CityTime Troubles Go Beyond Stolen Cash

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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By Garth Johnston in News on January 21, 2011 6:22 PM

Comments [rss]

h153r

They should just open source the thing, give it 5 years, and could have something better than they do now.

ANGRYGOD11

Open source requires vision. Thats not high on Bloomies list.

silver

Cost plus billing FTW!

Sinchy

That's what you get when you hire defense contractors.

glenni1948

The city needs a "role up your sleeves" mayor not an aloof billionaire with absurd national political ambitions. He claimed the city was being run like one of his successful businesses. Nothing could be further from the truth. After the twin fiasco's involving his secretively appointed chancellor, the failure to clear the snow and the rotten corruption of City Time I believe we are seeing the well deserved demise of the arrogant billionaire in politics. Donald Trump beware!

Rod

um actually this is precisely how he runs his own business.

all are money pits, from Bloomberg Radio to Bloomberg News to Bloomberg Businessweek.

he props them all up with the billions he scammed on his Terminal business which was created by someone else who is not inept.

and this is why he ran for mayor: to use his position as mayor to quadruple the number of his terminals to financial firms like Goldman Sachs (who he helped out as mayor) or BP or the muslim nations he pandered to with his fake support of the mosque.

you act like you're surprised to find out a guy who only cared about greed his whole life cares only about greed.

glenni1948

You missed my point entirely.

rotstan

Theres a sucker born every minute. NYC is great at electing them. Chumps.

blindmalice

Good idea. Turn a corrupt, inefficient, money draining, over budget, underperforming operation that involves thier paychecks over to city employees. The same genius's that run the schools, the MTA, manage snowstorms and put the Office of Emergency Management in the World Trade Center. That should do the trick.

Rod

well we tried Private Contractors and the free market and that failed 100% , even according to kool-aid king bloomtard.

no city employees make $600,000 for "consulting".

no union employees get even $200,000!

Rod

everyone overlooks the huge fact that this went unchecked at any time under bloomtard's TWO TERMS. it was never supposed to be uncovered until after they were all long gone with the cash.

i'm glad he overstayed his welcome.

and every single contract he signed has problems like this.

CityTime is just trendy right now.