Millions spent with nothing to show for it
By A TIMES EDITORIAL
Published August 4, 2007
Three years and $7.1-million only buys excuses in Pinellas County these days. A year and a half after the original deadline, a report from the county clerk's internal audit division found little if any tangible progress toward replacing the county's 25-year-old criminal justice information system. It's time for all parties to regroup.
Officials are quick to point fingers in explaining why a plan approved in 2003 with a $12.2-million budget and three-year time line has gone nowhere.
In the recent report, Robert Melton, chief deputy director for the internal audit division, faults CJIS and Information Technology boards for "poor planning, poor management and poor oversight."
Members of those two boards say more communication is needed between them and the more than 20 information technology employees working on the project. Those employees attribute the problems to underestimating the scope of the effort, which includes creating a system that would combine juvenile, adult, traffic, civil and probate applications into a single public records database.
Gone is any hope of having 10 phases completed by January 2006; they now are talking about seeing the first phase designed and ready for testing in June 2008. Technology employees working on the project at a cost of $2-million a year predict that it will be finished by 2009, while auditors think it will take until 2014.
Taxpayers shouldn't be forced to sign a blank check for an effort that's been stalled for months. They need assurance that the new records system is feasible, and they need to see a realistic budget.
Everyone involved - auditors, board members and employees - needs to reassess the effort, agree to a time line and stick to it with regular progress updates and firm milestones. They've already wasted enough taxpayer dollars without anything to show for it.