Department of Revenue receives project excellence award from OCIO

The Office of the Chief Information Officer (OCIO) awarded the Department of Revenue (DOR) with a Certificate of Project Excellence for the agency’s new Tax and Licensing System Replacement Project (TLSR).

“The agency-wide commitment to the success of the project was impressive,” said Sue Langen, OCIO/Deputy Director for Strategy & Management at WaTech. “On an effort this large, it takes everyone pulling together to get to a successful outcome. The ‘can do’ spirit of DOR showed in the results.”

Sue presented the certificate to DOR staff on Jan. 27. The highly complex project, completed in fall 2019, was finished on time and under budget.

The DOR project was recognized for many reasons, said Laura Parma, the OCIO’s TLSR oversight consultant, including:

• The agency consistently reviewed lessons learned and made incremental changes throughout the project.
• There was strong executive sponsorship and leadership, which was key to its success.
• Mature project management practices were demonstrated.
• Solid preparation for sustainment.

The project, under the executive sponsorship of DOR Director Vikki Smith, replaced outdated equipment and software with a vastly improved commercial-off-the-shelf business licensing and tax collection system. Each year, the DOR collects more than $18 billion in tax payments, conducts millions of online transactions and processes over half-million business license applications and renewals.

Advantages of the new system include increased access to information for taxpayers, improved security with use of the Secure Access Washington (SAW) standard and modernized technology that enabled the state to retire 40 legacy systems.