AFSCME Privatization Update

Source: JAN MURPHY, Of The Patriot-News (PA), Sunday, May 11, 2008

State contracts with an information technology consultant and an initiative to equip classrooms with technology are about to go under the auditor general's microscope.

..... Some current and former state employees question how one company got so much of the state's technology business and whether it had anything to do with ties to Deloitte held by four high-level officials in Gov. Ed Rendell's administration.

Posted by Info Center at 2:07 PM in Audits/Reporting | Information Technology | Permalink
Tags: Pennslyvania

Source: Associated Press (DC), May 6, 2008 - 8:46am

The D.C. finance office will scrap a $120 million computerized tax system that was strongly criticized by auditors.

According to a report obtained by The (Washington) Examiner, the automated system routinely fails and forces workers to create duplicate reports by hand. The report says the system has left the city open to corruption and cost millions of dollars in uncollected revenue.

A spokesman for Accenture says auditors hired by the city did not understand the high-tech system, which led them to make critical errors.

Posted by Info Center at 3:15 PM in Horror Stories | Information Technology | Tax Collection | Permalink
Tags: District of Columbia

Source: By CAROLYN FEIBEL, Houston Chronicle (TX), May 2, 2008, 12:03AM

SimDesk Technologies, the company that provided online computer applications to Houston residents through a controversial contract with the city, has gone out of business.

..... At the behest of former Mayor Lee Brown, the city awarded SimDesk a $9.5 million contract in 2002 with the hopes that the service would help bridge the "digital divide."

.......The contract was controversial from the beginning, with accusations that J. Dennis Piper, the city's technology director at the time, had favored the company in the bidding process.

..... As part of the amended contract, the city stopped paying SimDesk in 2004, having paid only $2.5 million on the contract. SimDesk agreed to continue providing the service to 800,000 public users until 2010. But no more than 30,000 people ever used SimDesk through the city's contract, Lewis said.

Posted by Info Center at 11:31 AM in Horror Stories | Information Technology | Permalink
Tags: Texas

Source: By ROBERT T. GARRETT, The Dallas Morning News (TX), Monday, April 7, 2008

Lawmakers are worried that a partly privatized system for determining who receives public assistance is still shaky and may not be salvageable. Paperwork for applicants has been lost. Needy Texans have received little help from state workers when they've complained of mistakes. And all too often, Texans who should qualify for state-paid health care and other benefits have been refused because of such errors.

...... The problems could also distract Texas officials as they separately seek to overhaul Medicaid, the nation's main health care program for the poor.

Posted by Info Center at 3:13 PM in Information Technology | Social Services | Permalink
Tags: Texas

Source: Aaron Marshall, Plain Dealer (OH), Sunday, March 30, 2008

Ohio has spent more than $90 million over the past decade trying to launch a computer system to keep track of tens of thousands of children across the state placed in foster care each year. But Cuyahoga County officials say the system simply does not work, and they refuse to sign on to it, as state officials have ordered them to do by June 23.

...... Other counties are also rebelling. Last week, child welfare agency heads in Cuyahoga and 10 other counties sent a letter to the state saying they won't be part of the new system until it is successfully rolled out in Hamilton County and the current problems are resolved.

....... But state officials say the system needs to be up and running because the $37.5 million contract given to Dynamics Research Corp. of Andover, Mass., to develop the system is up at the end of this fiscal year - June 30.

Related article from the Plain Dealer: A history of computer problems

Posted by Info Center at 2:36 PM in Information Technology | Permalink
Tags: Ohio

Source: By Tom LoBianco, Washington Times, March 31, 2008

ANNAPOLIS -- A state lawmaker says Montgomery County is "exploiting a loophole" in state law designed to keep speed-camera operators from profiting off the number of speeding tickets issued.

.......... The county reached an agreement in 2006 with Dallas-based Affiliated Computer Services Inc. (ACS) on a camera system that deploys six vans with speed cameras and 13 stationary speed cameras, as of December. County officials plan to expand to 30 fixed speed cameras by the end of the year.

According to Transportation Article 21-809(j) of the Maryland Code, "If a contractor operates a speed monitoring system on behalf of Montgomery County, the contractor's fee may not be contingent on the number of citations issued or paid."

........ But according to the minutes of a Jan. 29, 2007, meeting of the Rockville City Council, during which legislators approved a "rider bid" to install cameras in the city as part of the ACS contract with the county, ACS gets paid "$16.25 per paid citation for each fixed site and $16.25 per paid citation or $2,999.00 per month per deployed mobile unit whichever is greater."

Posted by Info Center at 2:29 PM in Horror Stories | Information Technology | Permalink
Tags: Maryland

Source: Associated Press, March 26, 2008

Big worries for the nation's first high-tech census should have been obvious when the door-to-door headcounters couldn't figure out their fancy new handheld computers. Now, officials say, technology problems could add as much as $2 billion to the cost of the 2010 census and jeopardize the accuracy of the nation's most important survey.

