8 ms·

After alleged 'bait and switch,' Nevada DMV cancels $78M IT contract

120 points by us0r 9y ago

us0r 9y ago
Audit: http://budget.nv.gov/uploadedFiles/budgetnvgov/content/IAudits/About/AuditRpts/C18-01%20DMV%20Audit.pdf http://budget.nv.gov/uploadedFiles/budgetnvgov/content/IAudi... This one is extra bad. Not even a communication plan? They did manage to spend $13 MILLION on Oracle shit though. The best part is the solution they sold, which is not even working in New Hampshire, and was built on DynamicsCRM (not portable to oracle) The grand finale: "The contract was amended in February 2017, which extended the termination date for an additional year for maintenance coverage. It also increased the maximum amount of the contract by $3 million, primarily for additional hardware and software." That person needs to be fired immediately and probably arrested.
- us0r 9y ago
  EDIT: NV always responds really fast to info requests but this one is taking a while. I specifically asked for reference letters with everything else. Who ever filled in the info on the BOE meeting clearly lied. They've had a contract with another state and my guess is unhealthy. http://purchasing.nv.gov/uploadedFiles/purchasingnvgov/content/Bids/Documents/RFP3158a.pdf http://purchasing.nv.gov/uploadedFiles/purchasingnvgov/conte... They want something "cloud ready" yet acquired $600,000 of Oracle cloud licenses (what ever that is)? "The Department purchased and received Oracle hardware, Oracle Software, Network and security Hardware and Software, and the Oracle Cloud Software. The hardware is located in both the Department's Carson City and Las Vegas (Flamingo) server rooms. To-date, the purchase cost for hardware and software is $11,408,412. The cost breakdown is as follows: 1. Oracle Hardware - $3,000,000 2. Oracle Software - $5,900,000 3. Oracle Cloud Subscription - $618,000 4. Security-Network software and hardware - $1,890,412 Total Costs $11,408,412" http://budget.nv.gov/uploadedFiles/budgetnvgov/content/Meetings/Board_of_Examiners/2016/April_Complete.pdf http://budget.nv.gov/uploadedFiles/budgetnvgov/content/Meeti... Page 262. "This is a new contract to provide, design and implement a new system to replace the existing and aging client server application. The modernization of the current system will provide better customer service, reduce transaction processing time, increase speed-to-market of NV DMV products and services, enhance security and reduce system backlog" Very clever choice of words. I'll bet the board who approved that contract didn't know they signed a contract for nothing. From their own site: https://www.techmahindra.com/media/press_releases/TechMahindra-to-modernize-the-US-State-of-Nevada-Department-MotorVehicles.aspx https://www.techmahindra.com/media/press_releases/TechMahind... "The solution will be migrated to the Oracle technology stack" So they are going to migrate 4 years worth of Dynamics customizations (which aren't even working) to the Oracle technology stack. Right. No shit they didn't even show up.
  - tajen 9y ago
    Is this decision so bad that it’s highlighting a potential red flag for a bribe between Oracle and managers of this company? « Probable cause » warrant investigations in other areas, wondering about this one.
    - us0r 9y ago
      Personally I have no doubt someone has a job offer at oracle or two people are exchanging envelopes. If the vendor suggested Oracle maybe not but since it was someone at the DMV, 100%. I'm about 90% sure Oracle isn't even fully implemented in any DMV.
      - deleted 9y ago
        [deleted]
  - inferiorhuman 9y ago
    > They want something "cloud ready" yet acquired $600,000 of Oracle cloud licenses (what ever that is)? Chatting with a former coworker and apparently Oracle has their own (dysfunctional) cloud offering these days.
    - megaman22 9y ago
      Yes indeed. I know a couple of Oracle salespeople, and they appear to be pushing it hard - they were giving insane incentive bonuses for selling cloud subscription signups until recently. Not sure that they're really making inroads though.
    - sitharus 9y ago
      They even have a fleet of branded cars they drive around competitor's events to promote themselves: https://twitter.com/Oracle/status/935647345823309830 https://twitter.com/Oracle/status/935647345823309830 They promise to cut your Amazon bill in half. I guess they have scissors.
    - thisisit 9y ago
- CapacitorSet 9y ago
  Unsurprisingly, the work was outsourced to an Indian company, "Tech Mahindra". Nothing against Indians as a people, but Indian outsourcing companies are known for the terrible product quality.
  - us0r 9y ago
    My problem is the tax payer is paying $195 an hour and the Indian guy is maybe getting $5? Nevermind the tax payer getting ripped off, it just seems wrong.
