Hawaiʻi has long needed to upgrade its child welfare IT systems, which social workers use to track and manage cases involving family reunification and placement of children in dangerous situations.

The state, however, is delaying launch of an ambitious overhaul of its Child Welfare System case management system after a contractor for the project was blamed for shoddy work and missed deadlines, according to reports from consultants that oversee the project for the state.

The $18.48 million project will replace two aging or obsolete computer systems and was originally supposed to go live in August, but has now been delayed three times. Independent monitors overseeing the work have flagged a variety of problems, including a data leak during testing of the new system that raised “data and privacy concerns.”

The most recent plan was to launch the Comprehensive Child Welfare Information System on Nov. 2, but that has now been delayed until April “as the project team continues to ensure a responsible and secure implementation,” according to a statement from state Department of Human Services Director Joseph Campos II.

The project has been in the planning stages for years, and the contract to develop it for Child Welfare Services was awarded in early 2024 to Elixir Lab USA Inc., doing business as Cardinality.ai. The company is a data technology company founded in 2017, and 11 states now use its “pre-built solutions,” according to its web site.

The most recent publicly available update on the Hawaiʻi project questions whether the new system has even progressed far enough to produce mandated reports for the federal government, which provides much of the funding for child welfare and foster care programs.

DHS “is under a federal obligation to produce these reports and should expect verification that they will be able to do so at this point in the project,” consultant Accenture LLP wrote in its August report. Accenture oversees the project on behalf of state Child Welfare Services, which is a branch of state DHS.

The agency provides critically important child protective services across the state, and has been the target of angry public criticism in recent years following high-profile child abuse fatalities. Those include the disappearance of 6-year-old Ariel Sellers in Waimānalo in 2021, and the death of 10-year-old Geanna Bradley in 2024.

Hawaiʻi lawmakers have taken some steps to try to improve the system in recent years, and the long-awaited comprehensive computer upgrades would add to those efforts.

Child Welfare Services now uses an obsolete system known as the Child Protective Services System, which launched in 1988 and is housed on an aging mainframe computer. The new information system is also supposed to replace the State of Hawaiʻi Automated Keiki Assistance system, which came online in about 2009.

Both DHS and Cardinality both declined requests for interviews last week to discuss the project. Anna Harper, chief administrative officer for Cardinality, said in a written statement that “as a matter of company policy, Cardinality does not respond to media inquiries regarding client matters.”

Delays And Disputes

The state routinely hires outside consultants to oversee major information technology projects on its behalf because those projects are complex and expensive, and some have been prone to long delays and large cost overruns. In some cases, major projects have failed outright.

In the case of Child Welfare Services upgrade, the state hired a consultant called Technology Management Solutions in 2024 to monitor the progress of the project, and monthly reports from TMS suggest there were significant problems with Cardinality early on.

As early as July 2025 TMS fretted in a monthly report that “the vendor has not been able to demonstrate a consistent ability to meet contract obligations.” TMS also questioned “the rigor applied and the ability by the vendor to manage the schedule and associated project tasks accurately.”

The criticisms TMS aimed at Cardinality escalated from there. The TMS report for August 2025 disclosed the first delay from the original August 2026 “go-live” date for the new system, and TMS pointedly observed the state’s contract with Cardinality allows for liquidated damages of up to $1,000 per day if the vendor fails to perform.

Those liquidated damages can be claimed by the state if missed deadlines cause “impacts to state resources due to the deviations,” and the TMS report suggested that was likely the case with the delayed go-live date. In fact, the report raised the possibility that Cardinality could end up facing hundreds of thousands of dollars in penalties.

That same report revealed Cardinality was requesting a new timeline for its work on the project that would have extended beyond the end of its contract with the state, and also wanted changes in its payment schedule that included a 25% “good faith” payment for some work before it was was formally approved.

TMS opposed both of those ideas, writing that it “strongly recommends against payment for unapproved/uncompleted services.” However, it disclosed in a later report the state approved the changes Cardinality requested to the payment schedule.

Last October the state requested a corrective action plan from Cardinality to deal with multiple problems on the project, and Cardinality submitted a “stop work” notice to the state “due to contract management and payment disagreements.” TMS wrote in its report for that month it was “not aware of any Vendor related work or progress being performed on the project.” That “stop work” notice by Cardinality remained in place until work resumed in December.

In June the state hired a new consultant called Accenture to monitor the project, and Accenture also found fault with work done by Cardinality. Accenture identified problems including “significant data-conversion and data quality concerns” along with possible training and readiness issues.

It warned in its June report that, “The risks to the state of going live with a solution this fragile are substantial.”

In its August report Accenture cited a data leak during testing that distributed personally identifiable information outside of the new system to project team members. That incident prompted a security review to prevent further releases, according to the report, but no further information about the data leak was available.

The consultant warned in that August report that the launch of the system should be delayed until “critical and high-priority defects have been remediated and retested,” and “security and privacy matters have been resolved.”