Va. Senate panel to investigate VITA
Published: June 16, 2009
Lawmakers will investigate the state's troubled information technology agency, spurred by the removal of its boss and questions about the $2.3 billion Virginia is paying Northrop Grumman for computer services.
A state Senate panel that oversees government operations will conduct the inquiry and report to the Senate Finance Committee, whose chairman, Sen. Charles J. Colgan, D-Prince William, ordered the review.
"I believe the full committee would benefit from a discussion of the issues and allegations," Colgan said in a letter Friday to Sen. Yvonne B. Miller, D-Norfolk, head of the general-government subcommittee.
The investigation, disclosed yesterday, follows the removal Wednesday of Lemuel C. Stewart Jr. as director of the Virginia Information Technologies Agency. He was dumped after he alleged that Northrop Grumman is failing to provide the state with full computer, software and maintenance services.
"We have nothing to hide, and we have no problem answering the legislature's questions," said James F. McGuirk II, chairman of the Information Technology Investment Board, which voted to drop Stewart from his $189,280-a-year job as chief information officer.
Christy Whitman, a spokeswoman for Northrop Grumman, said the company has "not been contacted about the investigation, but we continue to support the customer," a reference to VITA.
The Senate Finance Committee is expected to discuss the controversy engulfing VITA at a meeting Thursday. The money panel will hear from the staff of the General Assembly's watchdog agency, the Joint Legislative Audit and Review Commission, which has been monitoring implementation of the 10-year contract with Northrop Grumman.
Miller's subcommittee begins its work at a meeting June 29. It was not immediately clear when the subcommittee would turn over its findings to the Finance Committee.
Del. M. Kirkland Cox, R-Colonial Heights and the JLARC chairman, said the concern about VITA -- an initiative of Democratic Gov. Mark R. Warner -- is growing.
"We hoped when VITA came in, it would be a little removed from politics, and I think it's almost gotten to be the opposite," Cox said.
Republicans have expressed alarm over the selection of Secretary of Technology Leonard M. "Len" Pomata as Stewart's temporary successor. They question whether a political appointee of Gov. Timothy M. Kaine can serve simultaneously as head of an agency that, by law, is independent of the executive branch.
Kaine defended the selection and said Pomata will bring to VITA "the skill set that's needed at this point."
Under VITA, the Warner administration envisioned consolidating IT services previously left to individual agencies. The umbrella approach, Warner claimed, could save taxpayers $100 million.
Stewart apparently had expressed concerns for more than a year about the Northrop Grumman contract and had withheld payments to the company, usually in amounts of $600,000 to $700,000, on items such as modifications to VITA offices in Chesterfield and Russell counties and a procedures manual for employees.
Because of his continuing questions about the adequacy of documentation by Northrop Grumman in the bills its submits to the state, Stewart urged freezing a monthly payment of just more than $14 million. That recommendation preceded his removal.
The Northrop Grumman contract, now in its third year, is the biggest privatization pact issued by Virginia government. The contract is financed with fees imposed on agencies for IT services. But the charges are insufficient, resulting in a continuing shortfall -- $6.2 million, according to Stewart's final briefing to the VITA governing board.
The dispute over VITA is being monitored by the gubernatorial candidates, Democrat R. Creigh Deeds and Republican Bob McDonnell. As legislators, both backed its creation.
Contact Jeff E. Schapiro at (804) 649-6814 or
.
Staff writers Olympia Meola, Jim Nolan and Tyler Whitley contributed to this report.
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Reader Reactions
<Q>Posted by ( MotleyFool ) on June 17, 2009 at 10:43 am
Beenthere - Rome wasn’t built in a day. That is why the contract is unbreakable for a number of years. It took quite a while for state I.T. systems to get this way. It’s going to take awhile for it to be fixed</Q>
Jeez, Motley… can you at least read the contract first before making an absurd comment like that?? The Commonwealth will be negligent if it doesn’t void the contract at the end of June 09 with NG based on the missed obligations by NG.
The State can void this contract (without penalty) based on at least two milestones that haven’t (nor won’t) be met. NG is costing the Commonwealth millions of wasted taxpayer monies per month. They need to be sent packing ASAP.
suey - Politics aren’t the only thing that sux!!!!
“...In all honesty, Wally is right about the new data centers influencing the PPEA for IT infrastructure?...“
No argument there, however if VITA has only provided for the “business continuity” function, arguably the main purpose of the centralized data centers, as opposed to “assimilation” of IT staff and infrastructure, they would have been welcomed with open arms by the executive branches’ respective IT staffs, problem there is it would have been nowhere as lucrative(and expensive) as seat management ergo the current contract.
