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What's A Few Hundred Million Dollars Wasted To Michael Bloomberg?
By
Garth Johnston
Published Jun 24, 2011
Modified Jun 24, 2011
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By
Garth Johnston
Published Jun 24, 2011
Modified Jun 24, 2011
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Despite a massive amount of evidence to the contrary Mayor Bloomberg continues to say that the ongoing CityTime disaster—which has lost the city hundreds of millions of dollars to grift in a time of great financial uncertainty—isn't as bad as it looks.
On his WOR radio show today Bloomberg said that most of the $600 million in cost increases for the automated payroll system were legitimate. Perhaps he didn't read the press release earlier this week from the U.S. Attorney subtitled "Alleged Criminal Scheme Extended Across Virtually Every Level Of CityTime Project; Contractors And Subcontractors Systematically Inflated Costs, Overbilled For Consultants’ Time, And Artificially Extended Completion Date?" (Can't wait for the Hollywood rom-com adaptation of that one.)
Okay, so Bloomberg did admit that “there was an unconscionable amount of fraud” which he says his administration is “going after” but he also insisted that the project's initial cost of $63 million was simply underestimated. The final cost of the project, after all that theft, is north of $740 million. That Bloomberg would defend an overbudget contracted-out program isn't much of a surprise though, considering his administration's penchant for them.
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citytime
mayor bloomberg
Garth Johnston
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