A congressional agency says the census is at "high risk" of producing an expensive yet unreliable count, and lawmakers are planning hearings. ...... Census officials are being blamed for a poor job spelling out technical requirements to the contractor, Florida-based Harris Corp. The computers proved too complex for some temporary workers who tried to use them in a test last year in North Carolina. Also, the computers were not initially programmed to transmit the large amounts of data necessary.

...... Harris Corp. was awarded a $596 million contract in March 2006 to supply the handheld computers and the operating system that supports them. The contract has since grown to $647 million, and could balloon by as much as $2 billion, according to a report this month by the Government Accountability Office, the investigative arm of Congress.

Posted by Info Center at 11:30 AM in Audits/Reporting | Federal | Information Technology | Permalink

Source: By Corrie MacLaggan, AMERICAN-STATESMAN (TX), Sunday, March 23, 2008

First thing Thursday morning, a dozen new state caseworkers arrived at a North Austin office building for a training class on enrolling Texans in the food stamp and Medicaid programs. Just a couple of months into their jobs, one after another said they're excited about helping people and confident they can handle the work. But if history is any guide, eight of them will be gone by fall. Employees overwhelmed by their workload are leaving the Health and Human Services Commission in droves.

..... Some of the agency's staffing problems date to fall 2005, when Hawkins informed 2,900 eligibility workers that they would not have a job after the start of a privatization plan. The agency hired Accenture LLP to run call centers to enroll Texans in benefits. After a troubled pilot program in Central Texas in 2006, the state parte

Posted by Info Center at 2:52 PM in Information Technology | Social Services | Permalink
Tags: Texas

Source: By Rachel E. Stassen-Berger, Pioneer Press (MN), 03/05/2008

Minnesota on Tuesday ended its rocky, five-year relationship with a company that was supposed to create a computerized database to quickly sort people into one of the state's health-care programs.

....... Brian Osberg, an assistant commissioner at the Department of Human Services, said the state decided it would be better off developing HealthMatch without the company, ACS State and Local Solutions.

Posted by Info Center at 2:30 PM in Horror Stories | Information Technology | Permalink
Tags: Minnesota

Source: By STEVE SCHULTZE, Journal Sentinel (WI), Feb. 29, 2008

A nearly 5-year-old computerized medical records system for inmates at the Milwaukee County Jail and the House of Correction in Franklin has failed to provide more than $1 million in expected savings and has worked so poorly it should be trashed, a new audit (.pdf) says.

..... The vendor chosen for the system, Illinois-based Seaquest Technologies, did not have experience designing records systems for correctional facilities.

Posted by Info Center at 10:29 AM in Horror Stories | Information Technology | Permalink
Tags: Wisconsin

Source: BY JAN MURPHY, The Patriot-News (PA), Sunday, February 24, 2008

With the amount of money Deloitte Consulting has been paid by the state in recent years, some might consider it deserving to be a state agency in its own right.

During the last five years, state records show Deloitte Consulting, which opened an office in Susquehanna Twp. three years ago, has been paid nearly $414 million. With the contracts Deloitte still holds, the company is on track to approach or exceed the half-billion mark soon.

The international firm, with U.S. headquarters in New York City, provides audit, tax, consulting and financial advisory services. Most of its contracts with the state have been primarily for services related to information technology.

...... Treasury records show Deloitte's contracts over the last five years dwarf the state's $27.7 million payments to a competitor, Accenture.

Posted by Info Center at 12:31 PM in Information Technology | Permalink
Tags: Pennslyvania

Source: Robert Half Technology press release, January 23, 2008

MENLO PARK, CA -- Despite the attention focused on the outsourcing of technology jobs overseas, a recent survey by Robert Half Technology shows that the majority of U.S. companies are not engaged in the practice. Ninety-four percent of chief information officers (CIOs) surveyed said their company does not outsource information technology (IT) jobs outside the United States (see table 1). Among companies that once sent IT jobs overseas but discontinued the practice, nearly six in 10 (59 percent) respondents cited management challenges as the top reason.

Posted by Info Center at 3:25 PM in Information Technology | Offshore | Permalink

Source: By STACY FORSTER and PATRICK MARLEY, Journal Sentinel (WI), Jan. 9, 2008

For the second time in just over a year, a state publication has been sent to tens of thousands of people with their Social Security numbers printed on the mailing labels.

About 260,000 participants in Medicaid programs were sent a recent mailing that included the recipients' Social Security numbers above their names on the address labels, the state Department of Health and Family Services said Tuesday.

........ While 485,000 copies were supposed to go out, the mailing was stopped after a recipient caught the error, according to EDS Corp., the vendor responsible for processing the mailings. State officials said they learned of the mistake Monday night.

Posted by Info Center at 11:23 AM in Horror Stories | Information Technology | Permalink
Tags: Wisconsin

Source: The Associated Press, Jan. 2, 2008, 11:28AM

Maine's Health and Human Services Department has selected a Pennsylvania-based company to manage the MaineCare computer system. Negotiations with Unisys Corp. are expected to be completed this month.

...... The MaineCare billing system was plagued with problems including providers getting incorrect payments or no payments after the state switched to a new system to handle claims in January 2005. Privatizing the service will help bring the state system into compliance with federal standards, according to DHHS officials.