    - linkmotif 9y ago
      Also totally a waste practically because you get no product.
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
  - ehnto 9y ago
    I just don't understand why public works should ever go outside of the local economy, globalisation or not. I don't just want my tax dollars to give me a new thing, I want that new thing to be built in my state. If we don't have the skillset then let that money stimulate growth there. Recently our government outsourced some naval ship building outside the country at the last moment after having expressed they were going to have them locally built. The reason for the switch was cost. To shave a million or two off the price of a many hundred million dollar project they decided to completely remove our local economy from the benefactors. Private projects? Do what you like. Global times. But a governments role is to grow the economy and welfare of its people, public works are excellent ways to stimulate that.
    - mc32 9y ago
      Or local universities[1]. I think they had their then current staff train their replacements --what gall. Now, imagine if the faculty president thought "hmm, I bet we can save a bunch if we do remote teaching. We'll get super large interactive displays in every classroom and we'll have faculty in [some country] teach our students. We'll save millions!" [1]http://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/UCSF-to-outsource-dozens-of-tech-jobs-to-India-10414432.php http://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/UCSF-to-outsource...
- chimeracoder 9y ago
  > This one is extra bad. Not even a communication plan? They did manage to spend $13 MILLION on Oracle shit though. The best part is the solution they sold, which is not even working in New Hampshire, and was built on DynamicsCRM (not portable to oracle)... That person needs to be fired immediately and probably arrested. To be honest, as someone who lives in New York, that doesn't even sound that bad, as far as corruption in government contract goes. To give you an idea, the MTA was recently caught paying $200,000 per day to people who literally did not have any jobs to do[0]. They were able to cover this up for years, and when it was finally made public, nobody batted an eyelid because, well, this level of corruption and wasteful spending is so commonplace that nobody was surprised in the least. Hopefully Nevada has a functioning democratic government (unlike New York) and the state government decides to hold these people accountable. It's been over a month since that NYTimes piece came out, and Governor Cuomo hasn't even felt the need to respond to it - that's how little accountability our elected officials here have. [0] https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/28/nyregion/new-york-subway-construction-costs.html https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/28/nyregion/new-york-subway-...
  - cookiecaper 9y ago
    From your link: > The labor deals negotiated between the unions and construction companies also ensure that workers are well paid. The agreement for Local 147, the union for the famed “sandhogs” who dig the tunnels, includes a pay rate for most members of $111 per hour in salary and benefits. The pay doubles for overtime or Sunday work, which is common in transit construction. Weekend overtime pays quadruple — more than $400 per hour. Wow. Seems like programming isn't a good field if you're in it for the money. The base pay may not be far off if you're a big shot superstar in a small market or normal in SV, but which of us gets 4x salary for weekend hours?
    - ofcrpls 9y ago
      I am sure the workers wouldn't see much of this overtime pay as the TM would have just billed NV DMV at that rate.
  - acct1771 9y ago
marktangotango 9y ago
Ah the good old responsibility dodging and blaming following legacy modernization project gone off the rails. At least they got out spending only $27 million. The state says bait and switch, I wager the contractor never got requirements or basic documentation for the project. I’m at a company now that’s planning one of these projects for a core system. I’m looking forward to having a front row seat!
- us0r 9y ago
  Read the audit i posted above. The contractor didn't even show up LOL
aerotwelve 9y ago
How does this happen? Who in their right mind thought it was a good idea to outsource the development of this critical system to a foreign contractor? Did anybody stop and think about what might happen to all of that public money if the contract is breached?
- mrep 9y ago
  Happens all the time. Worst example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_Martin_F-35_Lightning_II https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_Martin_F-35_Lightning...
- Spooky23 9y ago
  You can can tell from the auditors report that the RFP or other solicitation was fubar. Many of the deficiencies there are standard contract terms that were probably missing. It also sounds like the project was getting done on the cheap. The actual dollar figure is buried a bit... it sounds like they got their hands on a big wad of cash and went on a spending spree. I bet they bought a new mainframe, lots of of network crap, etc. The poor procurement practices led to the state ending up with some two-bit bodyshop that just tried to job out the work. My guess is that the state program side is barebones and some political hack pushed this through.
  - dboreham 9y ago
    Interesting. In my teeny tiny company our insurance policy states that we must have all contacts over a certain value reviewed by an attorney. Wondering how a vast beurocracy somehow isn’t subject to that rule?
