New York City Comptroller Scott Stringer rejected a $30 million contract to outsource selection and oversight of all information technology contractors to Computer Aid Inc. of Allentown, Pa.
"At the core of this contract is an unproven service model which provides no adequate fail-safe if the system is unsuccessful," Stringer said. "Information technology contracts have been a recurring issue for the city: ballooning costs and insufficient oversight are a toxic mix for taxpayers."
Stringer urged the Department of Information Technology and Telecommunications, which issued the contract, to come back with a plan that justifies the choice of Computer Aid and its model.
The contract between the IT department and Computer Aid proposes a three-month pilot "managed services model" that allows the vendor to take over the selection of all IT consultants.
The department now operates under a multiple-services model in which the agency conducts mini-bids within a pool of qualified information technology consulting services to identify which vendors best fit the needs of city agencies - with the contract vehicles centralized through the department.
"The newly proposed managed services model limits and restricts the City's direct role in the administration, management, and oversight of the contracting process,"
Last November, a federal jury convicted three computer consultants, including a former city consultant, of corruption related to CityTime, a payroll modernization project that spiked from $63 million to roughly $700 million, most of it to primary contractor Science Applications International Corp.
