In 2004 the General Assembly passed legislation recommending that the state system of community colleges install a centralized, standardized, integrated, information technology system solution for the colleges. Accordingly, on February 16, 2005, CCCS and SunGard entered a contract to license Banner software to CCCS and to procure SunGard’s consulting services to implement the system. The total initial budget was just over $19.2 million. The originally scheduled completion date was June 2006.

The Banner project has experienced countless set backs since its implementation. Status reports in both 2005 and 2006 describe major operational failures and delays. In September 2006, CCCS President Nancy McCallin executed a settlement agreement with SunGard to resolve disputes between the parties, including a dispute regarding SunGard over-billing CCCS by approximately $2.5 million. By fall 2006, just one year after the contract was executed and months after the projected completion date, the Banner system experienced major malfunctions during student registration and was reported to be millions over budget.

As a result, in August, 2006 CCCS contracted with Delta to conduct an audit of the project. In addition, CCCS executed a “Sole Source Justification” in order to bypass the competitive bidding process and procure Delta for an “[u]pgrade of FRS Plus to SCT Banner software for all community colleges.” Nonetheless, a year later the Banner system again experienced major operational failures during fall 2007 student registration and was still many months away from being fully implemented according the terms of the original 2005 contract with SunGard.

According to the most recent budget provided by CCCS, the Banner project has now cost over $26 million, well over the original $19.2 initial budget, and has yet to be completed.