Posted by Info Center at 2:46 PM in Information Technology | Permalink
Tags: Maine

Source: By JAMES SALZER, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution (GA), 12/11/07

Gov. Sonny Perdue this morning announced a consolidation and outsourcing of the state's technology services, a move that will lead to about 200 layoffs.

.... Four years ago, Perdue pulled the plug on a similarly ambitious initiative to consolidate all state government telecommunications under a private contractor, a plan worth $1.8 billion. It would have been the largest contract ever awarded by the state, putting as many as 500 state employees on the private contractor's payroll. That plan fell apart during the bidding process.

Posted by Info Center at 11:06 AM in Information Technology | Permalink
Tags: Georgia

Source: Penny Gurstein and Stuart Murray, with Anisha Datta and Marika Albert, Canadian Centre for Policy Initiatives, October 2007

This report examines two cases of alternative service delivery (ASD) to assess the impact on customer service and the quality of working life for the outsourced workers in BC. Our findings suggest that, contrary to the government's claim that "this is alternative service delivery, not privatization," ASD is a form of privatization. ASD allows partnerships to form between the government and companies that specialize in outsourcing, changing the culture and delivery of public services.

This paper looks at how outsourcing has impacted government services and affected the economic security of the workers involved by focusing on two case studies:

• Outsourcing of "back office" work at BC Hydro to Accenture, including customer services, IT services, human resources, financial systems, purchasing, and buildings services; and

• Outsourcing of administration of the Medical Services Plan and PharmaCare to Maximus.

In both cases, work previously done by public sector employees is now administered by a multinational for-profit corporation.

Posted by Info Center at 4:26 PM in Custodial | Human Resources | Information Technology | Maintenance | Purchasing | Permalink

Source: By Mark Niquette, THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH, Tuesday, October 30, 2007 6:23 PM

A state contractor has agreed to paid $300,000 to help defray the estimated $3 million cost related to the theft of a computer-back-up tape containing Social Security numbers and other sensitive information.

Compuware Corp., which worked on the state's new payroll and accounting system, is making the payment in part in response to the theft from a state intern's car and for ongoing support of project, according to an Oct. 18 agreement released today.

Posted by Info Center at 11:13 AM in Horror Stories | Information Technology | Permalink
Tags: Ohio

Source: By Ken Kusmer, Associated Press (IN), October 29, 2007 4:19 PM

Applying for food stamps or Medicaid was just a telephone call or mouse click away for residents of 12 north central Indiana counties Monday with the state's initial rollout of its closely watched, privatized welfare eligibility system.

. ....... The Democratically controlled Congress also is watching FSSA's progress. A provision in the House version of the federal farm bill would force Indiana and other states to reverse steps they've taken to privatize food stamps and return that work to state employees.

Posted by Info Center at 1:22 PM in Federal | Information Technology | Social Services | Permalink
Tags: Indiana

Source: By Ken Kusmer, Associated Press (IN), October 19, 2007

The state's human services agency decided Thursday to postpone the initial rollout of its automated welfare eligibility system by at least a week to Oct. 29 because of software problems.

The Family and Social Services Administration had been anticipating a Monday launch of the automated system for a 12-county area of Northern Indiana centered around Marion. However, software problems prompted the decision to push back the launch by a week, FSSA Secretary Mitch Roob told The Associated Press.

Posted by Info Center at 1:20 PM in Information Technology | Social Services | Permalink
Tags: Indiana

Source: By: Jean DerGurahian, Modern Healthcare, October 2, 2007

...... The increase represents a behavioral change as the healthcare industry turns to IT to improve communications, transparency, patient flow and data management, said John Lovelock, analyst and director of healthcare research at Gartner.

...... That perception shift has led more companies to turn to outsourced IT functions, according to results from Modern Healthcare's annual Outsourcing Survey. In its 29th year, the survey is a nonscientific look at healthcare outsourcing trends as reported by companies that provide on-site management to hospital departments, long-term-care facilities and alternate sites such as clinics and physician group practices. Fifty-five companies responded to this year's survey, up from 37 last year, and the number of clients increased across a range of services.

Information systems, which saw a 13% increase in the number of healthcare facilities served over last year on the survey, moved to 10th from 13th in the ranking of department categories.

Hospitals are increasingly relying on their contractors to provide even higher levels of service that help facilities comply with quality standards, especially as the healthcare environment opens to greater scrutiny by consumers and regulators. In many cases, that comes in the form of outsourced information technology, Lovelock said.

Posted by Info Center at 2:37 PM in Health | Information Technology | Permalink

Source: By Don Michak, Journal Inquirer (CT), 09/28/2007

Accenture, the giant consulting company at the center of the controversy over a stolen computer tape containing confidential information on Connecticut taxpayers and government agencies, was involved in three other high-profile data breaches last year.

The Bermuda-based corporation last week became the target of a civil lawsuit filed by Attorney General Richard Blumenthal, who accused Accenture of negligence, unauthorized use of state property, and breach of its contract to implement the state's problem-plagued $124 million financial management system known as CORE-CT.

