Topeka — KSDE staff detailed the Kansas Integrated Accountability System (KIOSK) and told the State Board of Education the agency will issue a request for proposals for ongoing maintenance after procurement declined a maintenance exception.

Dean Zites, who oversees the suite, described KIOSK as three interoperable applications that together handle grant applications, GRAMA reporting and monitoring. Zites said the original procurement cycle began with RFPs in 2015 and that the vendor selection then produced economies of scale and integration.

"We're not asking to do a radical rewrite," Zites said. "This is for the ongoing regular maintenance of these systems, in which a vendor would help facilitate the regular change orders." He explained the agency initially sought a software-maintenance exception that would have allowed continuing with the original developer, but "that was rejected by procurement," so KSDE will put the maintenance contract out as an RFP.

Funding and audit questions: Zites said the maintenance is paid from federal/state set-asides tied to program administration. "The funding for this is 100% out of our federal state set aside. So it comes out of both ESEA and IDEA," he said. Board members pressed how the integrated system preserves auditability and checks; staff said the suite pre-populates data where possible but still requires human verification and has business rules to flag anomalies.

Procurement policy context: Policy committee chair Melanie Haas told the board a related receive item will appear next month documenting procurement thresholds and aligning board guidance with the Office of Procurement's $25,000 administrative threshold. Staff said that revision does not change the formal bid process when an item must be put out to bid; it codifies where administrative authority lies.

Next steps: KSDE will publish an RFP with defined requirements and return to the board with a recommendation after review of proposals. The agency also committed to provide examples of controls and audit checks implemented in KIOSK to address board concerns about data integrity.