Personnel information system; payroll procedures.

(1) The Department of Management Services shall establish and maintain, in coordination with the payroll system of the Department of Financial Services, a complete personnel information system for all authorized and established positions in the state service, with the exception of employees of the Legislature, unless the Legislature chooses to participate. The department may contract with a vendor to provide the personnel information system. The specifications shall be developed in conjunction with the payroll system of the Department of Financial Services and in coordination with the Auditor General. The Department of Financial Services shall determine that the position occupied by each employee has been authorized and established in accordance with the provisions of s. 216.251. The Department of Management Services shall develop and maintain a position numbering system that will identify each established position, and such information shall be a part of the payroll system of the Department of Financial Services. With the exception of employees of the Legislature, unless the Legislature chooses to participate, this system shall include all career service positions and those positions exempted from career service provisions, notwithstanding the funding source of the salary payments, and information regarding persons receiving payments from other sources. Necessary revisions shall be made in the personnel and payroll procedures of the state to avoid duplication insofar as is feasible. A list shall be organized by budget entity to show the employees or vacant positions within each budget entity. This list shall be available to the Speaker of the House of Representatives and the President of the Senate upon request.

(2)(a) In recognition of the critical nature of the statewide personnel and payroll system commonly known as People First, the Legislature finds that it is in the best interest of the state to continue partnering with the current People First third-party operator. The People First System annually processes 500,000 employment applications, 455,000 personnel actions, and the state’s $9.5-billion payroll. The Legislature finds that the continuity of operations of the People First System and the critical functions it provides such as payroll, employee health insurance benefit records, and other critical services must not be interrupted. Presently, the Chief Financial Officer is undertaking the development of a new statewide accounting and financial management system, commonly known as the Planning, Accounting, and Ledger Management (PALM) system, scheduled to be operational in the year 2027. The procurement and implementation of an entire replacement of the People First System will impede the timeframe needed to successfully integrate the state’s payroll system with the PALM System. In order to maintain continuity of operations and to ensure the successful completion of the PALM System, the Legislature directs that the department:

1. Continue the integration of the current People First System with PALM.

2. Suspend major functionality updates or changes to the People First System until the completion of the PALM System. This does not include:

a. Routine system maintenance such as code updates following open enrollment; or

b. The technical remediation necessary to integrate the system with PALM within the PALM project’s planned implementation schedule.

3. Provide technical support for state agencies that may need assistance in remediating or integrating current financial shadow systems with People First in order to integrate with PALM or the cloud version of People First.

4. Develop organizational change management and training deliverables needed to support the implementation of PALM payroll functionality and the People First System cloud upgrade. Responsibilities of the operator and the department shall be outlined in a project role and responsibility assignment chart within the contract.

5. Submit project planning and analysis deliverables that detail the state’s current and future state business, functional, and technical requirements, including, but not limited to:

a. System capabilities and user requirements;

b. Security, accessibility, and compliance standards;

c. Data migration and conversion requirements;

d. Integration points with existing enterprise systems and third-party applications; and

e. Verifiable acceptance criteria for each requirement.

6. Conduct a complete system integration assessment to identify dependencies, interoperability challenges, and strategies for seamless data exchange.

7. Document a streamlined transparent process to track, test, and update all system requirements.

8. Estimate the cost of transitioning the current People First System to a cloud computing infrastructure within the contract extension and after the successful integration with PALM. The project cost evaluation shall estimate the annual cost and capacity growth required to host the system in a cloud environment.

The department shall develop these project planning resources in conjunction with all stakeholders.

(b) The department shall submit, no later than December 31, 2026, its project planning and detailed cost estimates to upgrade the current People First System to the chair of the Senate Committee on Appropriations, the chair of the House of Representatives Budget Committee, and the Executive Office of the Governor’s Office of Policy and Budget.

(c) This subsection expires July 1, 2027.