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May 9, 2011 By Matt Williams
Over the past decade, the outsourcing of San Diego County’s technology and telecommunications has been widely complimented as a public-private partnership done right. The names and faces and companies involved changed occasionally, but results were typically constant.
The county’s help desk, desktop, network, data center and applications are managed entirely by a private company. The county began outsourcing in 1999 with Computer Sciences Corp., and then Northrop Grumman Corp. took over in 2007 after winning the contract rebid.
Now, San Diego County is unexpectedly dealing with another transition: On May 1, Northrop Grumman transferred ownership of its $700 million contract to Hewlett-Packard ahead of the agreement’s 2013 end date.
W. Harold Tuck, San Diego County’s CIO, said the county was pleased with Northrop Grumman’s performance, so it was unexpected — although not surprising — that Northrop Grumman made a business decision to walk away.
Regardless, Tuck said he’s expecting a smooth transition because HP already was a major subcontractor on the outsourcing contract. HP manages the county’s help desk, two out-of-state data centers the county uses, and application development and management for the county’s health and human services department. HP has also been a member of innovation council that advises the county.
HP also chose to retain most of the existing Northrop Grumman employees working for the county. “The staff are the same, they just have a different logo on their polo shirt,” Tuck said.
The points of emphasis will be somewhat different, though. San Diego County has asked HP to focus more resources on mobility for field workers and green initiatives. “We need to get more tablets to those workers who will be communicating wirelessly to the data center,” Tuck said. “That’s one of the areas [HP] wants to target because they know we have that need."
The county also wants to decrease IT costs in public libraries by deploying desktop virtualization and thin client. Tuck hopes to get the county’s approval to reinvest those savings in order to buy more equipment. Improving publicly available broadband is also on the list. HP will have time to do the job because the county extended the entire outsourcing contract through 2018 by picking up option years. The deal’s value is unchanged, according to HP and confirmed by Tuck.
“The [contract] transfer really was the most cost effective thing to do,’ said Ericka Floyd, an HP spokeswoman. The county didn’t have to spend taxpayer dollars to put the contract back out to bid and review RFPs.
Northrop Grumman gave few details about its decision to end the company’s business relationship with San Diego County. A Northrop Grumman spokesperson said the company and the county “have enjoyed a solid five-year relationship filled with many great accomplishments” and that the contract transfer was in the best interest of both Northrop Grumman and the county.
Northrop Grumman has been trying to improve its IT management contract with Virginia, a $2.3 billion partnership beset with some high-profile computer outages that have drawn the public eye. The latest was an e-mail outage that hampered the Virginia State Police last month. It’s unknown if Northrop Grumman’s decision to leave San Diego County is in any way related to the company’s ongoing work in Virginia.
No matter Northrop Grumman’s business motives, Tuck is optimistic that partnering with HP will continue to improve the county’s IT services, building upon the successful partnerships of the past 12 years. He has been telling his employees that the arrival of HP is a “3-G” moment — the third time the county has brought in a new vendor partner.
“Each time it gets better,” Tuck said. “We refine our processes, and [IT outsourcing} is now organic in San Diego County.”
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http://www.govtech.com/policy-management/San-Diego-Hewlett-Packard-Outsourcing-Partner.html
Politics alive and well in southern California. Who walks away from a good deal?
Gotta love those IT companies. It is amazing that the people of SD put up with this. I've heard horror stories about outsourcing at the state level (Accenture) and at both SD County and Orange County (run by ACS). Glad my county does not outsource. At least I know who to call and the loyalty of the staff are to the County first and not some third party.
But everyone in the Country is behind Governers like Scott Walker that want to get rid of Public Employees unions which protect State employees jobs from being Outsourced. Just think once the Ultra-Conservatives and Tea Party Jerks get there way, all of IT will be outsourced in all of our States. Imagine how screwed up State Services will be then!!!!!
Encinitas In Home Depot's Pocket Original investigation will be posted on www.doublefixed.com Both I and my wife have extensive experience with city inspections and code enforcement. Mrs. Finney was a fraud investigator employed by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development and had contract enforcement oversight over urban counties and cities comparable to Encinitas. As to the City of Encinitas’ code enforcement, we discovered code enforcement corruption and reversed indefensible code enforcement decisions, one against Bank of America. This is part of the public record. City officials’ conduct is often incompetent and corrupted by improper relationships with large corporations, given campaign contributions, revolving door employment and other considerations. Home Depot apparently exercised sufficient leverage over the City and Steve Sanders, City Inspector for the City of Encinitas, to collaborate to produce an adverse interpretation to my claims. City employees apparently worked in violation of City policies without pay, after the close of business on a Friday evening to aid and advocate for Home Depot. This is particularly peculiar conduct in that City Hall is closed to residents and taxpayers after 6:00 pm, as well as on alternate Fridays. This conduct violates advertised conduct of business on the City’s website: “Public business hours for City Hall are 7:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. City Hall will be closed on alternate Fridays. Areas of City Hall will be powered down beginning at 7:00 p.m. each weeknight and restored at 6:45 a.m. No electrical energy will be available in most areas during the power down period. Employees are encouraged not to enter the City Hall building during weekends and closed Fridays since there will be no power at work stations.”
This is the 3rd vendor for SD county IT. You know why??? Because each time one party or the other has been dissatisfied. IT outsourcing is "organic" as long as no one finds out the truth. CIOs will say ANYTHING in these tech papers. And if you believe this fairy tale I've got one for you about how well ERP systems work at the state!!
So the county is outsourcing jobs to a out of state company, that outsources jobs out of the country. Guess they don't want people who live there to earn a living, but others, elsewhere.......
Funny that there was no mention on why outsourcing is working for the county. Nor was there anything mentioned about the multiple awards that San Diego county earned last year. What about the fact that due to IT outsourcing, San Diego citizens had access to county services during the wildfires. Outsourcing does work. The people who perform this service to the county are county citizens, with minor exception. Many of these people were county employees before the original outsource agreement with CSC. How does a government entity compete in IT? It doesn't. IT companies attract the best talent. If you want your tax dollars spent supporting out-of-date technology with less-than capable talent, then you need your head checked. Additionally, what makes this type of arrangement work is that there is clear accountability in the event of a loss of service. If HP fails to perform, it doesn't get paid. If a government employee fails to perform, depending on his or her length of service, it would take an act of congress to penalize/fire him or her. BTW Chris. HP is based in California, not out-of-state. Check your facts.
Out of state? HP is based in Cupertino, CA. Last time I checked it was still in California. Out of the country? The help desk is based out of Winchester KY. Although it should be, Kentucky was still part of the US. The 200 software developers are residents of San Diego, CA. The last I recall, San Diego city residents still lived in San Diego county unless there's some spacial distortion I'm unaware of. You really should check your facts before you chime in.
How does this relate to the article?
When the County of San Diego (COSD) originally outsourced the Sheriff and District Attorney Offices took a wait and see position, while the other elected official, the tax office joined only after being promised a new ERP tax system. Now over 10 years later the Sheriff and DA’s offices are still running their own IT departments and the new ERP tax system has never been delivered. I think that says volumes about how successful the COSD IT outsourcing effort really is.