Don McCubbrey's Blog

Make it Five Failed Colorado Computer Systems

This morning's Rocky Mountain News had a story under Ann Imse's byline entitled "Vehicle registration meltdown"  Here's the first two paragraphs.  You can read the rest for yourself, and it's not pretty:

"Colorado pulled the plug Monday on its new computer for licensing motor vehicles - the fifth computer system dating to the Owens administration to have major problems.

Gov. Bill Ritter's administration halted use of the CSTARS system after reports of four cases in which police officers checking license plates were informed, incorrectly, that the registration was for a different car".

Recall from a much earlier post that the State's Information Management Commission, in their 2004 annual report issued in March of 2005, called the Colorado Benefits Management System (CBMS) one of their success stories of 2004.  It's still broken.  Wonder what they'll say about this one. (And the other three failed systems).  Hard to believe.

More Colorado IT Woes

I suppose this should be under the category of "Some People Never Learn", but it is related to CBMS inasmuch as it is one more failed computer system at the State of Colorado.  This one is at CDOT, the Colorado Department of Transportation, but it's only $30 million.  Well, to be more precise, we don't know if it's really a failed system.  What was reported in the Rocky Mountain News on March 13, in a story with the headline: "CDOT pay system blasted" is that a new computer system didn't pay highway workers for overtime which they earned cleaning up the unusually high piles of snow we had in December and January.  Well, OK, systems fail, but like CBMS, apparently project managers on this one failed to heed warnings that it wasn't going to work.  According to the article, Bill Cron, a CDOT information technology specialist, "said that when he repeatedly warned supervisors about the "horrible nature of the failure" that was looming, they kicked him off the SAP implementation team in May". Well, that's one way to handle bad news. 

My thanks to fellow "old IT warrior" Bill Gillette for calling this one to my attantion.

CBMS: One More Complication

According to an article in today's Rocky Mountain News, the State of Colorado might have to refund some $11million to the Federal Government because of errors in beneficiary payments generated by our old friend, the Colorado Benefits Management System (CBMS).  An appeals court in Alexandria Virginia is hearing arguments in the case now.  Quoting from the article, "The Food and Nutrition Service of the U.S. Department of Agriculture points to design flaws in the system, and an analysis done on information extracted from the system led the agency to conclude that $11,162,598 of food stamp benefits were issued incorrectly".  Later, the article states that "A spokeswoman for the Colorado Department of Human Services said the agency has acknowledged problems with CBMS but added that the federal government's analysis that led to the claim of $11.2 million of overpayments also had flaws".  Wonder if anyone, anywhere,  has ever added up the total cost of CBMS which, as far as I know, is still broken.

CBMS as of January 18 2007

Recall that the CBMS (Colorado Benefits Management Systems) was converted before it was ready for prime time on September 1, 2004 and has been a mess ever since.  Now that there is a new legislature in Colorado, the spotlight is finally being focused on what went wrong and why, and how this thing is going to get fixed.  April Washington's article in the January 18 edition of the Rocky Mountain News, "Hearing eyes benefits woes" reports on hearings conducted by a legislative committee.  Take a look.  Here are some excerpts: 

"Officials in some of Colorado's largest counties say that former Gov. Bill Owens' administration was in "a defiant state of denial" regarding problems with the state's welfare computer system, and that it could leave counties on the hook for millions of dollars in benefits overpayments.

"The system is ineffective, and it's not working. It's as simple as that," Gilpin County Commissioner Jeanne Nicholson said. "The state has stayed in a defiant state of denial."

Counties worry that they'll have to reimburse the federal government millions of dollars in overpayments to the needy, and some lawmakers are so concerned they called a hearing on the matter today.

The $223-million system was designed to replace the 25-year-old Legacy system and streamline food stamps, Medicaid and Temporary Aid to Needy Families.

But it has denied benefits to thousands of qualified clients, and has been maddeningly slow, hard to operate and labor-intensive".

And later:

"More than two years after its rollout, the Colorado Benefits Management System still is causing major headaches, say counties. Among them:

• It's generating over 11,000 notices of overpayments to clients every month.

• Training for county human services workers has been inadequate.

• The time needed to enter a case into the system has doubled to more than an hour.

• Workers must plow through an excessive number of error-prone, complex screens and decision tables to determine a client's eligibility. To work around the faulty system, they must thumb through seven thick manuals that contain more than 6,000 guidelines and procedures.

Counties have been forced to shell out tens of thousands of dollars to hire additional workers. The state has kicked in more than $9 million.

Owens did not respond to a request for comment.

Dan Hopkins, a former Owens spokesman, said he will not get into "the business of commenting every time someone brings up Owens, positively or negatively."

"To do so only invites a continuing and unproductive dialog," he said".

Right.  Let's not talk about it.  Why talk about unpleasant topics?

 

Inquiry urged for welfare benefits system

Yup. That's the headline on an article by April Washington in today's Rocky Mountain News.  Click on the link to read it.  In summary, it says that two lawmakers called for an inquiry in the upcoming session of the Colorado State Legislature.  According to the article, "They will push for an independent audit to determine why the Colorado Benefits Management System (CBMS) is still riddled with problems, leaving some needy Coloradans without public assistance and counties potentially on the hook for millions of accidental overpayments.  About time.  Hope they do it.  Hope it works. 

In the meantime, my colleague, Cindi Fukami, and I just published a follow-on teaching case on CBMS in Communications of the Association of Information Systems.  It chronicles the efforts to right the system up through June 30, 2006.  (Still broken).  The title of the new case is "The Colorado Benefits Management System (B):  The Emperor's New System."  As of December 27, 2006, the Emperor (and his subjects) still have no system.       

