VITA’s boss is ruling out layoffs for now
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A view inside the Northrop Grumman Corp. center in southeastern Chesterfield County.
Published: July 31, 2009
Virginia's interim computer boss is ruling out -- for now -- layoffs to help a giant corporation control what it's spending to modernize state information technology services.
Leonard M. "Len" Pomata, temporary head of the Virginia Information Technologies Agency, is knocking down a proposal by Northrop Grumman to stem losses by, among other things, cutting staff.
"There's no need to change anything we're doing at VITA," said Pomata, who took over after the firing last month of Lemuel C. "Lem" Stewart Jr., a critic of lengthy delays by Northrop Grumman.
In an e-mail Tuesday to VITA employees and an interview yesterday, Pomata said layoffs are possible in the future. Gov. Timothy M. Kaine's continuing effort at budget-balancing relies, in part, on cutting thousands of jobs.
The controversy engulfing the turnover of the state's IT network to a politically muscular company is emerging as another setback for Kaine in the run-up to the election to choose his successor.
On his monthly phone-in show yesterday on Richmond radio station WRVA, Kaine said of the problems besetting VITA and Northrop Grumman, "There is blame on all sides."
VITA staff numbers about 340, but some employees, while paid by the state, are supervised by Northrop Grumman. The company is four years into a 10-year, $2.3 billion contract to update and manage the state's computer systems.
In April, Northrop Grumman Vice President David Rosener outlined for state officials possible economies to help the company recover expenses above those for which it is paid upward of $14 million a month, under Virginia's richest-ever privatization pact.
Northrop Grumman, projecting annual overages of more than $25 million, envisions cost controls as a way for the state and company to "show skin in the game," according to Rosener's presentation.
But VITA's top management, including Stewart and contract director Fred Duball, have taken an increasingly hard line with Northrop Grumman, urging the state to withhold full payments to the company as a penalty for delays.
Also, the state's contract with Northrop Grumman caps total payments to the firm at $236 million per year.
However, as acting chief information officer since last month, Pomata has argued for -- and authorized -- near-total monthly payments to Northrop Grumman.
He said yesterday that the company would receive about $13 million for July, with about $1.7 million withheld for failing to complete on time a procedures manual and instructional material on handling trouble calls from agencies, repairs and diagnosing problems.
Northrop Grumman spokesman Christy Whitman did not respond to a request for comment.
Acknowledging Northrop Grumman's continuing losses on the Virginia contract, Pomata said: "They are spending more on services than they're receiving from the commonwealth."
An option for recovering these dollars may not be available to the company for more than five years, when the state and Northrop Grumman could renew their agreement for three more years, but without the limit on costs to taxpayers.
Setting right Virginia's info-tech program will fall to VITA's next permanent director. Kaine said yesterday that a new chief will be selected "probably within the next couple of weeks."
At least five finalists are said to be under consideration.
Contact Jeff E. Schapiro at (804) 649-6814 or
.
Politics editor Andrew Cain contributed to this report.
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Reader Reactions
Saxman, I wanted to respond to your comments:
You seem to simplify items that are not so simple, and that is how this whole contract is managed with a magic wand technique and a one size fits all strategy. That is the biggest problem.
With statements like “all you have to do is X” and I can’t believe something simple as inventory database” is the same wording we hear from top management. When you are talking over 100,000 IT items that are constantly in a state of flux meaning old equipment is surplused and new refreshed equipment is brought on board means you now have over 200,000 line items (100,000 old and their replacements) to add, subtract, change, move, or any of several other scenario’s that effect inventory.
Yesterday we had this many, today we got rid of those, replaced them and added 50 more to the same site just after the inventory team left. It is in a dynamic state so not so easy as you make it sound. Inventory is more than storing numbers in a data base when you are talking this much volume and NG is using basically technical rookies just out of school who could care less if they count it right or not. There is not an automated way to track these (scanner system) so that is why it is important to find these devices, apply the patches and update the anti-virus files so they can put on the network, then have the Altiris inventory agent installed. NG then makes money off a monthly fee so not finding them is not in the best interest of the company. Revenues were projected from these estimates of hardware that would be serviced.
The other point is the programmers and developers are not with NG so to write a letter to the powers that be about the agencies short comings is career suicide? The agency is NG’s customer, NG cannot make an agency do anything and writing a letter to complain about their own staff is how you get fired, plain and simple.
