Jeff E. Schapiro: An IT mess in 3 acts plays out

Mike Moore, former head computer guy for San Diego County, knows that doing business with Northrop Grumman requires giving the giant company the business.

Moore, now in the private sector as a peacemaker on info-tech management deals gone sour, says the county was nervous in 2005 about paying Northrop Grumman nearly $700 million over seven years for computer services.

The fear, realized but remedied by hard-noised nickel-and-diming of Northrop Grumman: The firm didn't have the bench to simultaneously fulfill IT contracts with San Diego County, Indianapolis-Marion County, Indiana, and -- are you sitting down? -- Virginia.

Moore's ex-employers -- the San Diego taxpayers -- eventually got their money's worth, with Northrop Grumman, among other things, staffing up to fully serve its West Coast customer.

Were it only that simple in Virginia. The state is nearly four years into a 10-year, $2.3 billion contract with Northrop Grumman. Lawmakers and state employees increasingly fret that it is the equivalent of a car crash in slow motion: costly, messy, but gripping.

There appear to be three problems; none easily solved:

• Performance: Northrop Grumman consistently misses targets and deadlines, often for basic tasks.

Perhaps the best-known muff-up: failure to complete an inventory of IT equipment across the bureaucracy. Without that, Virginia -- through highly paid proxy Northrop Grumman -- can't begin modernizing computers, servers, networks and other gear.

The state surrendered an important weapon -- the checkbook -- for bringing Northrop Grumman to heel when interim computer czar Len Pomata OK'd a nearly $14 million payment just days after the firing of his predecessor, Lem Stewart, who alleged rip-offs by Northrop Grumman.

• The contract: At 151 pages, not including addenda, it appears mottled with holes originally intended to ensure the state maximum flexibility, according to legislative officials and IT contracting experts.

Written by a Chicago boutique law firm that is now part of McGuireWoods, seat of Virginia's shadow government, the contract instead is causing confusion and conflict between the state and Northrop Grumman.

And contributing to cost.

So far, according to documents obtained by the General Assembly, the state has revised the contract 55 times, adding $10 million to a venture that's also behind schedule.

But could another driver be that Northrop Grumman underbid to beat out IBM for Virginia's business?

• Management: Because outsourcing is taking place under a divided government, so, too, is the enterprise's governance.

There are few un-muddied lines of authority in a system rigged around a chief information officer hired by an oversight board, whose members are accountable to Republican legislators given to micromanaging and a Democratic governor who wants a free hand.

Junking the contract may not be an option, if only because of expense. The state would have to pay Northrop Grumman $474 million if it canceled after Dec. 31. Then there's the undetermined, but no doubt hefty, cost of an alternative to Virginia's awkward dance with Northrop Grumman.

Talk about stepping on toes.

Contact Jeff E. Schapiro at (804) 6496814 or . Watch his video column Thursdays on TimesDispatch.com. Listen to his analysis Fridays at 8:33 a.m. on WCVE (88.9 FM).