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Detroit's Computers 'Beyond Fundamentally Broken,' Tech Expert Testifies at Bankruptcy Trial

The antiquated systems make it more difficult for the city to issue paychecks, collect taxes, communicate internally and dispatch police and firefighters, city officials have said.

Detroit’s chief information officer painted a devastating picture of the city’s computers, software and email system in testimony today in the start of the second week of the city’s historic bankruptcy trial.

Beth Niblock, a former information technology chief for the city of Louisville, Ky., who was recruited earlier this year by Mayor Mike Duggan, testified that the city’s information technology is “generations behind” current standards.

Sometimes, city workers send emails but they never arrive in the recipient’s inbox. The city’s systems are also extremely susceptible to cybersecurity attacks, she said.

The antiquated systems make it more difficult for the city to issue paychecks, collect taxes, communicate internally and dispatch police and firefighters, city officials have said.

“It is fundamentally broken or beyond fundamentally broken,” Niblock testified. “In some cases fundamentally broken would be good.”

Her testimony is considered crucial to helping the city justify a sweeping plan to shed more than $7 billion in liabilities and reinvest more than $1.4 billion in services, including basic information technology.

About nine in 10 of the city’s computers are operating on the decade-old Windows XP operating system or something older.

“They’re atrocious,” she said. “Depending on what luck of the draw you have, your desktop can take almost 10 minutes to boot up.”

In earlier testimony today, Detroit chief restructuring consultant Chuck Moore said that eliminating waste, fraud and inefficient spending is crucial to ensure that the restructuring plan drafted to Detroit’s emergency manager Kevyn Orr is successful.

Moore of the firm Conway MacKenzie, is charged with identifying ways to improve reshape the city government. He testified that the cash budgeted to improve city services over 10 years must be spent responsibly.

His comments came in response to a line of direct questioning from Judge Steven Rhodes, who has insisted that Detroit must not exit bankruptcy without an achievable plan to improve basic services.

“Just because the money exists doesn’t mean it can be spent,” Moore said. “It has to be justified.”

Moore said that Duggan implemented a system in which employees must create a business case before securing approval to spend the reinvestment funds.

©2014 the Detroit Free Press