Yipes! Denver Couldn't Have Read About CBMS!

Despite all the negative publicity about the failed (and still failing CBMS) system, apparently Denver's Election Commission officials don't read the papers.  According to this morning's Rocky Mountain News story by Ann Imse, the $85,000 worth of software that caused three hour lines on November 7th, and caused 18,000 voters to give it up and go home before that, was purchased without a contract.   Doing so was "foolhardy," "because there are no consequences spelled out in case of failure", said Denis Berckefeldt, spokesman for Denver Auditor Dennis Gallagher. Gallagher has been asking the commission for a copy of any such contract since spring, without getting one.  It gets worse.  Apparently the project was undertaken by low level support personnel who took it upon themselves to develop the software unbeknownst to top officals of their employer, Sequoia Voting Systems.  And here Sequoia thought the reasons these guys weren't being productive on their real jobs is that they were day-trading or playing on-line games.   

Didn't Denver Managers Read About CBMS?

Here's the essence of a question from the final exam I gave my undergraduate IS students last weeK:

The City of Denver had problems with a new computer system in the election held on November 7^th, as discussed in class. Basically, the City consolidated many small precincts into around 50 voting centers.  The only problem is that before voters could touch the voting machines (another story) they had to have their registration verified by clerks using laptops to access a central database.  Since this could take as long as twenty minutes (the system was a wee bit slow) lines quickly grew to the point where voters were in line for hours.  The ramifications were so bad that the City received nationwide attention in the media. Here's an example from the Rocky Mountain News.  Please describe the principal problem with the new computer system. (5 points) Please describe, with hindsight, what actions should have been taken by IT professionals and Election Commission managers to assure that the new system performed properly. (5 points).  Here's an example of an answer from one of the students' exam paper:

"The principal problem with the computer system was that it couldn’t handle all the mass amount of people trying to use it at the same time. This in turn caused the system to crash and freeze since it was overwhelmed with all the processing. The system was not ready to handle such an event as Election Day and certain things should have been in place before the system was used. IT professionals and Election Commission managers should have performed a variety of tests to make sure the system was ready for the public. They should have tested each aspect of the system and made sure it did not have any problems. Just as with the CBMS case, there were certain things that should have been worked on to allow the system to run without problems. The development should have consisted of an in depth systems life cycle analysis which would have allowed for these problems to never have happened, since it would have been developed properly. Unfortunately, the   IT and other managers responsible did not look into the possible ramifications of releasing the system without all this testing and analysis, in turn allowing for a terrible election day for Denver".

OK.  Here's a question for you:  How come an 18 or 19 yearold freshman gets it and the IT folks and managers at the Election Commision didn't?  (10 points).

CBMS - Hopeful Signs? (Finally)

Take a look at this article from the most recent issue of Government Technology magazine.  Written by Andy Opsahl and entitled "Weathering the Storm", it strikes an optimistic note that most of the troubles with CBMS are receding.  Better yet, it gives readers the impression that maybe steps have been and will be taken to: (1) Put CBMS on an even keel and (2) Strengthen Colorado's internal procurement and project management processes to avoid another "ox in the ditch" with a future IT project.

Sure hope so.  It's been a long time coming.  Cindi Fukami and I just had another teaching case accepted for publication in Communications of the Association for Information Systems chronicling the travails of CBMS from its premature conversion on September 1, 2004 to its continuing problems in mid-2006.   The one big takeaway we both had after interviewing people to write the second case was that a private company would never have put up with a mess this bad for this long.  Couldn't help but wonder if the one of the reasons CBMS took so long to fix is because its "customers" are the poor, the sick, and the elderly.  They have no voice, and most of them don't vote.

More on CBMS (Sigh)

Sometimes I wish CBMS would just go away.  By that, I mean that it would finally get fixed and function the way it is supposed to.  It's not only an embarrassment to the IT profession, it still does not treat its (mostly poor) clients the way it should.  Further, it is a national (if not international) embarrassment to the State of Colorado because of the publicity it continues to receive. 

The latest is an article by Ellen Perlman in the August 2006 issue of Governing Magazine.  It's called "Meltdown: How a promising technology mega-project went awry."  The article pretty much nails it, and is full of good quotes.  Here's a sample passage to give you a feel for it:

"It's been exactly two years since Colorado suffered one of the bigger government technology meltdowns in recent memory. As efforts to fix the system continue, the administration of Governor Bill Owens, state legislators and software developers are digesting lessons that their peers in other states would do well to pay attention to." 

Well, let's hope they're digesting lessons.  If you're still following the CBMS saga the article is a good read. 

CBMS Video

The following link puts a human face on the problems created for welfare recipients by the Colorado Benefits Management System's troubled conversion:

CBMS video from cbs4denver.com, June 7 2006.  Sorry, I should have posted it long before now.

As you know it has been the topic of earlier posts here and has received a lot of publicity.  Cindy Fukami, my colleague in the Department of Management at Daniels, and I published a classroom case in Communications of the Association of Information Systems last year and are currently working on an update.  One of the interesting contrasts that arose during our interviews with officials for the updated case was that between the troubled baggage system at Denver International Airport (DIA)and CBMS.  In the DIA instance, the airport opening was delayed until the baggage system was proven to work.  In CBMS, the system was converted despite objections that it was not ready.  Could it be that the "customers" served by the two systems had markedly different demographics?  One can only wonder.