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Bloomberg Still Claiming $700 Million CityTime Fraud Mess Was So Awesome
By
Jen Chung
Published Jul 27, 2013
Modified Jul 27, 2013
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By
Jen Chung
Published Jul 27, 2013
Modified Jul 27, 2013
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One huge scandal from the Bloomberg administration is the CityTime fraud, where the city poured hundreds of millions into an automated payroll system. Basically, the system was supposed to save NYC $60 million, but then we ended up paying over $700 million extra for it. Mayor Bloomberg even admitted that they didn't pay as much attention as they should have to it! But now he's saying we're all "lucky" the fraud happened.
Bloomberg said on his weekly radio program that the city actually made out pretty well, given that NYC received over $500 million in a settlement. He explained, "That whole system cost us something like only $100 million, and it should have been many times that. We were lucky because of the fraud... In the end it turned out that because of the recovery that we saved a lot of money. And it certainly works." And it helped save the city's budget last year—yay, badly-managed projects!
Frequent Bloomberg critic (who is being sued by Bloomberg!) NYC Comptroller John Liu was less happy, with his spokeswoman telling the Post, "The heat must be getting to Mayor Bloomberg, who conveniently forgets that his gross mismanagement led to consultants ripping off taxpayers to the tune of a half-billion dollars just from CityTime, and millions more from other consultants."
Tagged
citytime
deal with it
fraud
mayor bloomberg
scandal
Jen Chung
Jen Chung is a former WNYC and Gothamist editor.
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Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
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