Panel ousts Virginia’s technology chief
BRUCE PARKER/TIMES-DISPATCH
The ouster of Lemuel C. Stewart Jr.is the latest blow to an agency beset by trouble since its inception more than five years ago.
Published: June 12, 2009
Updated: June 12, 2009
Virginia's computer czar was fired hours after he questioned a multimillion-dollar monthly bill from the giant company that the state is paying $2.3 billion for informationtechnology services.
Lemuel C. Stewart Jr. was ousted Wednesday as director of the Virginia Information Technologies Agency by its oversight panel, the Information Technology Investment Board.
Leonard M. "Len" Pomata, newly installed as secretary of technology by Gov. Timothy M. Kaine, will succeed Stewart temporarily as Virginia's chief information officer.
Stewart could not be reached for comment yesterday.
Stewart's removal is the latest blow to an agency beset by trouble since its inception more than five years ago. In addition to ongoing administrative and financial questions, VITA recently has had to answer for such issues as the hacking of computerized prescription records at the Virginia Department of Health Professions.
Stewart was dumped shortly after a presentation to VITA's governing body in which he challenged the invoice from Northrop Grumman, which has a 10-year, $2.3 billion contract to supply Virginia agencies with computers, software and maintenance.
One of the General Assembly's experts on information technology, Del. Samuel A. Nixon Jr., R-Chesterfield, said he understood Stewart and Pomata clashed over Stewart's contention that Northrop Grumman is not meeting the terms of its contract.
Pomata, head of the search committee that recommended Stewart in 2004 as VITA director, could not be reached for comment.
Asked about Stewart's presentation and claims that Northrop Grumman is not documenting its bills adequately, company spokeswoman Julia L. Ballesteros said the defense giant "is working closely with VITA to address issues of critical importance."
The pact with Northrop Grumman -- the biggest and richest privatization contract issued by Virginia government -- has been criticized by some legislators and state employees as pricey and inefficient.
The General Assembly's investigative arm, the Joint Legislative Audit and Review Commission, has raised concerns about the system under which Northrop Grumman and VITA charge agencies for IT services.
JLARC, for example, noted that VITA is operating with a deficit -- a point Stewart made as well in his briefing Wednesday to the Information Technology Investment Board.
In a slide presentation, Stewart said the agency's current shortfall is $6.2 million. Because of that, VITA "cannot fully pay [Northrop Grumman] and other bills, absent remedial action," such as increasing rates or a loan from the state treasury.
Stewart's presentation went on to point out that agencies continue to complain about Northrop Grumman-supervised service, that the company is "still not meeting [its] contractual obligations," and that invoices to the state are documented insufficiently.
Stewart's departure was announced to VITA employees in an e-mail yesterday from James F. McGuirk II, chairman of the Information Technology Investment Board.
McGuirk gave no reason for the change but said Stewart would serve as a paid consultant until his $189,280-a-year contract expires at the end of 2009.
McGuirk could not be reached for comment.
VITA was set up under the governorship of Democrat Mark R. Warner, now a U.S. senator, and operates in tandem with Northrop Grumman from a headquarters in Chesterfield County.
Nixon, who introduced legislation tightening governance of VITA, challenged the selection of Pomata as interim CIO. Nixon said he does not believe the secretary of technology has the legal authority to serve simultaneously in both offices.
Contact Olympia Meola at (804) 649-6812 or
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Contact Jeff E. Schapiro at (804) 649-6814 or .
Staff writer Tyler Whitley contributed to this report.
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Reader Reactions
Jer1234 - I should have clarified better. (communication again)
When I said:
“As far as agencies spending extra money from their budgets on IT costs that are already paid for through the VITA contract - why do you think they would do that? Would they want to pay for the same thing twice? No. It’s because they are not able to get what they need through VITA/NG in order to keep supplying services that the taxpayer expects.“
I was referring to a post in yesterday’s article about Lem, that referred to the agencies having “shadow” IT employees who were hired under the guise of application development.
I was trying to say that that type of expenditure would not be necessary if there was no sense to be made of paying for the support and then hiring employees to accomplish the same tasks - unless the agency was concerned about being able to provide the same level of service. There would be no sense to paying for it twice.
Sorry for the miscommunication.