The botttom line on the whole situation is, that the people who want this to fail are going to take every opportunity to ensure that this fails. There are obstacles that are put in place by the people who don’t want this to work & that will prevent the system from working. And then people with whatever political agenda will say - see I told you I was right - it wont/can’t/didn’t work. Lem Stewart certainly played his cards well to go out looking like he was looking out for the citizens of VA but he was playing politics and new he was going to get canned. He could care less about the taxpayers and was only trying to save face in the court of public opinion. From what I understand he is on a leave of abscense from his former employer so he realized this wasnt a permanent gig. Northrop Grumman is being portrayed as the super greedy mega corporation that has the only intention of stealing money from the clueless citizens of Virginia - oh please give me a break on that. Whether it’s them, or if IBM of Xerox or whomever else bid on and have been awarded the contract they would have met with the same resistance from the state agencies. the agencies are pis sed off because they no longer have the autonomy of deciding what to spend on what when they want. They now have to submit these issues to VITA & that angers them. I’m sure there are mistakes made by everyone involved in this but it can work - if people want it to.
The Times Dispatch certainly loves to write about this topic because of the emotions that get stirred up due to the whole intertwining of state politics and big business. If you look at the number of posts this subject generates on their website which draws people to it in which maybe their advertisers might actually gain some revenue from. Because lord knows, Media General’s other revenue streams are doing so well. So expect them to keep writing about this. we all know that the facts are distorted to prove whatever the author of a story or a post want them to prove. I say from looking at a lot of the times that these postings are made people should get back to work and stop wasting their employers money that they are getting paid. Unless they are getting paid to surf the net and post on the site.
Politics sux.
In all honesty, Wally is right about the new data centers influencing the PPEA for IT infrastructure. Stewart wanted the modern data centers and NG’s plan was the most ambitious (created the most jobs, more backing from local governments,etc) proposal.
NG-Aren’t they the same guys building ships in Norfolk? When was the last time they brought a shipbuilding project anywhere near budget? WW II?
- some state computers with Windows 98? That way NG gets to charge for upgrading to XP and then again when that becomes obsolete.
Why did anyone think NG with the private enterprise salaries could do things cheaper than the state employees on government salaries. Any gain in productivity likely ofset by higher costs of NG and as we see with Microsoft Police communications network, these companies low ball or entice themselves in state contracts to get in the front door so they can make there monies later in contracts. Nice concept of privatizing gov’t. work but does not always end the best. Government work is just not profit oriented.
It only took 3 years (July 1, 2006) for the IT infrastruture to come to this state of disfunctional disrepair. (I don’t believe the spin about its disrepair prior to that as I was all over it. Sure it needed to be upgraded, what system or infrastructure doesn’t!).
What NG brought to the table was not a cutting edge solution to state IT but the funding to build two new datacenters, which Lem could not figure out how to get funded through conventional channels. All the rest of the service delivery stuff was just a rider to getting the data centers.
Motely fool - Rome wasn’t built in a day? Neither was the tower of Babel. Check with the agencies IT staffs and just see how responsive and satisfactory the procurement process, especially the “RFS”(request for service) process has proven. NG has been cutting staff and more and more the agency’s application staff has had to handle the duties that have been deigned to be partnership duties.
Perhaps it will bear out to be a satisfactory exercise, only time will tell, but it will not be less expensive by a long shot!
Beenthere - Rome wasn’t built in a day. That is why the contract is unbreakable for a number of years. It took quite a while for state I.T. systems to get this way. It’s going to take awhile for it to be fixed.
Start a tech company -> get elected governor -> force through a wasteful and inefficient govt program that wastes taxpayer money but benefits said tech company -> leave office and collect the profits -> get elected to the Senate. Sounds like a good plan to me.
Motleyfool: Actually this could have been done by VITA without NG and was for about 3 years. The real problems and complaints started when NG entered the equation and things started moving away from agency centric IT!
Only a fool (a motley fool :)) would think that there would be a standard operation across 86 agencies. In private industry, a bank does not operate the same way as a hospital or a real estate company, nor should they be expected to. The IT organization has to be robust and flexible enough to understand and accomodate these differences and with the parternship that is not the case. The one size fits all model is a failure. NG should have known this up front as it doesn’t even work in their own corporate IT infrastructure. Just ask someone from Newport News Shipbuilding on the business side what they think of their IT operation. You will hear pretty much the same song from them.
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