Automation of the Employment Development Department

California Unemployment Insurance Code Division 1.5 concerns automation of the Employment Development Department (EDD). Chapter 1 deals with Annual Reports. Section 4900 defines the terms “department” and “director.”

Section 4901 requires the EDD Director to prepare a biennial report to the Legislature, on or before February 1 of each even-numbered year, on the department’s automation plans, including any recommendation on improvements for the purpose of consideration by both policy and fiscal committees of the Legislature.

Section 4902 requires the report to be transmitted to the Legislative Analyst, the Assembly Committees on Insurance, Labor and Employment, and Budget, the Senate Committees on Industrial Relations and Budget and Fiscal Review, the Department of Finance, and the Governor, on or before February 1 of each even-numbered year.

In addition, the report must (1) provide a strategic information technology plan that describes the long-term goals and strategies which it so be undertaken by the department to create an information technology environment that will not only support the achievement of the department’s strategic business mission and goals but set the foundation for using information technology to make substantial and sustainable improvements in how it conducts business.

(2) The plan must cover a 10-year planning horizon and include the department’s information vision, its information management principles, and long-term goals and strategies for achieving its information vision. (3) The plan has to provide a tactical information plan of specific automation and infrastructure projects to be undertaken within three years of the date of the report.

(4) The plan has to include project description and scope, consistency with the strategic information plan, relationship to other projects, priority of development, estimated project costs and benefits, and improvements in services.

Section 4903 requires the EDD Director to submit the plan to the California Department of Technology, which is then required to review and comment on it. These comments have to be attached to the report by the director and distributed with the report. The Department of Technology is required to make specified assessments when commenting on the report.