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. . . . * Colorado Water Rights Administration including optimization of water rights administration in Colorado, on-line sharing of information between water users, and the potential administration of water rights under a compact call. Responsibility: Division of Water Resources A preliminary cost estimate prepared by the Office of the State Engineer in September 1991 estimated the cost between 3.5 and 4.0 million dollars. This included data collection and field verification (23%), purchase of digitized USGS maps and photos (1%), hardware and software (8%), and consulting services (68%). Any expenditures for hardware or software are subject to approval from the Information Management Commission (IMC) and must be in compliance with the DNR's Strategic and Operational Information Management Plans. The cost for consulting services to design the software is the largest and most uncertain part of the estimate. A more accurate assessment will not be available until the RFP process is completed. The annual operating and maintenance costs cannot be estimated now. The project is expected to take at least three years to develop and could be fully operational by January 1995. The first year of activity will be devoted to determining the needs to be met by the system. That activity will include participation by the various water users who will share in use of the resulting system. The purpose of the effort is to prepare a system design to meet the three categories of use identified above in time for consideration and funding by the 1993 Session of the General Assembly. A related effort is for the Board to gain the capability to obtain information from the Bureau of Reclamation's Colorado River Simulation Model. Although output from that system can be obtained from the Bureau, and the Upper Colorado River Commission can perform limited analyses based upon the system, none of those can be done in confidence, a deterrent to developing state strategy. Therefore, the Board requests that it be authorized to expand staff capability by 1 FIE for Colorado River model efforts, with the primary effort to become expert on the Bureau model and to monitor the Bureau's current project to transfer the CRSM from a mainframe to a new (engineering work station) format with improved capacity, capability and flexibility. Because of the Board's role in interstate matters on the Colorado River it is vital to keep pace with development of the new system and develop expertise for its use by the state. To accomplish those two elements during FY 92-93, the Board requests authorization to spend $500,000 from the Construction Fund as follows: -5-