VITA: Initiative Still Makes Good Sense

Virginia's ambitious partnership with Northrop Grumman to modernize, synchronize, and secure the state's information technology network is behind schedule and apparently over budget. On BILL
LEIGHTY
that, everyone can agree.

However, I took exception to several points contained throughout the Sept. 13 front-page story "Unfulfilled Promises Haunt VITA."

The article not only unfairly attacked the integrity of two governors I had the honor and privilege to serve as chief of staff, but also demonstrated a fundamental misunderstanding of Virginia's laws governing public-private partnerships. And it ignored the challenges presented by the governance structure of the agency and the oversight board that is managing this IT contract.

First, some history which is not in dispute:

In 2002, state auditors looked back over time and found that state government utilized an outdated and unsecured computer network that was inefficiently built and overseen by three state IT departments, and which was operated by duplicative IT departments operating independently within almost 90 separate state agencies. Legislative auditors documented more than $100 million wasted on 15 recently failed IT projects.

Obviously, that kind of IT mish-mash was inefficient and wasteful, and it was costing taxpayers a combined half-billion dollars a year through a patchwork of stove-piped IT offices that could not negotiate the best prices for hardware, synchronize operating systems among agencies, or provide training options and career advancement opportunities for employees.

In 2003, as then-Gov. Mark Warner worked to address Virginia's multibillion-dollar budget shortfalls, even as the state's sterling Triple-A credit rating was under review by Wall Street rating agencies, he turned to the private sector to apply common sense and rationality to upgrade Virginia's outdated IT network.

In an overwhelmingly bipartisan vote, members of the General Assembly agreed. And this bipartisan consensus, combined with Virginia's innovative public-private partnership laws, attracted the attention of the nation's leading IT firms, which submitted unsolicited proposals that included significant up-front private investment to allow the state to affordably bring its late 20th-century computer network into the 21st century.

This would ultimately help Virginia to protect its credit rating and bond capacity, and allow the commonwealth to pay off this initial $270 million private investment over several years.

The contract proposals were evaluated by members of the independent Information Technology Investment Board (ITIB), which includes an equal number of appointees from the executive and legislative branches.

In fact, as part of his negotiations with the legislature, Warner had accepted the General Assembly's insistence that VITA's director, the commonwealth's CIO, would report to the independent members of the ITIB instead of reporting directly to the governor.

The ITIB then reviewed two unsolicited bids from potential private partners. The ITIB spent an additional six weeks, as mandated by Virginia law, soliciting competing bids from other potential vendors in a further effort to make sure that the taxpayers would be protected through robust competition.

In the fall of 2004, the ITIB voted to award a 10-year, $1.9 billion contract to Northrop Grumman, a widely respected Virginia-based company that employs close to 30,000 Virginians, and a company with a long history of expertise in government consulting, IT services, and shipbuilding.

Unfortunately, the Sept. 13

Times-Dispatch article unfairly suggested that this process somehow was tainted by corporate campaign contributions, and the story specifically referenced only those contributions made to Mark Warner and Tim Kaine.

Since neither governor solicited, reviewed, awarded, or managed the implementation of this contract -- and, in fact, since Warner had taken the unusual step of calling on the ITIB to allow more sunshine and transparency into the bid review process -- the repeated references to campaign contributions were irrelevant.

It also was misleading for the story to fail to report on Northrop Grumman's long history of relatively even-handed political donations, or the fact that more of its campaign money has gone to Republicans (53 percent) than to Democrats (47 percent).

Here's the bottom line: The commonsense business arguments for IT consolidation and modernization initially articulated by Mark Warner, validated by legislative auditors, and then overwhelmingly endorsed by the General Assembly still make sense today.

Contract proposals were evaluated and awarded by an independent board composed of equal numbers of appointees from both the executive and legislative branches, and the board acted to make its bid review more transparent at the public urging of then-Gov. Warner.

Implementation of the contract has been managed by an independent CIO, reporting directly to members of the oversight board, which precluded Gov. Kaine from exercising executive authority to address VITA's challenges or to hold individuals accountable for their job performance.

In the nearly five years since this contract was awarded, VITA has replaced 27,300 outdated PCs at 68 agencies, shifted more than 1,000 state Web sites onto a statewide network, standardized e-mail services, upgraded security measures, vastly improved data backup and storage, and implemented statewide support and help desk functions.

More than 630 state IT workers have transitioned to the VITA payroll and now work out of a single $35 million, state-of-the-art IT facility in Chesterfield County. Another 430 mid-level tech jobs have been created at a $33 million VITA backup facility built in Southwest Virginia's Russell County.

So, at this moment, I would suggest the responsible course of action is to wait to evaluate the recommendations of JLARC and the Senate Finance Committee. Then, I believe we all should be about keeping what works, and fixing what's broken. Clearly VITA's responsiveness to its state agency customers could be improved, and so could the awkward governance structure.

I would hope that all concerned can work to strengthen and improve VITA, because this ambitious project still makes good business sense, and it ultimately will save considerable money for Virginia taxpayers.
William H. Leighty served as chief of staff to Govs. Mark R. Warner (2002-06) and Timothy M. Kaine (2006-07). Contact him at Bill@BillLeighty.org or (804) 393-9401.