Something happened last Wednesday that should have been a big news story, but it wasn’t. I was out of town so it took me some time to catch up, but you know, I felt pretty secure in thinking that I wouldn’t be scooped by anyone in our sadly depleted media ecosystem. Good for me, bad for the public interest, but here we are.

What I’m talking about is a costly, potentially catastrophic situation involving one of the Scott administration’s information technology initiatives.In brief, this project is badly over budget and way behind schedule. There are huge potential risks, known and unknown. Nobody knows how much the thing will cost, how long it would take to complete the work — or if that is even possible. This includes the boffins at Gov. Phil Scott’s much-touted innovation, the Agency of Digital Services.

Have I got your attention?

Here’s something else. The quote in the title came from Republican Sen. David Weeks of Rutland, a political ally of the governor. He knows whereof he speaks; according to his official bio, his career involved “high-level program management positions in the defense and security sectors” involving “high technology operations and project management in the $3 billion range.”

In other words, Weeks may have more experience in IT-related management than anyone at ADS. And he was appalled at what he heard in a July 29 legislative hearing.

Have I got your attention now?

The universally ignored event* was a hearing of the Joint Information Technology Oversight Committee (JITOC), a House-Senate panel that tries to ride herd on the incredibly difficult and risk-laden task of bringing state government information systems up to date. The key witness was Lisa Gauvin, a consultant hired by the Legislature’s Joint Fiscal Office to review current IT projects. She gave a big thumbs-up to a Department of Labor project to reinvent the state’s unemployment insurance system…

*As of this writing, the archived video of the hearing has racked up an underwhelming total of 77 views on YouTube, including four by me.

… and a big thumbs-down to a much larger initiative that, as ADS Secretary Denise Reilly-Hughes put it, “touch[es] on everybody in state government” and every dollar it spends. As you can see in the screenshot above, Gauvin gave a worst-possible “Poor” grade to the Agency of Administration’s Enterprise Resource Management Project, which includes (among other things) the state budget, finance and accounting functions, and human resource management.

Yeah, that’s all. Nothing to see here, please move along.

You may be hearing more about this clusterfuck in coming months. JFO is in the middle of a thorough examination of the project, and the state auditor’s office is working on a performance audit. Hopefully those events will generate some level of interest from our news media, but I wouldn’t count on it. I have written before that one of the factors in the governor’s popularity is the relative lack of media scrutiny during his tenure. If something like the EB-5 scandal that dragged down Peter Shumlin were to happen today, would it get the kind of coverage that makes the public pay attention? Probably not, and this ERP affair is a real-life example.

As you can see in the screenshot, ERP appropriations total $24.6 million to date. Gauvin estimates the actual cost at $71.5 million, but even she puts no faith at all in that figure. “I know they’ll be asking for more money,” she told the committee. “The question is how much.”

“You don’t have the information needed to estimate the cost?” she was asked.

“I don’t have the information, and neither do they,” she replied. Ouch.

The budget module is the only successful aspect of the plan so far. It went live last September and seems to be working. But the rest of the project was put on “pause” in mid-April to allow time for a thorough examination. “We will have to develop a new project timeline and negotiate amendments,” Deputy Administration Secretary Sean Brown told the committee. “Then we’ll be able to assess cost implications and develop a funding plan.”

Oh. Is that all?

Actually, no. Gauvin also spotlighted a vital but unaddressed aspect: Integrating legacy systems into the new infrastructure. She dinged the administration for having “an inadequate plan for dealing with legacy data, which is a necessity.” Without that data, the state would have no idea how things have worked in the past or how to plan for the future. And much of that data is required by the federal government. It is a must-do, and the administration seems to have bungled it.

Gauvin also referred to “a number of failures in planning and procurement” including a 10-year software licensing contract signed five years ago. After signing, the state immediately began paying licensing fees “even before issuing an RFP for an implementation vendor,” Gauvin said, and observed “You don’t start paying for licenses until you start the project.”

Five years later, with only the budget module up and running, the state is still paying millions for software it isn’t even using!

Gauvin also noted many significant risks in the project. Their scope and direness were difficult to assess with the information she had. In her view, ultimate success is far from assured.

The full quote from Weeks, excerpted in my headline, puts a bow on this whole affair.

“From the perspective of a former program and project manager, every alarm bell in my body is ringing right now,” Weeks said. “I don’t see anything to indicate we’re on track or on budget, that we’ve mitigated our risks, or that this thing will function the way it’s supposed to.”

Score one for the Agency of Digital Services, Phil Scott’s signature administrative reform.