SLA’s is how NG keeps the money the contract has projected to pay. If you miss an SLA, you get less money so the statement “All of that aside, there comes a time in some service calls, when you have to take charge of the situation and forget about meeting the SLA” is ludicrous, we cannot forget about the SLA and take charge or else we are fired. If technicians miss SLA’s they get fired, if the service desk misses SLA’s someone gets fired. All of our performance measures are based on SLA’s so we get no raise if we don’t meet them.
The comment about inventorying your own site needs clarification, there are over 3000 devices at my site. If it is a laptop the serial number is on the bottom side of the device. Not so simple to go up after 5 inventories and ask a user to step aside, log them off, take the laptop up, write it all down, redock the station and have them log in. That’s a 20 minute ordeal for them if they have 4-8 programs to open back up and get back where they were.
That is why they have teams to do it because even with teams of 8-10 it takes them a whole week to inventory a site that large. Now multiply that by over 10,000 individual sites. Not all sites are that big but you must travel to them…not such an easy task as those who don’t work in these areas realize.
The whole issue is how I describe this one, waving a magic wand or say “what’s so hard about XYZ” means they have never done XYZ and don’t get the picture at ground zero.
In response to Tech Head been there, done it! BOHICA
You can’t stop hacking, just control it! Those hackers, in a few years, will be your computer security personnel, paid big bucks to try and stop or control the practice. There should be a log of the Hacking attempts. If the VDXX Developers and software personnel would not let you update and secure the system, then NG and Vita should take a page from Lem’s playbook. Write a memo to the powers that be and specifically notate each Hacking attempt and the fix for it that you are not allowed to do. Rebuilding a Server 3 times is redundanly stupied, if done right. Rebuilding it once, installing the fixes and security updates should have been enough! If the VDXX programs then crash, the developers should read the release notes of the fixes and updates and fix their programs! Technology changes!
Having to fight tooth and nail with agencies to do an inventory is another issue. The Agencies are aware that it is part of the contract! I can’t believe a simple inventory and the ability of the enduser purchasers to enter new product info into an online
database would be that difficult. What you seem to be describing, masquerating as customer compaints, is the same scenerio that every enduser fights when a product needs servicing. Contacts and Administration! Whats do you have under contract and what’s not! Whenever there is a survey about a companies service. C and A is always at the top of this problem list. What’s really happening is no one from NG is putting the inventory data into the database or keeping it updated AND can’t seem get it to work with the current call/response system. Management shrugs it’s shoulders and hopes the
problem gets fixed or goes away.
There is a fine line between delivering service for a product under contract and those that are not. This is where the inventory, tied to the call/response system, is important. If the call system is setup in a way to “red flag” these types of calls and the helpdesk can read these comments, they may be able to stop these types of redundant service calls or redirect them to the proper support personnel. Give clear comments when updating or closing those type of calls. If NG is losing money because of a missed SLA, the the call and response system is part of the problem. I’ve never quite understood these “payback options for missed SLAs” in contracts anyway! You can’t control buggy software or hardware from the OEMs. You can only react to resolve the problems created by those OEMs.
If Agencies are hiding stuff, that means it hasn’t been inventoried and you are not obligated to do anything to resolve that service issue. If the policies are being followed, then close the call! Now all bets are off if NG knows the inventory has not been completed at the present time and the powers that be err on the side of caution by requiring you to service said product anyway! This is the usual instructions given in these situations.
All of that aside, there comes a time in some service calls, when you have to take charge of the situation and forget about meeting the SLA. When asked why you did this or that? My response was always “I did what was right for my customer within policy”. BTW, always keep a SMA-Save My Axx file for references. I know you have 15 minute calls you thought would take an hour or more. Sit down with the enduser and discuss the issue. There is already the perception that NG is not delivering contacted services. You can control your small piece of the pie and perhaps change this endusers perception of you and NG. Do your own inventory on site, give it to your boss and notate it in your SMA file. I understand you have
specific sites to service. Go to your site when there are no problems and you have the time, introduce yourself to your endusers. As a"bottomfeeder”(no disrespect), you are usually the first representative of the NG-Vita partnership the enduser sees and you have the opportunity to set the perception of the NG-Vita partnership to that customer.
In response to “Question Gov” and others concerned of hacking this is not the first time this has occurred. VDXX (real agency but fictitious name)had their public facing web page cracked 3 times in just a few months’ time last year to a SQL database that was the basis for the info on their web site. What very few people know is VDXX ( VDXX IT management) prohibited NG from applying the correct windows patches and security upgrades that were called for by NG. if so this would not have occurred at all. This was in part due to the fact that VDXX software professionals / developers would then have to go back and test these changes and did not want to go to the extra effort to test properly. Instead NG rebuilt the same server 3 times because of the hacking within a 30 day period.
