversion is complete. -- Super User roles defined and assigned. Functional experts to bridge the gap between technical system and daily operations during and after V1 go-live. -- BPR delta (current vs. target) sessions finished in August. 97 self-assessment surveys received from 88 unique Organizations (69% of all organizations). -- Sealed and Sensitive RBAC testing began on August 17 and will continue through September 18. -- County-Specific Forms: 489 of 2,450 forms are complete.
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) no later than October 31, 2024. IPO reviewed the materials in November 2024 and determined that they satisfy 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) In Progress – “V1 reporting and V2 Epics must be elaborated into Stories no later than February 28, 2025”. On February 28, 2025, the project was submitted to the CDT materials intended to satisfy condition #1b. At that time, IPO reviewed the materials and determined it was conditionally satisfied. CDT acknowledged that the V2 Baseline scope information must be kept "procurement confidential". The project was requested to provide the CDT the following, but as of June 30, 2026, the V2 procurement is on hold: 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 an 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, May 7, 2025, and April 30, 2026. 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, 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, which included 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 is extended 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)