I will not debate the whether or not the charges are excessive, as I do not have access to all of the figures that were included to produce those costs. However, again I think the agencies would not gripe as much about the VITA surcharge, if the perceived value of VITA’s involvement was greater than the cost.
In the end, it’s not as much about the money, as it is about the quality of services realized by the agencies for the money.
Which can from NG side be viewed as the ability to provide services for the money. All of which would be better realized through good communication.
It’s easy to dance, when you know which steps are next.
Good to get some constructive feedback on this one.
Mustbanon, agencies have been dissatisfied with their IT services for much longer than this contract has been in effect. It’s one of the reasons it was adopted. As someone else stated here, communication and collaboration are the keys. NG needs to work WITH VITA on their billing problems, not overlook them.
Commonsense1, each agency’s operations are indeed different. That is part of the problem as well. Standardization is difficult under the best of circumstances, but with each agency operating under a completely different set of rules (both operational and political), different budget structure and varying infrastructure, it has been, and continues to be, quite more of a challenge. The gluttonous agencies only make it more difficult for the ones struggling under a tight budget. And, I promise you that the types of purchases I described do indeed occur, and because of the political power these agencies hold in the state, those goods are delivered as ordered.
Jer1234, many agencies have been operating under their own processes for a very long time. This has led to huge security risks (as reported at least one previous RTD article), unnecessary costs and outages due to poor capacity management, and unrestrained overspending of a good portion of the state’s budget, which was poorly distributed amongst the agencies. Some agencies had developed a very good system for handling their own IT. It is indeed unfortunate that these agencies have to suffer the growing pains of the Partnership. And, about your second comment to MostlySilent about the cost increases, yes, Lem Stewart’s plan was, “Agency charge back will have to be increased”.
MostlySilent, almost everything you said is right on.
The bottom line is that IT is expensive, but not as expensive as it is in Virginia. Indeed, the contract between VITA and NG is not to blame. Where is the $7 million dollars that VITA had in February? They claim to have spent $12 million in IT in one month and that gave them this $5 million deficit. $12m on what? In one month? Not NG.
In January, Lem sang the praises of the Partnership to the ITIB. He showed he was pretty much breaking even for fiscal year 2008. In April, he showed a slight loss of $3.5m. The Partnership did not all of a sudden explode in the last three months. It’s been in effect for years. Hmmm…did they fire the man for “discovering” a $5m deficit he failed to report previously? Or did they fire the man for not being able to pay his bills and keep accurate books?
Mostly Silent, you were making several legitimate points right upon until you wrote this:
“As far as agencies spending extra money from their budgets on IT costs that are already paid for through the VITA contract - why do you think they would do that? Would they want to pay for the same thing twice? No. It’s because they are not able to get what they need through VITA/NG in order to keep supplying services that the taxpayer expects.“
VITA is a self finacing agency. They charge agencies for every one of their services. If they provide you with a computer they charge your agency $170.00 per month for its use. If you order a telephone sevice thru them they add 15% to the cost of this service then charge you for it. If you have a E-mail address then they charge you XXX number of dollars per month. If you have a laptop with an external wireless data card they charge you for the laptop and an additional fee for the data card plus the service. Each agency pays a monthly bill to VITA for IT services. This bil for some agencies exceeds $500,000.00 a month. So why would agencies pay VITA for what it is contracted to do. Because this is how Governor Warner set up the agency and that is why they are ripping off the workers. Last year they tried to increase their fees from 15% to 30% above provider costs but the GA and the oversight committee told them no because they were already breaking the budgets of many state agencies with their costs.
They are also activally trying to take over more of the state function than what they do now so they can make more money for themselves and NG. Many items that were originally covered under the contract are now “out of Scope”. No one seems to be able to tell who makes that determination. Yes, this agency and its NG contract need a much closer look but again who has the intestinal fortitude to do it? Not the GA or Attorney General’s office apparently.
VITA and NG are ripping us off. They charge agencies $30 per month for “maintenance” of every PC and laptop but only replace them every 5 years. That’s $1800 charged for an $800 computer. They also add a 5-7% surcharge on every IT item ordered. What do they do to earn the surcharge? They simply OK the purchase.
Thanks, Mark Warner.
