NYC Comptroller John C. Liu's Remarks on City Time Scandal

Below are remarks by New York City Comptroller John C. Liu at a news conference on Wednesday, May 25, 4:30 p.m. regarding the CityTime project:

“Earlier this afternoon, my office was provided with a letter written to the Executive Director of the Financial Information Services Agency (FISA) by Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC), the prime contractor on the CityTime project. We were informed that SAIC had terminated their senior project manager who led the CityTime project.

“The name of that employee is Gerard Denault.

“SAIC has determined that Mr. Denault violated SAIC’s policies and standards with respect to timekeeping practices while working on CityTime. He routinely billed hours to the CityTime project that he did not in fact work.

“By their own admission, this latest development now implicates, for the first time in this scandal, SAIC. The very company entrusted by our City to build a timekeeping system for NYC employees has grossly mismanaged their own time keeping, and in the process over charged the city for sums of money – still to be determined.

“SAIC now says they will now refund $2,470,522 to the city coffers for the time Mr. Denault billed to hard working NYC taxpayers.

“A few moments ago I sent a letter to the Mayor because I believe we need to work together.

“I am asking him to join me in calling on the Department of Investigation along with all other relevant authorities to conduct a comprehensive review of other possible violations by SAIC, and I am proposing that the City withhold any future payments to SAIC pending the outcome of the investigations.

“This is a sad day for the New York City taxpayer.

“With the proposed budget cuts looming, we at least need to tightly manage expensive outside consultants.

“The public’s trust in government must be bolstered, and I am committed to working with the Mayor to do just that.”

Below is the full text of the letter sent to Mayor Bloomberg on May 25, 2011.

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May 25, 2011

Honorable Michael R. Bloomberg

Mayor

City Hall

New York, NY 10007

Re: Science Application International Corporation (SAIC)

Dear Mayor Bloomberg:

Today, we were informed by SAIC that they have terminated their project manager for CityTime. SAIC cited the project manager’s violation of SAIC’s policies and standards, specifically with regard to his time billed to the City of New York. Because SAIC cannot accurately calculate the amount that should have been billed to the City, SAIC will reimburse the City for this individual’s billed services. This repayment amounts to $2,470,522.

To date, the alleged fraud relating to CityTime has only involved subcontractors. This latest development now implicates the prime contractor and compels a comprehensive review of SAIC’s billings to the City, in particular, SAIC employees whose time was billed to the CityTime project.

I am directing my representative on the OPA board to introduce a resolution on the points below, and ask that your representative support the resolution:

• The Department of Investigation, along with all other relevant authorities, conduct a comprehensive review of other possible timekeeping violations; and
• The City withholds any outstanding payments to SAIC pending the outcome of the investigations.

I believe the above actions are necessary and as always, I am available to discuss any of these issues with you. Thank you.

Sincerely,

John C. Liu

View letter from SAIC to FISA: http://www.comptroller.nyc.gov/press/pdfs/SAIC-FISA-5-2011.pdf

STATEMENT BY PUBLIC ADVOCATE DE BLASIO ON MAYOR BLOOMBERG PICKING NISSAN TO BE TAXI OF TOMORROW

“The Taxi of Tomorrow should be creating the jobs of today for New York City, New York State and America. Instead, the Administration is giving away a $1 billion contract to a company based overseas without seeking any commitments for investment in our local and national economies. This failure, along with potential conflicts of interest between the TLC’s hired consultant Ricardo Inc. and Nissan, cast serious doubts on the legitimacy of the Administration’s final decision and its focus on bringing New York City out of the recession.”

Haliburton Scams America - NewsWorldWide1 YouTube Video

Disclose the Details: Cloaked City Technology Contracts Result in $185K for a Help Desk Operator by Juan Gonzalez - New York Daily News

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New York City's private computer army keeps mushrooming under Mayor Bloomberg - and no one has any idea of its exact size.

What we do know is the city's overall contract spending has doubled to more than $10 billion in the last five years - and a huge part of the increase is for technology contracts.

Those computer armies can be found inside every city agency. Its foot soldiers sit at city desks.

They carry city ID cards. They spend all their time - often years - devising and maintaining huge information systems with Orwellian names like NYC WIN, ECTP, ACRIS, NICE, CitiServ.

Yet the outside contractors remain a world apart from the ordinary civil servants of our city. The techies routinely bill taxpayers for enormous salaries.

Since their salaries often come out of the city's capital budget, their names, titles and pay rates rarely appear in any expense reports the mayor makes public.

Last week, Brooklyn City Councilwoman Letitia James took a bold step. She introduced a bill that would require an annual report on the size and cost of outside contractors.

"This period of budget deficits is not the time to increase outsourcing," James said.

This column has documented for more than two years the runaway costs of such contracts. They include:

• The 63 consultants from a little-known Florida-based company, Future Technology Associates, being paid an average of $250,000 a year to develop a new financial accounting system for the Department of Education. All of this money went to a firm that had no office and operated out of a mail drop.
• The 230 consultants from defense giant SAIC who were paid an average of $400,000 a year - some of them for a decade - to design and install the infamous CityTime payroll and timekeeping system.
• The nearly 200 Hewlett-Packard consultants who spent years overseeing the $2 billion upgrade to the city's 911 system, known as ECTP. Before Hewlett-Packard was bounced from the job for repeated delays and cost overruns, most of its consultants were being paid between $300,000 and $400,000.
• The $500 million paid to Northrop Grumman to erect NYC WIN, a wireless network for first responders that has been dogged by problems. On top of that initial expense, the city pays Northrop $37 million annually just to maintain NYC WIN.

Under Northrop's contract, a low-level help desk operator is paid $185,000 annually. Meanwhile, a help desk operator directly employed by the city receives $46,000. Throw in pension and health insurance and the cost of that city employee barely reaches $70,000 - about a third of what Northrop charges.

In 2009, lawmakers in Albany required every state agency to provide annual reports on the number and cost of all outside contracts. Consultant costs have plummeted ever since.

James wants the same thing for the city, but Christine Quinn, the Council's powerful speaker, is bobbing and weaving. A close ally of the mayor, Quinn says she supports legislation to better track outside contracts, but she has yet to back making public the actual number of consultants per agency and their salaries.

Why the hesitation?

Taxpayers have a right to know how many $400,000-a-year consultants it takes to build one of these troubled computer systems.

jgonzalez@nydailynews.com