Statement on the outage of the Department's financial management system (FMS)
A message from Supt. Christina M. Kishimoto on the Department's system for vendor payments, which has been down since Oct. 6.
News Release from Hawaii DoE, October 19, 2018
Message from Supt. Christina M. Kishimoto:
On October 6, 2018, the Department's financial management system (FMS) underwent a critical upgrade, which encountered complications and resulted in disruption of service. Primarily, payments to vendors are being affected by this disruption.
HIDOE’s technology team, along with experts from the state's Office of Enterprise Technology Services (ETS) and contracted teams, continue to actively and urgently work to bring this critical system back up. Vendors can be assured that when FMS is fully operational, we will be making every effort to bring all of our accounts payable to a current status.
I apologize to our partners and vendors who have been inconvenienced by our delay in payments. This is not the level of service we want to deliver and we recognize the hardship that this causes.
We are making every effort to start issuing payments again next week, and will keep everyone up-to-date on the status of our system.
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SA: Vendors waiting after DOE payment system crashes
The DOE’s Financial Management System, which dates to the 1990s and is used to process purchase orders and payments, went out of service during an Oct. 6 upgrade. The computerized system handles a wide range of payments, such as school supplies, construction contracts, school-level consultants and business travel….
“We are taking proactive steps so that once the system is back up, we can expedite payment for anything that was due in the last two weeks,” Kalani said.
“It’s a very old system,” she added. “We are just trying to maintain the system, but it is on the list to be modernized.”
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HIDOE BEGINS PROCESSING PAYMENTS TO VENDORS AFTER RESTORING FINANCIAL PLATFORM
News Release from Hawaii DoE, Oct 25, 2018
HONOLULU — The Hawaii State Department of Education (HIDOE) has successfully started processing payments to vendors after restoring its Financial Management System (FMS), which had been undergoing maintenance.
“The Department sincerely thanks our vendors and business partners for their understanding and patience during this outage,” said Amy Kunz, Assistant Superintendent and Chief Financial Officer. “Please be assured that we are working diligently to bring this critical system back up and running properly. We are making every effort to expedite payments once the system is fully operational.”
On Oct. 6, the FMS underwent a critical upgrade, which encountered complications and resulted in a disruption of service. Primarily, payments to vendors are being affected by the outage. Employee payroll and school food services were not affected.
Over the weekend, the Department processed and mailed out approximately $320,000 in checks to various vendors. The Department also will be sending out nearly 2,000 checks totaling approximately $15 million in payments.
FMS has been partially restored, and HIDOE has implemented a plan to expedite payments in three priority areas — school facilities, Workers Compensation claims and special education services. From there, the Department will phase in access to all schools and offices to begin processing Purchase Orders and payments. These important steps are being taken so as not to overwhelm the system and to also ensure all aspects are functioning properly.
“As part of our effort to modernize the Department’s systems, including FMS, we have been working to upgrade our programs. This is a complex initiative due in part to the age of some of these platforms,” said Brook Conner, assistant superintendent for HIDOE’s Office of Information Technology Services. “Our goal is to enhance these systems to better serve our students, schools and community partners to minimize this type of disruption going forward.”
Vendor-related questions or concerns may be directed to the school or office listed on the Purchase Order.
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