The California State Assembly gave overwhelming approval on Wednesday evening to a bill that would increase government scrutiny of information-technology purchases by the California State University System.

The legislation, AB 491, would require California's director of finance to approve any future information-technology acquisition by the university that exceeds $1-million, including parts of a controversial computer project known as the Common Management System. Also, technology projects exceeding that amount would need to be watched over by the Department of General Services and the Department of Finance.

The measure was approved 57 to 5, and now heads to the Senate's Education Committee.

Manny Diaz, the Democratic state assembly member who wrote the bill, says he is encouraged by the vote, particularly since Cal State lobbied against its approval.

Cal State opposes the bill because it would subject the university to oversight from a state agency. Neither the University of California system nor California's system of community colleges is supervised by a state agency, says Colleen Bentley-Adler, director of public affairs for Cal State.

"We already have a governing board, the Cal State trustees, appointed by the governor and confirmed by a two-thirds vote of the Senate," says Ms. Bentley-Adler. "The trustees are the proper oversight agency."

The Assembly vote comes after Mr. Diaz and State Sen. Richard Alarcon wrote in May to Charles B. Reed, the chancellor of the Cal State system, demanding that he temporarily halt spending on the Common Management System, a nine-year computer project. The lawmakers accused the university of mismanaging the project's funds, which they said could be better used for academic instruction.

The goal of the project is to replace outdated administrative-computing systems on Cal State's 23 campuses with one central system. It would run software from PeopleSoft Inc., which sells administrative systems to colleges and businesses.

In a report released in March, the California Bureau of State Audits said the university had understated costs and failed to establish a business plan for the project, whose cost is estimated at between $440-million and $662-million. Cal State disagreed with many of the audit's conclusions (The Chronicle, March 28).