Report 2016-129 Recommendation 10 Responses

Report 2016-129: K-12 High Speed Network: Improved Budgeting, Greater Transparency, and Increased Oversight Are Needed to Ensure That the Network Is Providing Reliable Services at the Lowest Cost to the State (Release Date: May 2017)

Recommendation #10 To: Education, Department of

To increase transparency in the K12HSN program and help ensure that the State has sufficient information to measure the program's effectiveness, Education should direct ICOE to report annually on specific performance measures. These performance measures should include the following metrics:
- Cost per unit of capacity used.
- Network bandwidth.
- Frequency, duration, cause, and location of network outages or interruptions.
- Latency and packet loss on network circuits.
Education should stipulate that the receipt of grant funds is conditional based on the recipient's agreement to provide these measures and other information deemed necessary by Education, either on request or at regular intervals determined by Education. If Education believes that it does not currently have legal authority to direct ICOE to report on this information, it should seek legislative change to obtain that authority.

1-Year Agency Response

Fully Implemented. In December 2017, K12HSN presented a plan, which Education approved, to define and collect the following: (1) cost per unit of capacity used;(2) network bandwidth utilization;(3) frequency, duration, cause, and location of network outages or interruptions; and (4) circuit performance relating to loss of packets and latency. In addition, K12HSN has already provided information in the 4 recommended areas to Education for the first 6 months of fiscal year 2017-18. On May 10, 2018, Education confirmed with K12HSN that the information will be included in their future annual reports.

California State Auditor's Assessment of 1-Year Status: Fully Implemented

As we noted in our assessment of Education's six-month response to this recommendation in November 2017, implementation of the recommendation was pending a commitment from ICOE regarding the inclusion of these metrics in the K12HSN program's annual plan.

Along with its one-year response, Education provided documentation of this commitment from ICOE, as well as a plan outlining the specific information to be reported and six months' worth of preliminary monitoring results.

6-Month Agency Response

Education is continuing to work towards fully implementing this recommendation. On September 7, 2017, Education attended the Network Implementation Committee meeting and planning session at which the audit recommendations were discussed. In addition, CDE and K12HSN discussed metrics and reporting options during monthly operations calls. On October 18, 2017, Education provided K12HSN a formal written request to submit the plan for reporting metrics.

California State Auditor's Assessment of 6-Month Status: Pending

As we noted in our 60-day evaluation of Education's implementation of this recommendation, changes to state law and the fiscal year 2017-18 funding structure for the K12HSN program have precluded the need for Education to amend its grant agreement with ICOE. Instead, Education indicates that it is continuing to work with ICOE to develop an annual reporting plan containing the performance metrics in our recommendation.

The status of this recommendation is therefore pending our review of the specific reporting metrics included in the required annual plan once the plan's structure is ultimately adopted by Education and ICOE.

60-Day Agency Response

NOTE: THE IMPLEMENTATION DATE SHOULD BE JUNE 2018, BUT THE SYSTEM ONLY GOES TO 2017.

Education was prepared to incorporate language in the grant award notification for Fiscal Year (FY) 2017-18, requiring the K12HSN grant recipient to submit an annual report, which would have included the following: (1) cost per unit of capacity used; (2) network bandwidth utilization; (3) frequency, duration, cause, and location of network outages or interruptions; and (4) circuit performance relating to loss of packets and latency. However, the FY 2017-18 California State Budget did not include K12HSN grant funding; therefore, Education cannot issue any grant awards to them. The K12HSN will utilize existing reserves to fund the program for FY 2017-18.

On June 27, 2017, Education Code 11800 was updated and now authorizes the Superintendent to request data and other programmatic information as needed to oversee the K12HSN program. Therefore, Education will: (1) request a plan for reporting performance metrics from K12HSN by October 1, 2017; (2) review and approve the plan to report performance metrics by December 31, 2017; and (3) review and approve performance metrics for the FY 2017-18 school year by June 30, 2018.

California State Auditor's Assessment of 60-Day Status: Pending

Given the changes to state law and Education's planned approach, we will review the content of the performance reporting plan referenced in this response when Education approves the plan in order to ensure it contains the metrics we set forth in our recommendation.

All Recommendations in 2016-129

Agency responses received are posted verbatim.