18. July 2009 by admin.

Sometimes it’s worthwhile just to re-assess a project that’s going wrong.  And that’s exactly what Veterans’ Affairs (VA) is doing. The Veterans Affairs Department is putting 45 information technology projects on hold — at least temporarily — while it figures out how to get them back on track. VA Secretary Eric Shinseki announced the decision today in a press release. He says the agency will evaluate the projects, which range from e-learning to document imaging to medical billing to health IT, to determine if they are worth continuing.

“VA has a responsibility to the American people, who are investing millions of dollars in technology projects, to deliver quality results that adhere to a budget and are delivered on time.” Shinseki says. “They need to have confidence that the dollars they are spending are being effectively used to improve the lives of our veterans.”

The projects are worth an estimated $200 million in fiscal 2009, according to the Office of Management and Budget. According to OMB’s IT dashboard Web site, VA lists 41 major investments worth $2.6 billion for 2009. Of those 41 major investments, 26 are considered at high risk, including 20 that are off schedule.

On Friday’s In Depth with Francis Rose, VA chief information officer Roger Baker outlined why the projects were put on hold and not simply terminated, “We are going to change things and try and bring them back on track. We still have a requirement for the things those projects are trying to accomplish.” Federal chief information officer Vivek Kundra says on a blog post that the worst offender of these 45 projects is “110 percent over budget and 17 months behind schedule.”

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11. July 2009 by admin.

City Controller Alan Butkovitz slammed Philadelphia’s water-bill collection system yesterday, saying recent water and sewer rate increases - including a 6.4 percent increase yesterday - were due in part to the city’s inability to fix long-standing problems.”After five attempts and an estimated cost of $50 million, the city still does not have an accurate and fully functioning water-billing system,” Butkovitz said. “While the problem appears to get worse year after year, Philadelphians continue to foot the bill for this ongoing technological mess.”

The problem dates to 2002, when the city began work on a billing system to replace the 30-year-old software that generated bills for 600,000 water customers. After many stops and starts, a new billing system went online in 2008. Butkovitz contends that this billing system is flawed as well, pointing to a drop in water-bill collections ($9 million less under the new system) and an increase in delinquent bills ($11 million). Butkovitz also said the new system still produced erroneous bills, and he released a copy of a February 2008 bill that charged one single-family customer $347,824 for a month of water.

City Revenue Commissioner Keith Richardson, who oversees the billing system, said that bill had been generated in the early months of the new system. when flaws were still being fixed. “The system does now work. People are getting accurate bills,” Richardson said. The commissioner said the dropoff in collections and higher delinquency were due to the faltering economy and new restrictions on the department’s ability to shut off water to delinquent customers, not the billing system.

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