Speaker of the House wonders how Luma went awry

BOISE — Idaho House Speaker Mike Moyle wants the state to look into what happened with the rocky implementation of its new payroll and human resources software.

Moyle asked the Joint Legislative Oversight Committee to authorize a study into Luma, a new enterprise resource system that encompasses budgeting and finance management for all the state agencies.

The launch of the system has resulted in a variety of errors and significant frustration and complaints from employees. In November, Moyle told legislative leaders the state should look into dropping the system, the Idaho Capital Sun reported.

On Friday, he told the committee that he wanted the state Office of Performance Evaluations to create a report looking into the selection process of the software vendor, contract negotiations, the planning that went into implementation, the agency workload and the alleged savings the system was supposed to provide.

Moyle said a number of issues have been addressed, but he wanted more to be evaluated to improve the system and prevent other issues from happening in the future.

“As I thought about this, I realized that there’s a bigger issue here, and I think it’s important that we figure out how got to where we are, where it started, see how it’s working,” Moyle said.

The Office of Performance Evaluations, known as OPE, does in-depth evaluations of the effectiveness of state initiatives or policies and makes recommendations to lawmakers and agencies.

Budget-writing committee co-Chairpersons Rep. Wendy Horman, R-Idaho Falls, and Sen. Scott Grow, R-Eagle; JLOC co-Chairpersons Rep. David Cannon, R-Blackfoot, and Sen. Melissa Wintrow D-Boise; House Minority Leader Ilana Rubel, D-Boise; Reps. Douglas Pickett, R-Oakley and Steve Berch, D-Boise, also all signed on to the letter requesting the study.

Moyle said he wanted the office to begin its evaluation as soon as possible.

“I understand that it takes a while for OPE to do their work, but I also think that time is of the essence,” he said.

OPE Director Rakesh Mohan said the office is about to complete other evaluations and will have the capacity to do this project.

“The request is big,” Mohan said. “But it is an important request. We have the capacity to do it in terms of the staff and knowledge.”

Mohan said the office would shoot to have a report finished by the time the budget-writing Joint Finance and Appropriations Committee meets in the fall, usually in October or November.

Some of the issues have included not being able to independently verify its cash balances and double paying more than $32 million in Idaho Department of Health and Welfare payments, the Idaho Capital Sun reported.

The system launched July 1, 2023, and replaced older software that went back to the 1980s.

The committee Friday voted unanimously voted to authorize OPE to do the study.

Guido covers Idaho politics for the Lewiston Tribune, Moscow-Pullman Daily News and Idaho Press of Nampa. She may be contacted at lguido@idahopress.com and can be found on X, formerly Twitter, @EyeOnBoiseGuido.