FROM: Joe Michael, Chief Information Officer
SUBJECT: Informational: Pension Administration System Modernization and Procurement Planning
RECOMMENDATION:
title
Pension Administration System modernization planning and intent to seek consulting services to support the evaluation and procurement of SBCERA's future Pension Administration System.
body
BACKGROUND:
SBCERA's Pension Administration System (PAS) is one of the organization's most critical technology platforms, supporting the administration of retirement benefits and services provided to members, retirees, beneficiaries, and participating employers. SBCERA has utilized LRS PensionGold (PG) as its core PAS since 2005 and has made investments over the past two decades to modernize, enhance, and adapt the system as SBCERA's operational requirements have evolved.
The current PG Version 3 platform was approved by the Board of Retirement in 2010 and fully implemented in 2014. Although it has been enhanced in the intervening years, its underlying architecture and core technologies originated primarily in the 2006-2008 timeframe. The architectural limits of nearly twenty year old technology are increasingly apparent as SBCERA's cybersecurity, integration, fraud-detection, workflow, internal-control, and digital-service requirements have evolved.
SBCERA has continued to invest in PensionGold, most notably through the Refresh Project from late 2020 to early 2023. That effort redesigned business processes, reduced unnecessary customizations, adopted available base-product functionality, and extended the useful life of Version 3. It was not intended to, nor did it replace the platform's underlying architecture.
Staff believes now is the appropriate time to evaluate SBCERA's next-generation PAS strategy. The existing system remains stable enough to support SBCERA through a multi-year procurement and transition, but its architectural constraints increasingly require custom development, workarounds...
Click here for full text