Computer network exceeds set budget

IBM Corp. was to complete the project within one year for $3.6 million. That was March 1996, and $5.2 million has been spent on the system and it's still not complete, the Detroit Free Press reported yesterday.

Although state law is on the Internet, legislators and their staffs still use an old, unconnected system with almost as much manual labor as before.

"We knew two years ago it wouldn't work," said Steve Willis, a computer technician who worked on the project and is now retired from state government. "The product couldn't function as it was originally intended."

House and Senate leaders quietly canceled IBM's contract in February.

"We had recommendations it wasn't working," said Sen. Dan DeGrow (R-Port Huron). "IBM felt they couldn't deliver what they promised. They said we changed some conditions. Both sides agreed the simplest way was to just walk away from it."

Mark Nelson, a spokesperson for IBM Global Government Industry in Maryland, said the project accomplished some goals, such as the Internet function, and created a basis for the Legislature to finish the electronic document network it hired IBM to design.

"Once they realized how much additional work was required to satisfy the original goal, they decided to stop the project. We mutually agreed to terminate the project," Nelson said. "It's not a question of a failed project."

Nelson said it was not uncommon for such a large computer project to bog down.

"Often, until you really start doing the work, you don't know exactly what's going to be involved," he said. "It helps to have a clear understanding from the beginning what you want to accomplish and how you want to get there."

The system, called the Legislative Session Integration System, is one of a list of troubled taxpayer-funded computer projects during the 1990s.

In 1996, an audit discovered little to show for $103 million spent on a computer system to help track child support payments. The audit reported poor management and overspending, and the work resulted in a system that still doesn't work as intended, the Free Press reported.

A computer system for the Family Independence Agency to track welfare cases went on-line last August - three years after the target date.

Dianne Odrobina, Legislative Council administrator, said she will meet with House and Senate leaders to decide how to finish the LSIS network. She said she will consider using in-house staff, who she said have become knowledgeable about the project.

"The complexity with these projects, the experience of people in these areas are such that there are difficulties, and you have to work through them," she said.

04-13-99