the number of contractors working in the Information Technology & Innovation Department has dropped by less than 30 percent, from 30 outside employees to 21
The potential pitfalls of using third-party vendors to manage technology at New Orleans City Hall were laid bare last month when a federal jury convicted a key contractor of paying hefty bribes and kickbacks to former Mayor Ray Nagin's tech chief in return for millions of dollars in public work.
View full sizeThe number of contractors working in the Information Technology & Innovation Department has dropped by less than 30 percent, from 30 outside employees to 21. Separately, the city's inspector general recently discovered evidence of widespread waste in the city's troubled technology office. Though no crimes were alleged, the inspector general said the city could have saved more than $1 million if it had moved certain jobs in-house instead of depending on another controversial vendor, Telecommunications Development Corp.
When he replaced Nagin a year ago, Mayor Mitch Landrieu vowed to sharply reduce the city's reliance on contractors to perform ordinary tasks. His tech director, Allen Square, declared it a priority to reduce his department's use of outside vendors.
But more than a year into the new administration, the number of contractors working in the renamed Information Technology & Innovation Department has dropped by less than 30 percent, from 30 outside employees to 21, records show.
Though Square has set a goal of slashing that figure to eight by year's end while boosting the number of staff employees from 37 to 62, he said in an interview last week that navigating the city's civil service system -- which Landrieu is attempting to overhaul -- has taken far longer than he anticipated, largely because current job classifications and salary parameters don't fit the applicants he hopes to lure.
Of the 25 staff jobs slated to be added, Square said he's only managed to fill three.
"I think we should have salaries that attract the best and the brightest," he said, adding that in some cases, civil service rules don't easily allow for him to solicit candidates with distinct skill sets -- financial know-how and specialized computer expertise, for instance -- for a single position.
In the meantime, Square said, his skeleton municipal staff is running out of steam.
"What I've been asking of people is not sustainable," he said. "We've asked people to work much harder than most of them have ever worked in their lives. It's time for some reinforcements to come in the house, and you can begin to see the spirits lift because you see some new faces."
Renewing tech contracts
To fortify the troops -- at least temporarily -- the mayor plans to renew for another year the city's agreements with TDC and MSF Global Solutions, a local company run by the city's former computer-based mapping system director, Marseyas Fernandez, a Landrieu spokesman said. Both contracts expire Thursday.
Inspector General Ed Quatrevaux in an August report decried the TDC deal, which Nagin first inked in October 2009, for charging far higher rates for its employees than rates paid to in-house workers for similar work. The difference amounted to nearly $1 million a year at time when the department had 23 staffers, Quatrevaux wrote.
Square noted that the TDC contract has been pared back significantly -- its cap now is $2 million a year, down from $5 million -- and added that unlike during Nagin's tenure, when TDC provided clerical and other low-level employees, his department relies on the company only for highly skilled workers or for narrowly defined projects. He wouldn't say how much the contract cap for the coming year will be.
In all, Square this year aims to reduce the proportion of his budget that goes to professional services contractors to 33 percent, from 55 percent in 2010, records show. Meanwhile, the department's 2011 budget is $13.3 million, up from $11.6 million last year.
Among the employees TDC provides is Square's top aide, a Chicago-based technology and Internet specialist who earns $120 per hour, topping out the rate scale in the firm's contract.
As chief technical adviser, Eric Bergquist for the past year has managed the nitty-gritty of the city's computer hardware and network systems, as well as its Internet and information mapping operations, Square said. He added that he wants to hire an in-house person for the job but has struck out in finding one.
'Fighting fires'
Square, who earns about $131,000 a year, said his own duties as chief information officer are "much broader than pure technology" and range from overseeing upgrades to the payroll system to implementing a new method for tracking building permits, setting up the Ask NOLA! information hotline, facilitating an internal help desk to handle employees' computer problems and making sure public email messages are archived.
Square inherited a widely derided technology infrastructure, and he said he's spent the past year "fighting fires." To support long-term planning, he plans to solicit another contractor next year to assist the city with "strategy, policy and implementation."
Though he wouldn't say how much he might pay the winning firm, Square said he'd ask outsiders to weigh in on such issues as whether City Hall should embrace cloud computing and whether officials ought to maintain an in-house broadband network.
Square, a former strategy consultant, said "when you bring more rigor, more analysis to bear, you bring better decisions. ... If I bring four or five other smart people to the table, wouldn't it be four or five times better?"
Among the strides Square said he's managed to make so far is establishing an information technology governance committee of City Hall staff members to help his office set priorities, rather than the other way around.
Officials also have renegotiated their operating agreement with software giant Microsoft, Square said. For the same $400,000 annual fee the city was already paying, he said, the company by year's end will take over management of the city's email storage and backup.
Also by year's end, Square said he plans to solicit proposals for a new system that will handle the city's finance and accounting systems, human resources tasks and project management. Budgeted this year at $2.5 million, implementing such a complex network could cost as much as $20 million during the next decade, he said.
Michelle Krupa can be reached at mkrupa@timespicayune.com or 504.826.3312.