Cajon Valley Secures County-Wide Settlement Agreement from SDCOE re: “MITI” (PeopleSoft)

With support of the Cajon Valley Union School District Governing Board, The Cajon Valley Union School District (CVUSD) took the lead in negotiating a countywide settlement agreement between the San Diego County Office of Education (SDCOE) and all 41 San Diego County School Districts.  We asked Peter Fagen to assist with examining contracts, documents, and a long list of performance/service failures that surfaced over the course of several years.  David Miyashiro and Brian Marshall (La Mesa/Spring Valley) negotiated a 25% refund of implementation costs for each district, a stop payment of maintenance fees for two years, and a reconstitution of the service agreement moving forward.  Also negotiated in this agreement was a reimbursement of all attorney fees accrued in relation this this settlement by SDCOE.  Total amount anticipated from the settlement agreement for CVUSD is upwards of $300,000.00.  A portion of this settlement award will be set aside for a strategic planning tour and the remaining balance will augment our one-time fund expenditure budget.

In 2013, as part of its Modernization, Improvement, and Transformation Initiative (“MITI”), SDCOE expressed the desire to implement a County-wide Enterprise Resource Planning (“ERP”) system, called PeopleSoft.  SDCOE intended to modernize systems across the County – which previously varied both in software type and functionality – in order to allow SDCOE to provide human capital management to the County’s school districts.  SDCOE endeavored to provide a County-wide, fully functioning, integrated ERP solution to replace existing software systems throughout San Diego County for and with County school districts in an effort to provide greater ease of use and more consistent monitoring and oversight from SDCOE.

In order to commence implementation, SDCOE and County school districts entered into a series of Memorandums of Understanding and Memorandums of Agreement (“Prior MITI MOUs”).   Pursuant to the Prior MITI MOUs, each of the participating County school districts were required to contribute two forms of payment to SDCOE: initial one-time implementation costs and continuing annual maintenance, upgrade, and support fees.

SDCOE’s MITI Implementation continues to develop functionality to be fully implemented as promised in the original ERP scope included in County school districts’ Prior MITI MOUs.  As such, SDCOE did not foresee or forewarn County school districts that there may be unanticipated additional costs associated with the MITI implementation, such as the funding of new positions, training, and overtime expenses to ensure compliance with required deadlines.

County school districts and SDCOE have mutually determined that it is in the best interest of all parties to together to identify and resolve issues and concerns related to SDCOE’s MITI Implementation pursuant to the terms and conditions contained within this MOU.

 

David Miyashiro, Ed.D.

Superintendent

 

Attached are the final MOU (Settlement Agreement), Letter to Superintendents, and a breakdown of the first reimbursements paid out to the 41 districts

MOU (Final Version for All SD Districts) 8-24-17

MITI Letter to Supts

Reimbursements to Districts