4 ms·

NYC 'Consultants' getting $722M from doomed project

14 points by markbnine 17y ago

tptacek 17y ago
The 40 highest-paid people on the project bill taxpayers at least $500,000 a year. These enormous salaries are coming out of a $139 million extension to the CityTime contract that began July 1 and runs to Sept. 30. ... Take, for example, Brian Fallon, a CityTime "project manager." The Science Applications International Corp., which employs Fallon and supplies the consultants, charged $653,554 for his services in 2009. Whoah. There is a big difference between a consulting company's bill rate and a consultant's take-home pay. I take home nothing resembling my bill rate.
- Alex63 17y ago
  Agreed. I would be very happy if my "salary" and my billing rate were the same. Still, based on a 2000 hour year, $500K is a billing rate of $250/hr. That's not unusual for high-end IT consultants, but at that rate the client should be getting what they pay for, or terminating the agreement. The problem with this kind of story is that it's hard to know whether the issues are with the implementer or the client -- are the delays/overruns due to changing requirements, or poor delivery?
  - tptacek 17y ago
    There's zero question that NYC is getting a firm rogering from SAIC. But I would be absolutely amazed if the SAIC consultants staffing this project were beneficiaries of anything but a stable, 85th percentile salary. It seems borderline dangerous to call out the schmucks actually doing the work for what SAIC is charging for them. That's going to be on their "Google resume" forever. The newspaper better be right.
bartl 17y ago
It doesn't add up. 230 consultants, average pay $400,000 each.. that makes "only" $90 million.
- tptacek 17y ago
  In one year.
kiba 17y ago
No incentive to performs equal run-away budgets! I wonder how many corporations can run up bills like that. I am glad that I am not a taxpayer in New York City or an investor in one of those corporation. Or maybe I should be worried about government officials?
michaelfairley 17y ago
Previously: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1221068 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1221068
JohnnyBrown 17y ago
"biometric scanners and automatic timeclocks on all personal computers" is what they are building. I work in a strip club that has this.

14 points by markbnine 17y ago

The 40 highest-paid people on the project bill taxpayers at least $500,000 a year. These enormous salaries are coming out of a $139 million extension to the CityTime contract that began July 1 and runs to Sept. 30. ... Take, for example, Brian Fallon, a CityTime "project manager." The Science Applications International Corp., which employs Fallon and supplies the consultants, charged $653,554 for his services in 2009. Whoah. There is a big difference between a consulting company's bill rate and a consultant's take-home pay. I take home nothing resembling my bill rate.

Alex63 17y ago
Agreed. I would be very happy if my "salary" and my billing rate were the same. Still, based on a 2000 hour year, $500K is a billing rate of $250/hr. That's not unusual for high-end IT consultants, but at that rate the client should be getting what they pay for, or terminating the agreement. The problem with this kind of story is that it's hard to know whether the issues are with the implementer or the client -- are the delays/overruns due to changing requirements, or poor delivery?
- tptacek 17y ago
  There's zero question that NYC is getting a firm rogering from SAIC. But I would be absolutely amazed if the SAIC consultants staffing this project were beneficiaries of anything but a stable, 85th percentile salary. It seems borderline dangerous to call out the schmucks actually doing the work for what SAIC is charging for them. That's going to be on their "Google resume" forever. The newspaper better be right.

bartl 17y ago

It doesn't add up. 230 consultants, average pay $400,000 each.. that makes "only" $90 million.

tptacek 17y ago
In one year.

kiba 17y ago

No incentive to performs equal run-away budgets! I wonder how many corporations can run up bills like that. I am glad that I am not a taxpayer in New York City or an investor in one of those corporation. Or maybe I should be worried about government officials?

michaelfairley 17y ago

Previously: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1221068 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1221068

JohnnyBrown 17y ago

"biometric scanners and automatic timeclocks on all personal computers" is what they are building. I work in a strip club that has this.