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Modernization Effort – Initial Project Management Contract

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California Victim Compensation Board
Modernization Effort – Initial Project Management Contract
November 19, 2026

Background

The California Victim Compensation Board (CalVCB) is the payor of last resort for victims of violent crimes. Applicants file claims for reimbursement for out-of-pocket costs such as medical, funeral, relocation, and income or support loss. The Compensation and Restitution System (CaRES) serves as the System of Record for all the information and business processes associated with the claim, such as determination of eligibility and benefits, adjudication of bills, payments, documents received, correspondence sent, tax documents and reporting. The CaRES system also provides the ability to track criminal disposition cases and offenders, providing court staff and judges with the necessary information to impose fines and orders to collect offender fines towards the Board’s restitution fund. The CaRES system supports approximately two hundred users at the CalVCB headquarters as well as couple hundred users throughout the state in dozens of county Joint Powers (JP), Victim Advocates and Criminal Restitution Compact (CRC) offices.

Authority

This Board has delegated to the Executive Officer the authority to execute all contracts with respect to the maintenance of the Department’s Information Technology Systems in an amount not to exceed $200,000.00. 

Discussion 

CalVCB is seeking a Contractor to advise and support the department through the California Department of Technology (CDT) Project Approval Lifecycle (PAL) for the Compensation and Restitution System (CaRES) Modernization Project, and to produce the business requirements that the PAL stages depend on.

The current system. CaRES is a workflow-based system that supports the claim lifecycle from application through eligibility, bill review, payment, appeals and restitution. It serves about 200 CalVCB users plus users in county Joint Powers (JP) and Criminal Restitution Compact (CRC) offices. Known limitations of CaRES include:

  • Functional changes require custom code and enhancement processes are too lengthy
  • No adjustments module for returned warrants, settlements and overpayments
  • No integrated appeals workflow; appeals are tracked outside the system of record
  • No configurable correspondence engine; multilingual support limited to English and Spanish
  • Limited attribute-level auditing and no automated separation-of-duties controls
  • The online application is a separate process linked to the system of record
  • Weak integration between claim and provider information, and slow report changes

The modernization vision. CalVCB seeks a highly configurable, single solution for end-to-end claims, compensation and restitution. It must adapt to changes in policy, procedure, statute and regulation without heavy custom coding. CalVCB issued a Request for Information (RFI 26-001) on August 24, 2026, to research the market for Custom Off the Shelf (COTS), Modified Off the Shelf (MOTS), integrated-product and custom alternatives.

Purpose of this engagement. CalVCB needs an experienced partner to:

  1. Guide CalVCB through each PAL stage and gate to CDT and Department of Finance approval.
  2. Build CalVCB’s own capacity to own and maintain those requirements through implementation.

PAL Advisory and Gate Support (all stages)

CalVCB anticipates that the services provided pursuant to this contract would include:

  • Advising CalVCB on PAL requirements, templates and expectations in the Statewide Information Management Manual (SIMM) Section 19, in effect during the engagement.
  • Planning and managing CalVCB’s path through each remaining stage, including dependencies on budget cycles and Budget Change Proposals.
  • Preparing or assisting CalVCB staff in preparing each stage submission and supporting CalVCB in responding to CDT and Department of Finance questions until the stage is approved.
  • Facilitating executive and governance briefings and preparing decision materials.
  • Coordinating with CDT oversight, the CDT PAL/Project Approvals team, and any independent oversight or Independent Validation and Verification (IV&V) provider.

Recommendation

Staff recommends the Board authorize the Executive Officer to execute a contract for the Modernization Effort for Initial Project Management services in an amount not to exceed $800,000.

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