Financial Information System for California

The Department of FISCal, also known as FI$Cal, is a state government department under the California Government Operations Agency of the executive branch of the government of California.

The department operates the statewide financial system that enables California to perform budgeting, procurement, cash management and accounting functions transparently and efficiently.

History
The Financial Information System for California began in 2005 with a total of five state employees tasked with replacing one internal facing budget system for the Department of Finance. The focus of the project soon shifted to address the need to modernize the state’s entire financial management process into a single financial management system. In July 2016, the California Department of FISCal (FI$Cal) was formally recognized as a new state of California department. On June 25, 2021, FI$Cal successfully deployed the final functionality of the FI$Cal project and in September 2022, the department received formal recognition of project completion with the passing of Assembly Bill 156.

Purpose
The FI$Cal system modernizes how the state of California manages its finances and is among the largest public sector information technology systems in the world. The system eliminates the need for hundreds of independent legacy systems by combining the state’s accounting, budgeting, cash management and procurement operations into a single financial-management system.

Enormously complex by its very nature, there are currently 152 departments and approximately 14,000 end users using the system, processing $421 billion in expenditures in the fiscal year 2021-2022. The State Treasurer’s Office system functionality handled in excess of $3.1 trillion in state government banking transactions in fiscal year 2021-2022. The reference for this information can be the FI$Cal homepage or this fact sheet: https://fiscal.ca.gov/wp-content/uploads/FICal-by-the-Numbers-one-sheet-01.30-Final-ADA.pdf.

Divisions
The department is organized into several divisions.

Administrative Services Division

The Administrative Services Division (ASD) strives to ensure effective, efficient and strategically aligned business processes that integrate administrative functions. To accomplish this, the division develops accessible and reliable knowledge management programs as well as formal and informal staff development and succession activities. The ASD is committed to ensuring FI$Cal is compliant with applicable laws, rules, regulations and policies related to human resources, accounting, budgeting, procurement and contract management.

Business Operation and Solutions Division

The central mission of the Business Operation and Solutions Division (BOSD) is to ensure the effective delivery and positive reception of the FI$Cal solution. The BOSD provides effective support services, both onsite and remotely, to departmental stakeholders. The BOSD also works closely with partner agencies to support month-end and year-end close.

Information Technology Division

The Information Technology Division’s (ITD) core mission is to provide a reliable, quality solution to customers and partners and maintain the highest level of security. The ITD strives to support FI$Cal with self-sufficient, innovative technology infrastructure and application services. As customer and partner needs evolve, the division will continue to improve FI$Cal by using its mature systems development life cycle processes.

Department leadership information can be found on the FI$Cal website.