Eligibility Services and ACES Remediation ESAR Overview September

Eligibility Services and ACES Remediation ESAR Overview September 2019

Automated Client Eligibility System (ACES) By the numbers 2, 972, 948 Active Clients $152, 000 Average dollar value of cash & food benefits issued monthly 6, 000+ 80+ 2, 700, 000 6, 500, 000+ Interfaces to State, Federal or other partners Cash, food, and medical eligibility calculations made during the 2018 annual open enrollment period (45 day period) ACES users Letters/mailings sent annually

Brief History of ACES The base application transferred from Connecticut ACES is a highly integrated, high risk, high impact system Over the years, the ACES Complex has grown in complexity

About ESAR Project Goal • Extend the life of Automated Client Eligibility System (ACES) and increasing system flexibility so we can continue issuing timely benefits to almost 3 million Washingtonians. Background • With the implementation of the ACA, the MAGI rules were moved out of COBOL and into a modern rules engine. • ESAR was intended to stabilize ACES and then migrate the remaining non-MAGI rules out of COBOL and into the rules engine. Why • Many organizations and individuals depend on ACES to support eligibility, enrollment, payments, service delivery and data analysis. • In order for us to continue delivering these services, we must maintain the infrastructure or it will eventually fail, jeopardizing our ability to provide critical services to our clients.

The Evolution of ESAR As a result of the rapid deployment of the Eligibility Service for the Affordable Care Act, business rules in ACES needed to be realigned. While assessing the impact of that, critical issues were identified in the ACES system. 2014 Implementation of the Eligibility Service in support of ACA Business rules need to be realigned Non-MAGI Eligibility Rules Migration efforts begin 2015 IV&V Technical Assessment identifies system risks and corresponding recommendations Non-MAGI Eligibility Rules Migration efforts suspended IV&V Recommendations adopted; risk mitigation strategies developed 2016 2017 ESAR project reorganized to address IV&V findings The ESAR project is working to resolve the issues, stabilize ACES, and continue issuing timely benefits to almost 3 million Washingtonians. ESAR is necessary to extend the life of ACES and increase system flexibility. 5

ESAR Vision: Improved operations through modernized infrastructure. Sponsored by: Application Lifecycle Management | Feb 2017 - TBD Improving the tools and processes that support the Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC) Data Reduction | May 2017 - Apr 2019 Reduce the inventory of reports and data to minimize potential security exposure as well as the effort for other ESAR project tracks Mainframe Rehosting | Jan 2019 - Dec 2020 Executive Sponsor: David Stillman, Assistant Secretary, Economic Services Administration Project Sponsor: Lonnie Paul, Interim Director, Information Technology Services Project Manager: Jeff Closson, Senior Project Manager, ESAR Project Reduce the dependency on legacy mainframe technologies; make the system more adaptable to future modernization. Database Modernization | Jul 2017 - Jun 2023 Provide a new normalized relational database and related code changes to the ACES complex. Eligibility Rules Migration | TBD Provide a single, integrated Business Rules Management System (BRMS) that includes all eligibility decisions allowing for faster and more accurate changes to the system.

Situation APD request for ESAR was reduced because of lack of matching funds provided in the biennial budget Specifically, the ESAR Project's Database Modernization track was not funded. The project track focused on the following: • Design, develop and implement a relational ACES client database and eliminate the old flat-file (hierarchical) database • Refactor and modularize code for functions that call the relational database, following the Mainframe Rehosting project. • Define and develop a framework for Data Management to support ongoing governance of the ACES data in the restructured environment. Application Lifecycle Management • Complete Data Reduction • Complete Mainframe Rehosting • In progress Database Modernization • Paused Eligibility Rules Migration • Paused