This page and those under it will be dedicated to a
discussion of government software projects and how our
politicians are foolishly wasting hundreds of millions - even
billions - of taxpayers' hard-earned dollars on foolish IT
projects that are either already failed or are almost
guaranteed to fail.
In many of the discussions, I am going to name names. If
the politicians involved don't like it, they're certainly
welcome to publicly challenge me on what I'm going to say
here. Go right ahead. Challenge me that I can't write - at
minimal cost and in a short time - the software I'm
describing and have it work well. The voters (particularly in
California where the state is dead flat broke) need to hear
what is going on with this incredible waste of their money
so they can make intelligent decisions in the next elections.
And I may be in California, but this foolishness spans a
number of states, including Colorado and Texas for starters.
To get a handle on just how much of your hard-earned
tax dollars are being literally thrown away on doomed IT
projects, start by reading two files linked to this page. Each
file holds an entire series of articles written for the Daily
Recorder, Sacramento, California. I also write a regular
monthly column for the Daily Recorder on computer
technology for courts and lawyers. The two series, which
are written about a failed project called CalWIN, are:
How Not To Buy Software and,
Public Officials & Taxpayer Dollars
The foolishness associated with such projects for
creating software to simply process welfare data is not,
however, limited to California. I encourage anyone who
reads these materials to pick up the phone and call the
people involved. Demand that they stop this incredible
waste of your money.
One upcoming IT project is SOMS (Strategic Offender
Management System) for the California Department Of
Corrections & Rehabilitation. Look at
http://www.cdcr.ca.gov/News/2008_Press_Releases/June_
19.html to see another IT project disaster in the making.
This one may well bleed the California taxpayers of at least
$100 Million. As a matter of fact, I heard in 2009 it was
probably going to cost about $250 Million. Here we go
again!
The California prison system, in combination with law
enforcement agencies, might actually be a logical starting
place for a demonstration project for what could be done to
link up agencies with inexpensive, powerful, accurate, easy
to use software. I understand the computers on the medical
side of the prison system aren't even compatible with the
system that tracks the inmates in general and neither is
compatible with computers at law enforcement agencies
such as sheriff's departments or police departments.
And another huge money pit into which California's
Administrative Office Of The Courts is just aching to throw
your tax money is a project called Court Case Management
System (CCMS) written by a company with a
well-established track record of failures. If it weren't for the
failed economy, and the current lack of state money, the
backers of this would be pouring more than $1 BILLION into
this junk. Temporarily they want to pour a mere $100
Million/year into this nonsense to "maintain" it while waiting
for the budget to recover in a few years so they can follow
that up with at least another billion dollars of taxpayer funds.
And also please look at the justice system software
pages where boondoggles specifically linked to the justice
system will be discussed.
Under Construction!