By Anita Weier

The state's troubled computer systems continue to be a source of debate and worry, as officials call for audits, hear testimony and bring in an outside overseer for the awarding of yet another software contract.

The leaders of the Joint Legislative Audit Committee have called for an overall audit on the state's information technology system contracts, after repeated expensive systems failures.

"We plan to order an audit, but we have to develop the scope. Then we will bring it to the full committee for a vote," said Audit Committee co-chairwoman Carol Roessler, R-Oshkosh.

"There is not sufficient review in the system to ensure that we have something that is ready to go before it is implemented."

Problems have included a $13.9 million Accenture contract for development of a voter registration database, a $25 million University of Wisconsin Systempayroll software system, a $35.6 million contract for an upgrade to the Registration and Titling System at the Division of Motor Vehicles, and a $25 million sales and use tax collction and distribution system that is part of a larger Integrated tax system.

The audit committee also took testimony Tuesday from the Department of Revenue about that system. Committee members praised the department for working with counties to make sure that errors of underpayment and overpayment were corrected. But Milwaukee County officials said they are still substantially in the red and don't understand the revenue department's calculations.

The audit committee asked DOR to work with Milwaukee County and to continue to report back on progress with the system.

In other contract developments, the Department of Administration chose an outside auditor to review the bidding process for an upcoming software contract aimed at developing a massive statewide computer system that would handle payroll and human resources functions now handled by dozens of separate systems at various agencies.

"The goal is to create an integrated administrative system system for all the agencies," said Tom Solberg, a spokesman for DOA. "There are dozens of human resources, accounting and payroll systems, many of them 30 years old. We want to develop a single statewide system to replace them. The advantage would be more accurate information and lower cost to maintain databases."

The decision to retain former state auditor/former Legislative Fiscal Bureau director Dale Cattanach was made by Department of Administration Secretary Steve Bablitch after a DOA employee was indicted for allegedly fraudulently steering a state travel contract toward a certain company.

Cattanach will be paid $120 an hour to oversee the bidding process, providing "independent assessment and verification" to reassure the public and vendors that the process is open, fair and impartial.