Appendix G: Legacy Systems

Standardized Payroll/Personnel Reporting System (SPRS)

In 1997, with the advancement of client/server technology for human resource applications, the 75th Legislature modified Texas Government, Code Section 2101.035 (d), (e), (f ) and (g) of Subtitle C, previously requiring that all state agencies use USPS as their internal payroll/personnel system so the Comptroller could designate a standardized payroll calculation on one or more systems.

This legislative change in direction gave state agencies and institutions of higher education an option to migrate off of the USPS platform to license and implement either a commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) software application or design their own internal payroll and personnel processing system. Each agency was allowed to pursue this approach for payroll/personnel if they independently determined that the USPS mainframe product was not consistent with that agency’s desired technical architectural direction.

As a result of the 1997 legislation, several state agencies moved forward to license and implement the PeopleSoft suite of Human Resources and Financial applications to manage their internal payroll and personnel processing. However, it was still necessary for the new payroll/personnel systems to meet the state’s statutory obligations from earlier legislation.

The Comptroller’s office determined the best method to meet statutory obligations was through a new system to capture necessary data elements from the agencies’ internal personnel/payroll systems, validate the information before payrolls are processed and post the validated personnel and payroll information. The resulting system became the Standardized Payroll/Personnel Reporting System (SPRS), an in-house-developed, custom application system implemented in 2002 to answer the needs of state agencies that chose not to implement USPS.