Governor Raimondo’s Multiple and Growing Technology Failures
Saturday, April 29, 2017
Rhode Island technology failures may have hit rock bottom. On Thursday, it was disclosed that the federal government fined the State of Rhode Island $800,000 for the UHIP debacle. The fine was levied on the Raimondo administration last year, but not disclosed to Rhode Islanders or the House Oversight Committee until this week.
When Gina Raimondo ran for Governor, she trumpeted her business experience. As a venture capitalist, she was the lead investor on companies like Tazz Networks and Nabsys. Her fund - Point Judith Capital - poured millions of dollars into these companies, but both companies later collapsed.
Nabsys has been resurrected from the proverbial startup scrap heap with investments from China, but Raimondo’s Point Judith - and the State of Rhode Island’s Slater Fund - lost millions.
GET THE LATEST BREAKING NEWS HERE -- SIGN UP FOR GOLOCAL FREE DAILY EBLASTNow, Raimondo’s administration is fighting and flailing to maintain and rollout technology across a number of critical battles across state government.
Ironically, Scoop News Group named Raimondo one of the 2017 Top Women in Tech — the award was announced in March in the midst of multiple technology failures in Rhode Island.
Here are a few of the technology failures:
UHIP's Collapse
Rhode Island’s $360 million plus health service infrastructure is known as the Unified Health Infrastructure Project (UHIP), but tens of thousands of Rhode Islanders have been denied services or payments since its launch. The technology — contracted to Deloitte — has repeatedly failed, and now is the subject of an investigation by the House Oversight Committee.
House Oversight Committee Chair Patricia Serpa told viewers on GoLocal LIVE that the federal government is looking for UHIP audit information — which Serpa said the committee had just asked for from the state, calling the information they had gotten so far as “suspect.” At the time of her appearance on GoLocal LIVE, Serpa was unaware that the Raimondo administration had already been fined over $800,000 by federal authorities.
According to the most recent UHIP update issued this week by the Raimondo administration, “Total pending applications have stabilized and are now steadily trending downward, having declined from over 13,600 at the end of March to 10,579 as of April 26.”
But, House Minority Leader Patricia Morgan criticized the disclosure on Twitter, “More than 7 monts after launch, UHIP's Director delighted that there are only 11,000 backlog cases. Unconscionable.”
DMV Failure, Raimondo Losses Legal Fight and Must Pay Millions More
The state was recently forced to pay DMV contractor Hewlett Packard Enterprise (now DXC Technology) $7 million. As GoLocal first reported last fall, the Raimondo administration sued the vendor, but failed to prove the case and ultimately had to capitulate.
In November, at the time of the Raimondo's lawsuit she said:
“I will do whatever is necessary to protect Rhode Island’s taxpayers against an IT vendor unfairly demanding more money to complete an eight-year-old computer upgrade. When we can finally see the finish line, HPE is trying to double the price of this project. I intend to see that Rhode Islanders get the computer system for which they have already paid. Hewlett Packard Enterprise contracted itself to complete the Division of Motor Vehicles computer project, and CEO Meg Whitman herself pledged HPE to delivering a solution the people of Rhode Island deserve. On behalf of the residents of Rhode Island, I will hold HPE accountable."
911 Failure
This past week, Rhode Island’s 911 system failed and the back-up tech structure failed to properly deploy. “There were 125 calls while the system was malfunctioning. Many of these were duplicate calls, from people calling more than once. There were 98 calls for service. At this time, the Department of Public Safety is not aware of any serious complications resulting from a delay in receiving emergency services. However, DPS officials acknowledge that any delay in a call for help is unacceptable,” said the RI State Police.
Vacant Chief Technology Officer’s Position
As part of the UHIP staff purge by the Raimondo administration, Thom Guertin, the State’s Chief Technology Officer, was forced out of his position.
He was forced out three months ago and the state has failed to name a replacement for Guertin. Despite the State’s collection of technology meltdowns, the Raimondo administration has failed to see an urgency to replace him. The oversight of UHIP's problems is now being overseen by Eric Beane, a former federal prosecutor and Raimondo staffer.
Related Slideshow: UHIP Assessment Report to Governor Raimondo
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