Comptroller Accuses HP of Overcharging NYC $163m On 911 System 92
benfrog writes "New York City comptroller John Liu has accused HP of overcharging New York City $163 million on upgrades to its 911 system. According to a statement put out by Liu, an audit of the project revealed that HP did not perform up to spec on the contract between April 2005 and April 2008 and did not bill the city correctly for time and materials on its portion of the contract to upgrade the 911 system. According to Liu's reading, the contract was supposed to cost no more than $378 million over five years, but in January the city projected it would have already spent $307m by mid-April and had to award Northrop-Grumman an additional $286m to do a second part of the original contract, ballooning the cost to $632m, and Liu's office is now estimating that cost overruns beyond this could be as high as an additional $362m. NYC's deputy mayor for operations was quoted defending the contract."
Re:How does this happen? (Score:4, Interesting)
I bet HP doesn't want to fight a PR battle with a major customer and potential customer. Anything substantive they say about this would probably be in the course of a formal investigation.
Hmmm... Maybe I'm reading this wrong and this is really a political battle between the Comptroller and the Deputy mayor for Operations, where the Comptroller is trying to pin the blame for what he asserts is an overly expensive project on the Operations guy.
Re:How does this happen? (Score:2, Interesting)
I worked in IT for a city that was bidding on a new city-wide VoIP system. The awarded the project to the lowest bidder, of course. In the end, it ballooned to more than double of what the original bid was (costing more than the most expensive bid that was originally submitted). The stuff they did implement was shoddy at best. Nothing worked as it was proposed. A total nightmare.
The City sued and they settled out of court.