Posted by Info Center at 2:44 PM in Horror Stories | Information Technology | Permalink

Source: Pioneer Press (MN), 09/22/2007 12:01:00 AM CDT

Ramsey County told 564 employees Friday that their Social Security numbers and employee ID numbers are among data apparently stolen from Accenture, the accounting firm that served as a consultant on a 2001 payroll study.

A letter to employees from county manager David Twa didn't include names, dates of birth, addresses or any other individual data.

Posted by Info Center at 1:42 PM in Horror Stories | Information Technology | Permalink

Source: SUSAN HAIGH, Associated Press (CT), 5:28 PM EDT, September 18, 2007

Connecticut is officially demanding that a Virginia company reimburse the state $6.2 million it spent on a failed upgrade of a major law enforcement database.

In a letter to Maximus Inc., Attorney General Richard Blumenthal said the firm failed to fix some 800 defects in the retooled database system, which state officials have not put into operation for fear it could endanger police and the public.

Posted by Info Center at 2:56 PM in Horror Stories | Information Technology | Permalink

Source: By Josh Verges, Argus Leader (SD), September 17, 2007

In three years of camera traffic enforcement at a downtown Sioux Falls intersection, red-light runners have paid $1.59 million in tickets. The city has kept about one-third of that revenue, sending the rest to the Arizona-based camera company. But this year, as drivers continue to pay closer attention to the traffic signals, almost none of the ticket proceeds are staying in the city.

......... In its 2008 budget, Sioux Falls expects to give Redflex all of the $300,000 it collects from drivers.

Posted by Info Center at 2:20 PM in Information Technology | Transportation | Permalink

Source: By DAVE LEVINTHAL, The Dallas Morning (TX), Wednesday, September 12, 2007

Forty more red light cameras will monitor Dallas intersections as the City Council voted Wednesday to more than double the size of its service contract with camera vendor Affiliated Computer Services.

The 8-2 vote boosts Dallas-based ACS's contract from five years and $13.29 million to seven years and $29.1 million. It also means Dallas will operate 100 total red light cameras -- not including dummy devices meant to mimic functional cameras.

Posted by Info Center at 10:21 AM in Information Technology | Permalink

Source BizJournals, September 12, 2007

The Hawaii Department of Human Services has extended its contract with Affiliated Computer Services Inc. to provide information technology and claims-management services for the state's Medicaid program.

The six-month contract extension is worth $6.4 million.

Posted by Info Center at 10:18 AM in Health | Information Technology | Social Services | Permalink

Source: By Kelly Mahoney, Inside Tucson Business (AZ), Wednesday, September 12, 2007

Arizona's state government is spending $98 million over the next five years to replace outdated and redundant networking systems. The effort, called AZNet, has already saved taxpayers $3.8 million. The effort is called AZNet and is being executed by Accenture, an outside consulting group. The five-year contract is worth $98 million and was awarded to the company in 2005.

Posted by Info Center at 10:08 AM in Information Technology | Permalink

Patrick Thibodeau, Computerworld (CA), August 29, 2007

Affiliated Computer Services Inc. this week announced an outsourcing contract extension with the municipal government in Riverside, Calif., that could be worth up to $17 million over three years. But in four months, Riverside CIO Steve Reneker plans to seek new bids to manage the city's IT operations to see if he can improve on its deal with ACS.

Reneker said he doesn't want Dallas-based ACS, or any other IT outsourcing vendor that he may hire in the future, to get too comfortable. So Riverside's new contract with ACS is guaranteed for just one year through next July, with two one-year renewal options.

....... But Reneker said that before he was hired as Riverside's CIO in 2005, the outsourcing vendor's contract manager was also heading the city's IT department. "That didn't work out well -- obviously, their motivator was to generate revenue and not to save the city money," he said.

...... And increased data center consolidation is the trend, according to a report (.pdf) released this month by the National Association of State Chief Information Officers. IT executives from 29 states completed the survey, and the NASCIO said that 18 of the respondents were either planning consolidations or working on projects, while four others said they had already completed consolidation moves.

Posted by Info Center at 9:59 AM in Information Technology | Permalink

Source: By BRIAN LYMAN, Press Register (AL), Wednesday, August 22, 2007

The Alabama Medicaid Agency on Tuesday chose a subsidiary of Affiliated Computer Services, a Dallas-based database services company, to implement an electronic database for Medicaid clients around the state.

The Fortune 500 company, which hired a former aide to Gov. Bob Riley as a lobbyist days before the contract was awarded, has won projects throughout the world but has been followed by scandal in recent years, including the loss of millions of personal records in two states and allegations of bribery in securing a Canadian contract.

Posted by Info Center at 10:40 AM in Health | Information Technology | Permalink

Source: By ED SEALOVER, THE GAZETTE (CO), August 22, 2007 - 12:02AM

The state auditor’s office blasted the Department of Labor and Employment for failing to oversee the development of a new computer system earlier this decade, saying problems that cost Colorado $24 million could have been found and addressed sooner.