Why is everything nefarious?
Nobody wants to do a bad job.
I know of no one who took a job with the intention of being the worst at it.
Those who complain about the skill set of state workers are lumping every state worker together in a generalization. If the workers are not proficient, how has their manage required or inspired them to be so. And if the manageer has not, then what does the manager’s manager done for those he/she supervises. In other words, if it were a dozen or so employees who have fallen behind on their skill sets, hten shame on them - but when it is systemic, then what obstacles have been put in place to limit their success.
As for the agancies “being resistant”. Every person at each agenct that I have personally talked with all say the same thing - they want verification that the quality of service that they currently provide will not be hampered. Whether it is a security, performance or recovery concern - the agancy would be remiss in not requiring that the level of service that the tax payer is paying for be the same or greater.
And in defense of VITA/NG, the idea of having centralized services is great. You can have experts available, where the agency may not have been able to have them in the past. Plus having the greater purchasing power, and standardization are also great.
In the experiences that I have had being involved in all of this (which are many), it comes down to egos and communication.
And yes, if you do not communicate well with the agencies, they will question everything you do. As it should be. But when you have a project as big as transforming all of the agencies, much planning and communication needs to take place. At this point the agencies are frustrated by the lack of communication, only to find out that VITA/NG is not even communicating well internally.
As far as agencies spending extra money from their budgets on IT costs that are already paid for through the VITA contract - why do you think they would do that? Would they want to pay for the same thing twice? No. It’s because they are not able to get what they need through VITA/NG in order to keep supplying services that the taxpayer expects.
And everyone needs to remeber that communication is a two way street.
But when VITA/NG force surprise changes on the agencies, and won’t provide data allaying the concerns over giving control of their systems to VITA/NG, then the whole process will build negative feeling, costs will overrun, schedules will not be met. And in the end, it is the taxpayer who pays the price.
Everyone needs to stop talking, and start communicating. After all, if I were to tell you that I will now be responsible for food getting into your refridgerator, wouldn’t you triple check everything before agreeing that you will no longer have the ability to stock your own food?
Stop playing the blame game, and start working together. As long as VITA/NG thinks that they are the only “experts” and the agencies have no input or verfication, there will be resistance.
There is nothing nefarious afoot. Just a lot of people talking, but not to each other.
Every since VITA took over, there have been multitude of problems. The help desk sucks, the entire system was shut down for several days. It’s time to dump Northrup Grumman. It seems that Mr. Stewart got tired of the crap too!!!
RICresident. blaming the individual agencies for fighting the change is an old argument. They were forced into a program that was doomed from the start. NG bid on a contract that they thought they could handle and have failed. The individual agencies are now covering their assets by recreating the system they had which is better than what NG provided. This contract has not modernized or consolidated anything and never even tried. Agencies still need to do their jobs if VITA/NG cannot. Investigation need to be done to show that the public records and audits are accurate because it the head of IT questions them then what else is going on. Users have been screaming for relief now for 4 years or more but they are continually blamed by VITA employees for being the problems. I can assure you they are not.
If you say it is their resistance to change then at least cite some examples to prove your point. I can cite many examples of NG/VITA not doing their job to modernize the state IT system . Believe me after 18 years as a state employee in one of the larger agencies,I can see and know the difference.
VITA is overcharging these same agencies to the point that they are the biggest outlay of funds these agencies have over all others including personnel costs in some cases. They are laying off people and curtailing operations to pay for IT services.
@RICresident-
Sounds like you are not that familiar with IT operations in the state agencies. It might be worth your time, which I highly recommend, to give one of the CIOs of the agencies you mention a call. I’m sure they would be happy to chat with you about what really is happening and also find out who is ordering the 46” plasma TVs or the $4,000 laptops.
Military outsourcing hasn’t been sucessful either. The NMCI project has been riddled with failures and cost overruns and the Navy is now looking to start hiring to take parts of the operation back inhouse under the NGEN project.
IT standardization is not the or a problem. If the military can do it then state governments sure can. The problem is once someone gets in with a government job it’s extremely hard to get them out even if they are doing a poor job. No one should stay in any job for more then 5-10 years. New ideas and leadership are needed. People set and comfortable in their jobs are resistant to change.
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