NG fights tooth and nail to do the right thing in a lot of circumstances but is blocked by agencies a large portion of the time from carrying out the correct technical practice.
The agencies complain about the many inventories they are required to go thru and the money that it cost but no one knows of the way the agency’s hide assets in closets and in corners of offices or in vehicles and peoples houses because they don’t want to pay for the fee to keep the equipment up. We know they are there but cannot locate them thus it takes more funds to try and hunt them done so NG can apply security patches and other items as the contract states we have to do. No we waste days and hours looking for these items stored in an agencies locked closet somewhere..
NG has instances of users opening up tickets again or not allowing them to close (this results in SLA failure fees) just because they have a question they want answered but instead of doing it correctly they open a call for replacing their mouse back up over and over just to get a answer when the mouse was corrected within the first hour. NG then loses money because they did not meet their SLA within so many hours. The user can reopen it as many times as he wants to. You never hear of these things.
Other practices is that agencies will often purchase equipment the incorrect way and then try and get it added to the support listing but instead of buying what contracts have been created for they buy things they know are off contract (cheaper brands) and NG is not prepared to repair them because they are some off brand of PC instead of the main line HP devices from the contract. My main point is that VITA and the state agencies are just as guilty as everyone seems to think NG is. I work in it every day and see these unjust actions for myself so I know they are true.
RE: Mr. Pomata’s statement -
“They are spending more on services than they’re receiving from the commonwealth.“
Exactly what does Mr. Rosener mean in his presentation when he states -
“Net present value is barely positive”
If NG is losing money, why are they recommending an extension to the contract?
To DayGloPirate
As I stated earlier,“If they were written specifically for your agency, then yes you need their support, unless you now own the application and it can be self supported onsite.“
Let me clarify the statement above. Usually if an application has been written specifically for a company or entity like the State, the State would purchase the source code and rights to that application. Having the source code would allow you to have programmers to port or convert the software to run on other hardware or operating system. Yes there would possibly be changes due to technology advancements such as text base to gui or system processing power. If the vendor, like an IBM or HP, maintains all rights, they then can control all aspects of it’s growth and even sell “Your” software application to other entities without restrictions. There is an “End of life cyle” to all hardware and software versions. Owning the source code and rights allows an entity to control the EOL cycle. This Vita/NG “transformation” and your issues are a perfect example of that process.
I was a “special” project manager(Kiss of death position) in a similar situation in the mid 80’s. As technology changed, we ported our Energy Jobber applications from a mainframe system to different vendors mini computer systems and even AT class pcs. The only failures of this conversion was processing time of the applications. An application on the mainframe took twenty minutes, the minis took 2 hours, the AT class pc 5 or more hours. To the enduser the applications were more user friendly and the reports, some printed on special forms, looked the same. Computer processing Technology does advance.
Once again to paraphrase my earlier statement. “I don’t believe Vita or NG would be that irresponsible and not have some type of support scenerio to address your agency’s issues”.
RE: Targeted layoffs
To understand NG’s “recommendation” to remove VITA managed employees you must follow the money. VITA managed employee salaries are taken off the top prior to paying NG.
Those jobs need to still be done, thus monies will still be allocated, saving the agency and taxpayer nothing.
If NG can remove managed employees they can increase their monthly payment from VITA.
The obvious supposition would be that getting rid of managed employees means more money flowing to NG. In this case NG would have more control over how to spend it.
In other words they could charge VITA for a BWM, but hire a Yugo.
Wonderful cost savings for them, and they have increased their profit margin!
To Saxman,
Thank you for your comments and suggestions. I’m afraid that I didn’t fully explain the scope of the software projects that are now running without vendor support. These aren’t PC based applications, rather they are very large custom-written mainframe systems affecting thousands of state citizens. projects of this scope use software that is often customized for the site at which it will be used. In fact, it is not unusual to have technical representatives from vendors such as HP or IBM working here on site with us. So obviously vendor support for these projects is of the highest importance for us and simply “searching the web” is not a substitute.
RE: VITA Security by [Question Govt]
Reference
http://www.vita.virginia.gov/library/default.aspx?id=537#securityPSGs
Of course security processes exist. The question you should be asking is, does VITA/NG field enough resources (mostly human) to adequately implement and maintain said policy and procedure…
Should not commonwealth be capitalized when referring specifically to Commonwealth of Virginia?
To Willi:
If you check, DHP was not under the auspices of SWVA Center in Lebanon at the time they got hacked. In turn, SWESC did not hold any data that could be recovered.
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