The Labor Department contracted with a private firm in 2001 to create a computer system, known as Genesis, which would process unemployment benefits and taxes. After a series of missed deadlines and failed tests, the department canceled the project in December 2005 and received back just $8 million of the $32 million it had paid to Accenture.

....... An audit released Tuesday (.pdf) found that the department did not establish a project-management structure that involved three levels of oversight on the contractor, relying instead on Accenture to oversee and manage its project.

Posted by Info Center at 10:35 AM in Audits/Reporting | Horror Stories | Information Technology | Permalink

Source: Capital Times (WI), 8/21/2007 11:56 am

One of the reasons why this newspaper began editorializing years ago about the need for the state of Wisconsin to avoid doing business with Accenture, the contractor that was unfortunately given the responsibility of building a voter registration system, was our sense that the corporation had a troubling record of respecting its responsibilities.

……… Paying any more money to Accenture would be a travesty. Formally breaking ties with Accenture would seem to make sense, but it is essential that any transition assures that state employees will be able to quickly clean up any messes left by the contractor.

Posted by Info Center at 1:31 PM in Horror Stories | Information Technology | Permalink

Source: By BOB LOWRY, Huntsville Times (AL), Monday, August 20, 2007

Workers who routinely check out cars from the state motor pool for the weekend, have state e-mail accounts and take home state-owned laptop computers may appear to be public employees. But that wasn't the case with 10 employees of a company who worked under a contract with the Alabama Department of Human Resources and Auburn University at Montgomery.

…… AIM's contract with DHR for information technology services was scheduled to run from Sept. 25, 2006, through April 30, 2007, but it was cut short after Ken Wallis, Riley's legal adviser, received complaints.

……. Among the problems cited, he said, was improper use of state vehicles by AIMS' employees. Other problems were AIMS employees being paid late, being paid with cash and their payroll checks bouncing.

Related editorial from the Huntsville Times: Public vs. private

…….. But what also needs to come from this is a re-examination of the pluses and minuses of using private companies for state work. Sometimes, in terms of accountability and good government, private may not always be best.

Posted by Info Center at 10:54 AM in Information Technology | Permalink

Source: Indianapolis Star (IN), August 21, 2007

A company that provided electronic voting machines used in more than half of Indiana's counties is appealing a $360,000 fine for election law violations in 2006.

The fine levied last month against Indianapolis-based MicroVote General Corp. by the secretary of state was based on the company providing uncertified voting equipment to 47 counties.

MicroVote previously sued Secretary of State Todd Rokita for withholding Help America Vote Act funds from several counties that had purchased election systems from the company. That suit is pending in Marion Superior Court.

Posted by Info Center at 10:52 AM in Information Technology | Permalink

Source: By PATRICK MARLEY, Journal Sentinel (WI), Aug. 19, 2007

The contractor in charge of building a voter registration system is in a billing fight with the state Elections Board, with the vendor saying it is owed nearly $2 million and the board contending too much work remains to make that payment now.

…….. The vendor, Accenture, says it finished its contract work in January and is performing additional duties under a nine-month warranty. That would mean Accenture would be done completely in October, and the state would have to pay additional sums for any other work. The board, however, says Accenture hasn't delivered the full system yet and that the warranty clock won't start ticking until it does.

Posted by Info Center at 11:15 AM in Information Technology | Permalink

Source: By Aliya Sternstein, National Journal's Technology Daily, August 14, 2007

A debate is stirring over a proposal by the Health and Human Services Department to privatize the government's existing advisory body on health information technology.

The American Health Information Community, chartered in 2005, currently counsels HHS on hastening the adoption of health IT. Now HHS is forming a successor entity, as required under the charter. The agency's proposition calls for an independent and sustainable public-private partnership.

……. Several labor and consumer advocacy groups and the seniors' group AARP have submitted comments opposing privatization over concerns that the proposed spin-off would lack accountability and transparency.

Posted by Info Center at 10:40 AM in Federal | Health | Information Technology | Permalink

Source: By Lauren Dorgan and Sarah Liebowitz, Concord Monitor (NH), August 15. 2007 12:15AM

New Hampshire's voting system tallied votes in last year's elections, but is it constitutional? Nope, says attorney Paul Twomey.

"In the New Hampshire constitution, there's about four or five separate places where they indicate how voting is to occur, and they all say in a slightly different form that an election official is to count and sort in an open fashion," said Twomey, who represented the Democratic Party in the Election Day 2002 phone-jamming lawsuit. But with the state's optical scan voting machines, "the counting is outsourced to Diebold," the voting machine manufacturer.

Posted by Info Center at 10:38 AM in Information Technology | Laws/Legislation | Permalink

Source: By Lynn Bartels, Rocky Mountain News (CO), August 14, 2007

Dismayed lawmakers learned Monday that the state might have to scrap a new but flawed computer system for vehicle registrations that already has cost taxpayers nearly $11 million.

........ As for the Colorado State Titling and Registration System, or CSTARS, Huber said the state is still assessing how to proceed. She said her department and the attorney general are talking to the vendor, Avanade, a subsidiary of Accenture, a company that worked on two other troubled state computer projects.

