VITA overseers battle over control of boss

By: JEFF E. SCHAPIRO TIMES-DISPATCH STAFF WRITER | Times-Dispatch
Published: October 15, 2009

The overseers of Virginia's embattled computer agency are quarreling among themselves over proposals to rein in the agency's new boss.

Hiram Johnson and Mary Guy Miller, members of the Information Technology Investment Board, are pressing the panel for greater accountability from Chief Information Officer George Coulter.

Johnson and Miller, both legislative representatives to the panel that oversees the Virginia Information Technologies Agency, expressed concern about Coulter's housecleaning of VITA's front office.

Coulter fired three high-level executives at VITA who have been critical of Northrop Grumman, the defense giant hired by the state to refit and run its computer and communications network.

One board member, Longwood University President Patricia Cormier, said she couldn't go along with Johnson's call that Coulter first get the trustees' approval to hire and fire top personnel.

"It's a level of micromanagement that is not healthy in this organization," said Cormier, adding that she would resist such controls if they were imposed on her by Longwood's board of visitors.

Johnson wanted to put his proposal to a vote, but later backed down after trustees agreed to discuss it in the future, perhaps at a retreat of the ITIB.

In its scalding assessment of VITA and Northrop Grumman, the Joint Legislative Audit and Review Commission said that one way to salvage the state's 10-year $2.3 billion switch to a privately run IT system is to change the enterprise's management and governance.

That would include scrapping the ITIB and replacing it with an advisory board made up of Cabinet secretaries. They would advise a CIO named by the governor on the computer needs of state agencies.

Currently, the CIO is appointed by the VITA governing panel, which also has some management responsibilities for the agency.

Northrop Grumman has complained that the current management scheme is balky and has contributed to the company's delays in updating the state's IT network.