Officials line up to take the blame

A police request for costly new computer gear puts the focus on spending for officers' laptops that remained in the closet.

By ANNE LINDBERG

© St. Petersburg Times, published April 30, 2000

PINELLAS PARK -- In 1998, council members agreed to begin spending about $175,000 for laptops that each city police officer would have in his patrol car.

The officers never saw those computers.

Most of the laptops have been sitting in a closet.

Now the police chief wants to spend more than $750,000 for equipment that renders the laptops obsolete.

If taxpayers want to know whom to blame for the unused laptops, they have choices. Plenty of people are lining up to take the hit.

Randy Linthicum, head of the city's computer department, on Wednesday offered to resign. He apparently felt it was his fault the computers have not yet been programmed for use.

City Manager Jerry Mudd has asked Linthicum to reconsider. Early Friday, officials said they couldn't find Linthicum's resignation letter. But late Friday, Tom Owens, head of the city's Human Resources Department, read the resignation letter over the phone:

"Jerry, it is with great regret that I must inform you of my desire to leave the city of Pinellas Park. I will serve on as is customary for a two-week notice, 15 May. If you desire, I will continue to serve the city until 31 May in an effort to ease the transition of this position."

But Mudd said Linthicum should not be blamed.

The laptop boondoggle, said the city manager, is his own fault. Mudd said he asked too much of Linthicum and the management information systems department while giving them too few resources.

Meanwhile, council member Rick Butler says Linthicum and Mudd are not at fault. The council is. Members asked Linthicum to do too much in too little time.

Mudd also is parceling out blame to the federal government.

Some of those computers were bought with federal grant money, and if the city had not acted quickly, the money would have been lost, the city manager said. That meant the laptops came before anyone in the computer department had enough free time to program them, so they've just sat in the closet.

It's a "good program, but sometimes you have to buy stuff before you need it," Mudd said of the COPS More federal grant.

It's unclear where things will go from here, but the council could decide to hire a consultant to look at long-term computer needs for the entire city. That's what Butler suggested Tuesday for the Police Department. On Wednesday, Mudd said he was inclined to recommend that to the council.

Also Wednesday, Linthicum said the department will begin distributing the laptops on May 15. That should be completed by May 31.

If that happens, that would be 21 months after council first agreed to pay $43,524 for 13 Panasonic laptops. That money came from a federal grant and from confiscated property money. That was Aug. 27, 1998.

In July 1999, the council decided to spend another $125,669 for 45 additional Panasonic computers. All but $7,300 of that money came from various federal grants. In October 1999, the council agreed to buy two more laptops with city funds. That brought the totals to 60 computers and $174,648.

The idea behind the laptops and the grant was to put one in each patrol car. Officers could sit in their cars and write reports rather than come into the office. More officers would remain on the street.

When the laptops arrived, they needed to be programmed. But programmers in the city's computer department were busy doing other things, like making the city's system Y2K-compliant. They also were busy installing a massive new system throughout most of government offices.

So the laptops were stored in the computer department.

In the meantime, the Police Department received about $200,000 in other federal grants. And the terminals in the patrol cars that allow officers to communicate with the Communications Center began wearing out.

So the police and Linthicum began looking for replacements.

They discovered a new system that allows officers to transmit fingerprints and photos from the scene of crimes or accidents. The system also can be used to write and transmit reports directly to the Police Department.

The total cost: About $800,000. The federal grant money could be used to help reduce the cost. The rest apparently would come from city funds.

The catch: If the city buys it, the new system must be at least partly in place by Sept. 30 in order to get the grant money. Otherwise, Pinellas Park could lose the grant.

So, after about a year of study, Linthicum and police Chief David Milchan decided to ask the council to consider coming up with the remaining $500,000 or $600,000.

That's when council members found out about the laptops sitting in the closet.

Most council members were unhappy with that discovery.

Butler wanted the city to hire a consultant to work out the long-term requirements of the Police Department.

"I cannot support this (on the) spur of the moment," Butler said. "I want a third opinion. If you're going to take my arm off, I want another doctor to look at it."

Other council members were not so sure.

Mayor Bill Mischler said he did not like the short notice, but coming up with a half-million dollars might be better than losing about $200,000 in federal grants.

"I am totally upset about this 11th-hour (request)," Mischler said. "I hate consultants. I literally hate them because I think they feed off people."

Council member Ed Taylor said the laptops are not the first time that council's orders have gotten lost.

"I call it Never-Never Land," Taylor said. "Things get out there and disappear for a while."

Still, Taylor said he was reluctant to hire a consultant. At some point, he said, you have to take a "leap of faith" and trust someone. For Taylor, that someone is Linthicum.

But City Manager Mudd said Thursday that he might suggest that the city hire an outside consultant to help develop long-range plans for all of the city government's information service needs -- and avoid many of these problems in the future.

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