Posted by Info Center at 11:02 AM in Horror Stories | Information Technology | Permalink

Source: By BEN GREENE, Associated Press, 08.09.07

A federal grand jury indicted a corporate executive who allegedly ran a scheme to make $32 million in false purchases of computer equipment, spending the money instead on beach real estate and private jet travel, prosecutors said Thursday.

........ At a news conference, U.S. Attorney Rod J. Rosenstein called it one of the largest monetary theft cases ever prosecuted in Maryland.

.......... Fabian's alleged scheme defrauded his employer, Reston, Va.-based government consulting company Maximus Inc.; an equipment leasing company called Solarcom, in Norcross, Ga., and financial institutions, according to prosecutors and the indictment.

Posted by Info Center at 11:37 AM in Horror Stories | Information Technology | Permalink

Source: By JIM PROVANCE, Toledo BLADE (OH), Sunday, July 29, 2007

……. Highly paid contractors outnumber state employees on the ongoing $158 million Ohio Administrative Knowledge System (OAKS) 167-to-119. Of the 167 contractors on the project, 117 work for Accenture, the company that was behind the failed OhioWorks. The OAKS project manager, state employee David White, was being paid about $52 an hour when he resigned on July 20 rather than be fired. That's roughly a quarter of the $200 an hour Ohio taxpayers were paying Compuware Corp. consultant Brian Welch, who was working as his assistant. Mr. Welch's contract has been terminated.

……. Bruce Wyngaard, operations director for the Ohio Civil Service Employees Association, said progress has been made since 2001 to develop more in-house computer talent and that the Strickland administration has been receptive to continuing that. But he said not enough of that has been done to date with OAKS, a massive centralization of payroll, purchasing, and other accounting functions from various departments and agencies.

Posted by Info Center at 3:03 PM in Horror Stories | Information Technology | Permalink

Source: By Mark Niquette, THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH (OH), Thursday, July 19, 2007 3:51 AM

E-mail exchanges among state officials about the theft of a computer backup tape containing sensitive personal information are clear: That material was not supposed to be on the tape.

....... State leaders are looking to a report by Ohio Inspector General Thomas P. Charles, expected Friday, to address lingering questions about the incident affecting more than 1.2 million Ohio individuals, businesses and other groups with Social Security numbers or other information on the tape.

........ Meanwhile, Strickland confirmed yesterday that his office has discussed trying to hold financially accountable outside contractors who worked on the new system if it is proven they were significantly responsible for not securing the data.

........ Sylvester said the state has paid $63.8 million of the $158 million cost of the new system to outside contractors since 2001, with $48.6 million going to Accenture.

Accenture corporate spokesman Peter Soh said company officials "regret that the whole incident happened and any negative impact it could have on the citizens of Ohio."

Posted by Info Center at 10:34 AM in Horror Stories | Information Technology | Permalink

Source: Jody Lawrence-Turner, Spokesman Review (WA), July 19, 2007

Spokane representatives involved in selecting a company to run cameras that catch red-light runners will travel to Baltimore soon to inspect and inquire about how that city’s operation is working.

Affiliated Computer Services and Nestor Traffic Services contracted with the East Coast city about 2 ½ years ago, officials said.

Despite concerns raised regarding ACS’ involvement in an ongoing bribery case in Edmonton, Alberta, the city of Spokane’s nine-member selection committee voted 5-to-4 to go with the jointly-operated company.

Posted by Info Center at 10:32 AM in Information Technology | Permalink

Source: Ellen Perlman, Governing, Vol. 20 no. 5, February 2007

Instead of the time-tested purchasing process, commonwealth officials are experimenting with a different business model — one the legislature introduced a decade ago but limited to transportation and school construction projects: letting the private sector become a partner. With that limit lifted in 2002, IT officials have been freed to tap private companies for their technical expertise and their deep pockets. Company representatives can be invited in the front door — before a project takes shape — to make suggestions about how the state could best improve a system. In return, the company whose suggestion wins is not only awarded the contract, it also gains the opportunity to reap revenue rewards in exchange for risking its own money on the success of the project.

Posted by Info Center at 10:34 AM in Information Technology | Permalink

Source: By Jim McTague, Barron's (subscription req.), 16 July 2007

Big labor and its democratic allies on Capitol Hill have failed twice in recent months to overcome GOP opposition to pro-union legislation. The third time may be the charm. There's a major pro-union provision in the farm bill that will be marked up this week by the House Agricultural Committee.

It is tailored to kill Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels' $1.6 billion food-stamp/welfare outsourcing contract with International Business Machines, an arrangement that the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees says is being championed by right-wing ideologues at the expense of the needy.

The impact would be felt beyond Indiana. If Afscme and its allies, which include farm groups and nutrition advocates, are successful, that would throw a wet blanket on new outsourcing projects in other states.

Posted by Info Center at 11:10 AM in Information Technology | Laws/Legislation | Social Services | Permalink

Source: Susan Ruttan, The Edmonton Journal (Canada), July 13, 2007

EDMONTON - The city should end its scandal-plagued photo-radar contract with a U.S. company and run the photo enforcement program itself, a new report says. Running the program in-house will reduce operating costs from $2.8 million a year to $555,000 a year, it says.

