Abandoned bid costs $11M

After the state spent more than $11 million developing a request for proposals for new computer technology to make government more efficient, the Ige administration is now scrapping the solicitation but promises the money has not been wasted.

Eighteen months ago the state asked vendors to submit proposals for a high-tech statewide system to integrate human resources and financial data. The state spent $10.8 million to develop that request for proposals and conduct related research and studies. It spent an additional $321,303 on legal costs related to the project.

Gov. David Ige announced this week that he is canceling that solicitation because the proposals submitted by vendors were too expensive.

Still, state officials insist the work that was done can be applied to ongoing efforts to improve state information technology systems.

Ige said in a news release his administration still intends to pursue the most promising components of the "Statewide Unified Resource Framework," or SURF, initiative, but state government won’t try to implement the entire initiative in one package as proposed by former Gov. Neil Abercrombie’s administration.

Keith DeMello, senior communications manager for the state Office of Information Management and Technology, declined to identify the companies that submitted SURF proposals or say how much they bid.

DeMello said state procurement law bars his office from releasing that information, but said the proposals "came in at a level that was simply not an option given the realities of state budget constraints."

"Basically, it was the premium vision. If we had the budget, yes, wonderful thing to have, but the reality of the budget and the constraints of the budget, it was just not a way that our state could go forward," DeMello said.

The request for proposals was issued Sept. 17, 2013, and at the time was trumpeted by Abercrombie as "one of the top initiatives" in the overall Business and Information Technology Transformation Plan to modernize state government’s antiquated computer infrastructure.

That larger transformation plan calls for consolidating more than 750 "legacy systems" into a smaller number of modern networks that can share information with one another.

Proposals for developing SURF were originally due Dec. 3, 2013, but that deadline was extended. The process then stalled because of the high cost of the proposals, and finally the SURF executive steering committee recommended the request for proposals be canceled, DeMello said.

Vendors who submitted proposals were notified Wednesday that the solicitation is now scrapped, he said.

The $10.8 million spent on the SURF effort included related research such as a feasibility study to determine the business case for SURF or a comparable initiative, and preparation of detailed functional and technical requirements for SURF.

The state also performed "IT benchmark studies" as part of the SURF effort to assess the state’s readiness for the initiative, and conducted an information technology security assessment, according to descriptions of the SURF initiative released by the Abercrombie administration in 2013.

Although the request for proposals has been dropped, state officials stressed the SURF initiative has not been abandoned. Ige announced state Comptroller Doug­las G. Murdock will lead an effort to select the pieces of the SURF initiative that can be completed in the near term.

"We will use a business-like approach to prioritize projects that can be ready to deliver efficiencies and cost-saving benefits within the next two years under current funding," Ige said in a written statement.

The possibilities include targeted upgrades in data systems related to human resources, payroll, employee attendance, financial management, grants management and budgeting.

"All of the legwork that was done (on the SURF initiative) will apply to these projects," DeMello said. "It’s just not going to be the all-in-one premium, single (project) that was originally envisioned."

DeMello said the SURF initiative has already helped the state make progress in a number of those areas under "interim and associated projects" that are linked to SURF.

In particular, state officials point to recent upgrades in the Human Resources Management System, which launched in January. An improved asset management system launched in November, and upgrades in grant management systems went live in August, according to descriptions provided by DeMello.

DeMello said the state might use state personnel to lead similar scaled-back component projects related to SURF with some support from vendors.

Murdock said in a written statement the state has made "good progress" in information technology and will build on that.

Several years ago the state network was down as much as 20 percent of the time, DeMello said, but the network now is functioning more than 99.9 percent of the time. Security has also been greatly improved, he said.