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CityTime Troubles Go Beyond Stolen Cash
By
Garth Johnston
Published Jan 21, 2011
Modified Jan 21, 2011
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By
Garth Johnston
Published Jan 21, 2011
Modified Jan 21, 2011
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Oh guys, the CityTime mess is even worse than everybody thought! Beyond the whole "the project is massively over budget" issue and the "consultants stole $80 million from the project" problem a recently released audit from accounting firm KPMG now informs us that SAIC, the folks who have installed the $700 million payroll system, have made it is so complex, and left it so poorly documented, that the company they've essentially made it impossible for another operator to take over the finished product without SAIC first producing a whole slew of detailed instructions that currently do not exist. Or, in the words of Comptroller John Liu, "today we learned that it doesn’t even come with a user manual."
The study was commissioned in September to help win Liu's approval for Bloomberg's plan to extend until June the deadline for defense giant SAIC to finish rolling out the system. But now that we know that "existing documentation is not currently sufficient" to turn over the system, that looks increasingly unlikely. Oh, and if we don't get a new contractor to run the program? SAIC reportedly "wants as much as $40 million annually just to maintain CityTime."
So, yeah. The city not only has dug itself into a massive money pit with CityTime but now it looks like we're going to be in it for awhile longer. Even if the city doesn't quite see it that way. A spokesperson for Bloomberg told the Times: “The report confirms that once we address some outstanding issues—issues that are being addressed—the system can be transferred to another entity for operation. Our goal is to have a system primarily operated by city employees.”
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