In his February 2012 article, Chuck Murphy lamented that Colorado Benefits Management System (CBMS) had spent over US$300 million since it was first commissioned in Sept. 1, 2004. He gave a chronological flow of events, stating that the problem had been handed down from one governor to the next and from one to another. However, the problem with the CBMS persisted and the official were asking for additional US$18 million from the state government and US$12 million from the Federal government in order to fix the problem (Murphy 2012).
Two years later, Greg Campbell (2014) writes that despite a US$35 million injection into the project in 2012, the system remains dysfunctional. In his March 2014 article, Greg Campbell writes that the CBMS requires another US$35 million for upgrades. According to officials, the previous funding helped to reduce wait times as well as made upgrades to the system to offer Affordable Care Act. Arguments have been made that it is cheaper to pay for the upgrades than to switch to another system (Campbell, 2014).
According to Greg (2014), the state auditor indicated that the system has spent over $300 million but its functionality remains below par. Previous funding did not address recurrent problems that are forcing the system to malfunction. The system is said to have led to the payment of Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits worth $26 million to the wrong people in 2012, and failed to pay $11 million worth of SNAP benefits to deserving people in the same year. Part of the problem that needs fixing is in training staff members on how to use the computer system. To train and upgrade the CBMS, the state requires $35 million. However, with the trend that have been there since 2004, the system may require more funds (Campbell, 2014).
References
Campbell , G. (2014, March 3). Colorado officials want millions more to fix money-sucking state computer system. The Daily Caller. Retrieved from http://dailycaller.com/2014/03/03/colorado-officials-want-millions-more-to-fix-money- sucking-state-computer-system/
Murphy, C. (2012, Feb 24). Murphy: Broken computer system has put Colorado in a fix. The Denver Post. Retrieved from http://www.denverpost.com/murphy/ci_20032999