.......The contract with Dallas-based Affiliated Computer Services can be terminated with two months' notice, he said.

ACS was charged in 2006 with offering secret commissions to two Edmonton police officers to get a long-term contract worth up to $90 million over 20 years. The company will make its next court appearance Sept. 10.

Posted by Info Center at 10:19 AM in Horror Stories | Information Technology | Publicization | Permalink

Source: By SARAH CASSI, The Express-Times (PA), Thursday, June 28, 2007

EASTON | Northampton County administrators are up in arms over county council's refusal to reject bids for a county information technology contract, a move officials contend could have saved $850,000.

Three companies bid for the four-year IT contract: Computer Aid Inc. of Allentown, $9,151,000; CMC Americas, Baton Rouge, La., $9,287,652; and Affiliated Computer Services of Dallas, $10,002,873.

...... Fiscal Affairs Director Vic Mazziotti asked council to reject all three bids and rebid the contract. Instead, council voted 7-1 last week to keep the Affiliated Computer Services bid, the most expensive of the three.

Posted by Info Center at 10:54 AM in Information Technology | Permalink

Source: This site is hosted by the Service Employees International Union, wholly independent of ACS.

You got to wonder if folks who depend on ACS for services are at all worried about the Cerberus buyout in the works. Given the number of government contracts ACS has, you hope that someone in D.C. is paying attention.

Posted by Info Center at 10:49 AM in Information Technology | Websites/databases | Permalink

Source: By Andrew Welsh-Huggins, Associated Press (OH), Thursday, May 17, 2007

The state is ending contracts that paid outside consultants millions of dollars to oversee a massive computer project already chock-full of other consultants and dozens of state employees. Billing by one contractor cost the state $4.8 million in just one year; annual salaries for other consultants ranged from a high of $500,000 to a low of $200,000. Those jobs paid a rate far above the average $64,000 salary earned by the 114 state employees also assigned to the project, according to state records.

…….. The largest private company working on OAKS is consulting firm Accenture LLP, which has on average about 100 workers assigned to the project as part of an $85 million contract the company won two years ago.

Posted by Info Center at 10:28 AM in Horror Stories | Information Technology | Permalink

Source: St. Petersburg Times (FL), May 23, 2007

In pulling the plug on an $89-million accounting system disaster, Florida Chief Financial Officer Alex Sink has delivered a potent message to those who do business with the state: Get the work done right, on time and on budget, or be gone.

Private companies can and often do perform valuable work for government, but the failed "Project Aspire" is a case study in how wholesale privatization can run amok.

...... The primary contractor, BearingPoint, has already left the job. It blames bureaucrats for constantly changing their minds. Bureaucrats blame lawmakers for changing the funding. Meanwhile, the state still uses its old accounting methods.

Posted by Info Center at 10:35 AM in Horror Stories | Information Technology | Permalink

Source: By PATRICK MARLEY, Journal Sentinel (WI), May 16, 2007

The state never sought an independent analysis of whether it should consolidate its computer servers before it embarked on the job - a project that state officials now say might not realize any of the $15.6 million in projected savings. The state hired Indianapolis-based Crowe Chizek & Co. to make recommendations on server consolidation and then implement those recommendations. The arrangement "raises the concern that the contractor has an incentive to portray server consolidation as beneficial to the state," legislative auditors wrote in recently released documents.

……. Crowe Chizek was to get $7 million for the work, but last year the state refused to pay $1.8 million of that because the job wasn't finished. Crowe Chizek then stopped working on the project, and state employees have been handling it since.

Posted by Info Center at 2:20 PM in Horror Stories | Information Technology | Permalink

Source: By Andrew Welsh-Huggins, Associated Press (OH), May 17, 2007

The state is ending contracts that paid outside consultants millions of dollars to oversee a massive computer project already chock-full of other consultants and dozens of state employees.

Billing by one contractor cost the state $4.8 million in just one year; annual salaries for other consultants ranged from a high of $500,000 to a low of $200,000.

Posted by Info Center at 1:53 PM in Information Technology | Permalink

Source: Sheboygan Press (WI), March 8, 2007

Municipal clerks in Wisconsin may soon be an endangered species. That's because many of them are throwing up their hands in frustration over the statewide voter registration list that is still incomplete a year past deadline, error-prone and cumbersome to work with.

Wisconsin, like the rest of the states, was ordered to have a statewide voter list in place by 2006, but program developer Accenture still hasn't delivered a user-friendly and acceptable electronic database.

Posted by Info Center at 11:26 AM in Horror Stories | Information Technology | Permalink

Source: By Jason Stein, Wisconsin State Journal (WI), March 6, 2007

By June the state will have poured more than $35 million into a computer server project that is delayed and has no timetable for completion, officials say. They expect to spend another $36 million over the next two years - for a projected $71 million by mid-2009. That includes rent and other expenses since last spring at a Far East Side data center that was intended in part to hold the project's computer servers. Relatively few have been installed there. The state has had a run of costly computer technology blunders publicized in the last year, and a report on them by the Legislative Audit Bureau is expected in the coming weeks.

