About BEACON: Overview

North Carolina State Government is a large, complex organization. With an annual General Fund budget of $26.8 billion and over 80,000 employees, the State would be a Fortune 500 company if it were a private organization. Although the State's agencies have different missions and serve different constituencies, they share similar business functions, such as human resources, payroll, budget management, accounting and more.

The legacy systems supporting the current business functions are 20+ years old with limited functionality. These systems rely on outdated technology, do not communicate well with each other and are difficult to change for new operational requirements. Moreover, these systems are at risk of failure due to old age, withdrawal of vendor support, and being run by a workforce that is rapidly reaching retirement age.

Transforming the way North Carolina State Government does business

BEACON is a statewide collaborative effort to transform the way we do business in North Carolina by modernizing and standardizing key business processes in human resources, payroll, budget management, taxation, data storage and accounting. With the implementation of SAP's Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) software solution, the goal of BEACON is to build a foundation for management flexibility, increased efficiency, and improved access to information, ultimately enhancing the quality of services to North Carolina's citizens.

A collaborative statewide effort

The Office of the State Controller (OSC), Information Technology Services (ITS), the Office of State Budget and Management (OSBM) the Office of State Personnel (OSP), and the Department of Transportation (DOT) are overseeing the implementation effort with the full support of Governor Easley and the General Assembly. BEACON will impact many of the systems and processes utilized by state agencies and universities. Representatives from nearly every agency in the State will participate in the design of the new infrastructure. Additionally, continued participation from agency staff throughout the project will be key to the success of BEACON.

Funding

Session Law 2004-129 appropriated $2.7 million from the IT Fund to the Office of the State Controller in 2004 to begin implementation of the recommendations in the Statewide Business Infrastructure Study. Of the $2.7 million, the Program Steering Committee (PSC) allocated $1.8 million to the HR/Payroll Initiative and $900,000 to the Enterprise Data Warehouse Initiative. The 2005-06 appropriation for the HR/Payroll project was $20,875,000. The full estimated cost for the HR/Payroll project is $125,500,369.