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Michigan County Seeks Audit of Delayed $57M Software Project

A Wayne County, Mich., commissioner is now calling for an audit of a $57 million software project that he described as a “major blunder” after planned upgrades stalled, causing costs to nearly double.

Audit
(TNS) — A Wayne County commissioner is calling for an audit of a $57 million software project that he described as a “major blunder” after upgrades stalled and costs nearly doubled.

Commissioner Glenn Anderson, whose 12th District represents the cities of Inkster, Garden City and Westland, said he’s asking the county’s auditor to delve into the county’s Enterprise Resource Planning project, which had an objective three years ago to upgrade the current accounting software system to account for and move funds accurately for all county transactions.

“Someone dropped the ball on this and I want to know why,” Anderson told The Detroit News on Wednesday. “People should be up in arms. They let this implode, it’s troubling and there needs to be consequences.”

Anderson, a commissioner since 2016 and a former state legislator, said millions have been spent to date and the cost of the desired system, once pegged at about $31 million, had nearly doubled. An audit, he added, would require approval of the chair of the county auditing committee.

He described the software issue as a “screw up” which involved high turnover of some of the county’s information technology directors and a general lack of oversight by the county’s Chief Financial Officer Hughey Newsome and his administration.

“We (commissioners) were kept in the dark for months about the problems they (Information Technology) was having in installing the program,” Anderson claims.

Newsome told The News Wednesday the matter is under review to see how much of the work that has been done is “salvageable.” Still, Newsome stressed, he believes “this can all be resolved” and that he’s focused on getting the program back on track rather than determining fault.

The county, he confirmed, is still largely using the outdated accounting software system which necessitated the project.

“My efforts are to get the project up and running and provide the county with an up-to-date software accounting system,” Newsome said. “My main focus is getting the train back on the tracks rather than determine who did what and when.”

Newsome said part of the new system is in use for the county’s treasury department. He estimates the final cost of the total system will be $57 million and “our hope is to complete this by the end of 2023.”

“We do not anticipate running out of the money to complete the project,” he insisted.

A Sept. 9 report from Newsome’s office to county commissioners blamed the software problem on several root causes and factors including. Among them, the report noted, a lack of staffing in key departments, consultants and companies inexperienced in government accounting, misrepresented costs and a lack of accountability or oversight.

Newsome said he’s been the lead on the project since July, providing monthly updates to the county’s executive staff and CEO. He addressed some of the issues but declined to discuss others, noting that they were still being reviewed.

He said he did not have staffing numbers at hand but “This is an issue throughout the county.”

“We are a government entity that traditionally lags the market in terms of total compensation,” Newsome said. “The current challenges with too few workers exacerbates this issue.”

Newsome said New Jersey-based CherryRoad Technologies was contracted to provide some of the work but failed to meet several deadlines. On July 26, on mutual agreement, it stopped work with the county after being paid nearly $8.5 million, he said.

“We agreed to a separation in this manner to avoid a lengthy litigation which would have locked funding and taken too much time,” Newsome explained.

“Their experience in government was not as evident during the interview/assessment process,” Newsome said in an email on Wednesday. “They were chosen as a ‘value’ candidate who had a competitive price.”

A representative for CherryRoad could not be immediately reached Wednesday.

Anderson said there have been a lot of explanations provided for the issues with the technology upgrades but none are acceptable. He said he’s afraid of the costs that will fall to taxpayers and the county still won’t have the program needed to handle its business, paychecks and contracts.

“And we are still paying out over $1 million a year to keep our old system hobbling along,” he added. “And that has been extended for another four years or $4 million. Just to keep a program going that could fail at any time.”

Wayne County Commissioner Jonathan Kinloch, D- Detroit, said “the more we talk about this, the more questions are raised.”

“The biggest thing is to get it back on track,” said Kinloch. “I’ve heard the CFO (Newsome) and want to give him the benefit of the doubt that he is going to get to the reasons for this and structure it so it doesn’t happen again. We have been promised regular reporting of its progress.”

Kinloch said voters are already distrustful of a system and those elected to manage it.

“The last thing we need is another public funding nightmare,” Kinloch said.

© 2021 The Detroit News. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.