Hot trends in state and local contracting

Top IT projects among state and local governments in the coming year, according to WashingtonTechnology:

Medicaid:

There is a "backlog of states that need new Medicaid systems or are hiring a company to run their systems.  But Rishi Sood, Gartner research vice president, said the need for new systems to comply with Medicaid Information Technology Architecture may hold up some projects. The company that is first to develop a compliant solution will have a big edge, Sood said. "

Human services:

“I’ve seen much stronger demand in the past 12 months for large-scale child welfare systems,” said Mike Keating, senior vice president of western United States and state and local government at CGI-AMS of Fairfax, Va., a subsidiary of CGI Group Inc. of Montreal. “You saw that in Georgia. You saw that in Florida. You’re going to see several more in the next six to nine months.”

The biggest 2005 win in human services went to Accenture, which in June won a five-year, $870 million integrated eligibility contract from Texas to improve the state’s Medicaid, food stamps and temporary assistance programs.

Two large-scale integrated eligibility projects in human services are on the horizon. The first is in Indiana, where the state has an RFP on the street similar to that for Texas’ program, said John Maguire, managing director for Accenture’s state and local government practice.

The second project, in New York, may be further out, possibly toward the end of 2006 or beginning of 2007. But count on the state drawing plenty of attention when it puts out an RFP for a redesign of its human-services system. 

Enterprise resource planning:

[S]tates are considering large-scale implementations, not the modular approach as has been the case in the last few years. The shift, a result in part of better state budget conditions, means the size of opportunities will increase.

“These things go through cycles, and we’re in another upswing in ERP,” Maguire said. “Public officials are more willing to take on a little pain up front in order to realize benefits downstream.”

Accenture will continue to focus on finance and administration systems, including tax and revenue applications, along with human services and health care systems, Maguire said.