Faulconer calls for approval of Mayor Sanders' IT reform plan
Are you reading this using a computer system from the 1980’s? You’re probably not firing up a Commodore 64 each morning, yet much of the City’s information technology network still uses decades-old systems.
This morning Council President Pro Tem Kevin Faulconer joined Mayor Jerry Sanders and Councilmember Lorie Zapf to unveil the potential savings from two competitively bid IT services contracts. He called on the City Council to approve the agreements, which will help bring City of San Diego operations into the 21st century while creating millions of dollars in efficiencies and savings.
The City Council’s Rules Committee is scheduled to discuss the issue tomorrow at 9:00 a.m. Here are Faulconer’s comments.
Today we are seeing the results of hard-fought reform. Competition works, and San Diegans will reap the benefits.
This proposal guards San Diego tax dollars and provides a 21st century solution to the City’s aging Information Technology system. Approving these contracts will help City employees work more effectively, increase budget transparency and improve financial checks and balances, and free up funds that can be reinvested in San Diego neighborhoods.
The City can achieve millions of dollars worth of savings and efficiencies as a result of this competitive bidding process. The savings from this reform can be reinvested in San Diego’s libraries, parks, road repair and public safety.
I call on my City Council colleagues, particularly those on the Rules Committee, to approve these contracts tomorrow, and bring San Diego into the 21st century.
Matt Awbrey is Communications Director for Council President Pro Tem Kevin Faulconer.
Comments 4
In Valhalla, we still run a Programma 101.
The only reason why the city still has “decades-old” systems is because it has not paid to replace them. That’s not SDDPC’s fault. But look at what the city chose when it finally did replace the old financial systems. It bought SAP, the most expensive application possible. And seventy million dollars later, it’s still working out bugs.
How it is fiscally responsibile to spend 12 million dollars to move to new vendors when you’re likely to save no more than 7 million dollars over the next five years? Does Faulconer admit that those 7 million dollars “savings” were estimated using a yearly increase in SDDPC costs when in reality SDDPC costs have gone down every year for the last five or so?
And if Faulconer was honest, he’d admit that the new contracts don’t provide the same level of service as what the city is getting now. There is so much left out of the new contracts, the vendors are going to reap tens of millions of dollars in extra discretionary spending at T&M rates nearly forty percent higher than SDDPC charges now for labor. Does Faulconer want to address that little tidbit?
Or how about the fact that SDDPC has returned millions of dollars to the city once the fiscal years have ended? SDDPC doesn’t set it’s budget or costs, it works with the city to do that and when there is a surplus, it’s been returned in the form of hard cash or free labor. Are the new vendors going to do that Kevin?
The result is that the city will end up spending more than it does now, get less service, and bury the costs across the departments. Does Faulconer or Zapf know how many staff have already be hired by the city to make up for positions SDDPC was providing but not covered by the new contracts? Much like what the city did during the help desk outsourcing. Faulconer won’t admit it, but the city actually hired several SDDPC staff and made them city employees with city pensions in order to maintain the level of desktop support for the city council when the help desk was outsourced. The rest of the departments had to live with the poor support of vendor EnPointe. EnPointe’s support is so bad that departments don’t even call anymore. They just go directly to SDDPC whenever possible.
So let’s all thank Jerry Sanders, Lori Zapf, and Kevin Faulconer for touting a truly stupid political decision that will cost the city millions of extra dollars and put city data and operations at risk. At least now I know who the fiscal conservatives are and who is nothing more than a posturing RINO.
Come on Matt Awbrey. It shouldn’t take you a day to respond to this, unless you know that your master’s position is bunk. Let us hear how Kevin Faulconer has reviewed all of the numbers and reached the conclusion that these new contracts result in actual fiscal savings as well as an improvement in the the IT operations of the City of San Diego. Or, in any way result in at “21st century” conversion of IT in the City of San Diego. Come on, we’re waiting.
Fiscal conservatives, true Republicans, watch closely.
@T.A.: You can blog on that thing? I’m impressed.
@DHall: No one is blaming the SD Data Processing Corp. The City just had never put the services SDDPC provides out to bid until very recently. Now the results are in and the recommended vendors are projected to generate net savings for the City and move its systems to industry standards. My interactions with DPC employees have been positive and professional, and I’m glad the vendors are looking to qualified DPC staff to fill their positions.