NYC Comptroller Liu Expresses Concern over Extension of No-Bid IT Contracts

If anyone is wondering were the money is going, here is a press release from NYC Comptroller Liu's office related to how NYC contracts “IT” work. Are no bid hourly contracts the road NYC should be taking? It seems like our Controller has other ideas on how to better negotiate Information Technology contracts and open the bidding process to new IT firms.

Gregory

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NEW YORK, NY – City Comptroller John C. Liu today stated the following in response to questions about the City’s intention toaward $290 million in unspecified, multi-year extensions to information technology ("IT") contracts:

"This simply preserves the CityTime model of contracts, which pays consultants based on hourly rates rather than fixed price deliverables. Today's approvals are deeply concerning, especially after the Administration's encouraging testimony just earlier this week aimed toward a more unified, City-wide strategy for IT contracts. There was an opening to competitively bid these services, instead these extensions were rubber stamped for the same crop of vendors, some of which have been in use since 2008. Today’s decision reflects poor planning and bad business practices.

“My office will closely examine the contract packages once we receive them and continue to monitor the integrity of the procurement process. We must ensure that the City of New York is fully leveraging economies of scale and, most importantly, enhancing services to New Yorkers."

BACKGROUND

In January 2011, Comptroller Liu rejected a $286 million DoITT contract request for ECTP, which had mushroomed from a $386 million initial budget to $666 million. Of particular concern was the vague budgeting formula applied to the bulk of the contract allotting unspecified "time and expense" costs; this would have allowed outside consultants to bill on an hourly basis and collect exorbitant fees, as in the case of the original CityTime project. Working together with City Hall, the Comptroller's Office registered a restructured $95 million fixed-price contract tied to results, rather than open up taxpayers to a potential CityTime 2.

In May 2010, Comptroller Liu released a report outlining the problems associated with large IT projects undertaken by the City. The report found the City’s management of IT projects in recent years plagued with excessive cost overruns and missed deadlines, putting hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars at risk or explicitly wasted. Comptroller Liu's report outlined primary symptoms of "Why System Development Projects Fail" and provided a number of recommendations to ensure better oversight of IT projects.

The report is available at:

http://www.comptroller.nyc.gov/bureaus/audit/audits_2010/05-13-10_FS10-136S.shtm

Mark Naison: "NYC School System More Corrupt Today Than It Ever Was Under Community Control"

Dr. Mark Naison, Fordham University professor and education activist, forwarded the following related to news that the private firm Wireless Generation was awarded a 27 million dollar no bid contract from the NYC Department of Education.

The strong statement by Dr. Naison below is a response to recent articles including the article posted on “the New York Public School Independent Voices of New York City Public School Parents” blog site. The article was written by Leone Haimson who is also the Executive Director of an organization called “Class Size Matters”. Links are provided below related to the blog that posted the article and the Class Size Matters web site.

Are we seeing an unprecedented amount of corruption in our school system as Mr. Mark Naison states below? Are any contingencies included in the deal to employ NYC middle class residents? Is everyone comfortable with connections and associations alleged by Dr. Naison and various news sites? Were can the average man get some of these no bid contracts? Please do comment and let me know where the community stands on the above issues? Is Dr. Naison on target or way off?

Gregory
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NYC School System More Corrupt Today Than It Ever Was Under Community Control The decision of the New York State Department of Education to award a 27 million dollar no bid contract to Wireless Generation, a company owned by Rupert Murdoch which employs ex NYC Chancellor Joel Klein, reinforces something I have been feeling for some time, but have never previously publicly-- namely that the New York City Public School system is more corrupt today under Mayoral Control than it ever was when there was community input into the management of schools. Under community control, when money was siphoned off, it stayed in the neighborhood, going to local politicians and their friends. Now it goes to test companies, management consultant firms, manufacturers of educational software, charter school enterprises, all of them connected to the Wall Street firms and media conglomerates that control the city's and the nation's economy. Professor Henry Taylor of SUNY Buffalo was right in identifying the Educational Industrial complex as the latest wing of the Misery Industries, those enterprises that find opportunity in the suffering of the nation's working class and poor (the other wing is the Prison Industrial Complex). If you undermine public education, and take the power over schools away from teachers, parents and community organizations, then corporate enterprises can swoop down and find enormous opportunities for profit in the” reformed" system. In education, we are seeing the raw application of power for the pursuit of profit by the wealthiest people in the country. If we take this lying down, democracy in this country, already dramatically weakened, is all but dead
http://nycpublicschoolparents.blogspot.com/2011/06/another-super-mugging-ny-state.html

http://www.classsizematters.org/