Posted by Info Center at 11:32 AM in Information Technology | Permalink

Source: By Bill Cotterell, Tallahassee Democrat, Feb 22, 2007

Gov. Charlie Crist ordered a top-to-bottom review of privatization in state government Wednesday - starting with the troubled ''People First'' contract with Convergys for online personnel services.

''The review will serve as a starting point for evaluating how to reap the most value from the system, whether privatization has merit - if it does, we should use it, if it doesn't, we should not,'' Crist said at a news conference with Chief Financial Officer Alex Sink.

Posted by Info Center at 11:09 AM in Audits/Reporting | Human Resources | Information Technology | Permalink

Source: By PATRICK MARLEY, Journal Sentinel (WI), Feb. 18, 2007

The state has pulled the plug on what was to be a $41.2 million computer project after it spent $10 million on a key component that has yet to work. The suspension of the federally funded EnABLES project comes in the midst of an audit of state information technology projects and less than a year after the University of Wisconsin System abandoned a payroll system that had cost $26 million. …… Of the $23.6 million spent on the project, $10.4 million went to prime contractor Tier Technologies, $2.6 million went to Curam Software and the rest was used to pay state employees and buy equipment. ……

A related project has also been plagued with delays. The Statewide Unemployment Insurance Tax Enterprise System, or SUITES, was originally budgeted at $17.2 million, but is now expected to cost $29 million - $12.2 million more than originally planned. ….. Accenture, the prime contractor for the job, completed its share of work in 2005, and state employees are now completing the project.

Posted by Info Center at 11:14 AM in Horror Stories | Information Technology | Permalink

Source: By Sean P. Murphy, Boston Globe (MA), February 2, 2007

A state contractor gained access to the identities of 1,200 accident victims at the state Department of Industrial Accidents and stole the identities of at least three people, opened credit card accounts in their names, and rang up thousands of dollars in jewelry and other purchases, according to court documents.

Posted by Info Center at 2:21 PM in Information Technology | Permalink

Source: By Bill Cotterell, Tallahassee Democrat (FL), December 11, 2006

Three years into Gov. Jeb Bush's massive privatization of state personnel services and computerization of state purchasing, a new audit says the state still can't document whether the projects are saving taxpayers' money.
The Department of Management Services, in response to the preliminary audit findings of Auditor General Bill Monroe, said it does not have authority to delve into every state agency and find out how much they are saving by using the "People First" personnel service and MyFloridaMarketPlace purchasing system. That would take legislative authorization, DMS said.

Posted by Info Center at 10:04 AM in Human Resources | Information Technology | Permalink

Source: By L.A. LOREK, San Antonio Express-news (TX), Nov. 28, 2006, 11:28PM

International Business Machines Corp. in Austin has won a seven-year, $863 million contract to consolidate the Texas state government's data centers in a move designed to beef up computer security and save the state money.

Posted by Info Center at 10:29 AM in Information Technology | Permalink

Source: by Andy McCue, Silicon.com, November 21, 2006

Supermarket Sainsbury's is ahead of schedule to achieve £40m-a-year cost savings from bringing its IT back in-house after scrapping an outsourcing deal with Accenture last year. Sainsbury's signed a 10-year outsourcing contract with Accenture in November 2000, hoping to cut £35m per year off its £200m annual IT budget, but ditched the deal a year ago as part of a back-to-basics programme aimed at saving £285m this year and £440m next year across the company.

Posted by Info Center at 10:14 AM in Information Technology | Permalink

Source: By Steve Raabe, Denver Post (CO), 10/30/2006 11:21:22 PM MST

The Colorado Department of Labor and Employment expects to report by January whether it can salvage any of a nonworking $39 million computer system. A report issued Monday by the Colorado Legislative Audit Committee says the state Labor Department will determine by January if parts of the system can be saved or if it will have to start from scratch to create a new method for tracking unemployment taxes and jobless benefits. The Labor Department last year terminated its contract with Accenture LLP after state officials said two key components of Accenture's new computer system didn't work.

Posted by Info Center at 11:17 AM in Horror Stories | Information Technology | Permalink

Source: By Melissa Harris, Baltimore Sun, October 26, 2006

Diebold Election Systems shipped Maryland flawed electronic voting machines that were used in the 2004 election, then quietly replaced the malfunctioning components last year, documents and interviews show. Gilles W. Burger, chairman of the State Board of Elections, said this week that he and fellow members were initially told that Diebold was performing a "technical refresher" of the voting machines during July and August last year. He later learned that the refresher was really the repair of a flaw discovered by Diebold about three years earlier but not disclosed to him and other board members. …… The consequences of the last-minute security upgrades were clear in a March 26, 2004, e-mail from another consultant to Lamone. "This put SBE [State Board of Elections] into a position to deal with a last-minute fire drill, taking their time and attention from election operations at a critical period just prior to the election," wrote consultant Michael E. Curtis of Accenture. "Not to mention the risk that the state could have been in a situation to abandon the use of the equipment at the last minute."

Posted by Info Center at 11:38 AM in Horror Stories | Information Technology | Permalink