    - Spooky23 9y ago
      Lawyers will tell you if things are legal. They won’t generally stop you from doing dumb, legal things.
      - dboreham 9y ago
greatamerican 9y ago
I feel like I could provide the Nevada DMV with whatever it needs for significantly less than $78 million.
- wavefunction 9y ago
  Only one way to find out! There's so much opportunity to improve the "non-sexy" work of governments and institutions and the interface between them and the people they help/serve/administer that it's crazy there isn't more start-up attention focused there.
  - craftyguy 9y ago
    In reality, there is very little realized opportunity to improve the 'non-sexy' work of governments and institutions, because you're up against either big names like Oracle or <insert official's nephew's name here>.
    - wavefunction 9y ago
      I won't argue that Oracle isn't optimized to meet and take advantage of public institutional procurement policies but if you've ever seen one of Oracle's offerings, it's easy to surpass their quality and given their rates, trivial to come in cheaper. My mom was an instructor with the community college system in Colorado and about ten years back they rolled out an Oracle based-and-delivered student enrollment product that failed during its first enrollment after being deployed because it had been set up to only allow 100 concurrent connections to the state-wide persistence solution. Oracle was of course 'earning' something like $90,000 every day the outage continued despite it being their own direct fault. I can't stress enough how incompetent or over-priced Oracle solutions are for pretty much anyone.
    - HeyLaughingBoy 9y ago
      Like wavefunction points out, only one way to find out. You'll never know unless you try.
atarian 9y ago
It's kinda crazy how much money gets thrown around by an org you wouldn't think twice about. If a group of engineers from HN got together and secured a deal like that, they could easily retire with that kind of money.
- ben_jones 9y ago
  We'd have to work a lot on our golf game to secure that kind of contract.
- acdha 9y ago
  Never underestimate the complexity of those projects: I’d bet that the requirements would fill a bookshelf, and simply navigating the hurdles to bid & convince them that you have the resources to deliver would rule out a group of engineers below the triple digit range. (Yes, that’s not a good way to build things successfully. Welcome to enterprise IT.)
  - Retric 9y ago
    In theory the requirements fill a bookshelf in practice nobody checks them that closely outside of fairly basic automated tests for things like 508 compliance.
    - acdha 9y ago
      This is both untrue – maybe they don’t check 100% but everyone who put something on that list is going to notice if you leave their needs unmet – and it doesn’t matter unless you know which things won’t be checked. Otherwise you have liability for not delivering, which probably means you take on the same level of complexity as requested even if much of that effort is wasted or counterproductive.
      - Retric 9y ago
        It's true that a range of stakeholders care about different things, but the solution is to demo the project regularly to verify it fit's basic needs and covers everyone's pet issue. Gov software projects are on a pass fail scale, and people have minimal expectations despite what they may hope to see. The waterfall approach of gather a bunch of details > build something is more about budget than a black and white must meet 100% of every specific req.
snowpanda 9y ago
I'm sure that money will find its way back to America, in political donations to be exact. Kind of gullible to think these 'failed to deliver' accidents keep happening on accident after half the budget has been spent.
maerF0x0 9y ago
I wish code for america would take these kinds of things on. I assume the DMV rules are sufficiently similar that most/all of them could benefit from opensource. https://www.codeforamerica.org/ https://www.codeforamerica.org/
- dboreham 9y ago
  I’m guessing it’s actually the humans that cost $$$ not some source code.
  - jachee 9y ago
    They spent $5M on Oracle software. That's a LOT of someone else's source code they paid for.
    - matt_s 9y ago
      And at one point Oracle was just using open source software, adding on some things and calling it something with a $10k/cpu cost. They may still do this.
- sidlls 9y ago
  What makes you think they would be able to do anything about it. Assume they're above average in technical competence: so what? Whatever makes you think technical competence has anything to do with any of this?
kabdib 9y ago
Prior version of the system used PowerBuilder. That figures. My fly-by of PowerBuilder 20 years ago made a deep impression. Like, I never wanted to even think about that hunk of garbage again. It's right up there with PeopleSoft. If you're ever offered an opportunity to work with these systems, just run away. The state didn't know how to buy or develop software then, and it doesn't know how to buy or develop software today.
- hinkley 9y ago
  I worry that nobody who hires a contractor has the slightest clue how to develop software. After working contracts off and on for a while. I’m starting to think of “we need a contractor” as an open admission of guilt.
- BHSPitMonkey 9y ago
  > If you're ever offered an opportunity to work with these systems, just run away. And we wonder why the only bidders on these projects are frauds.
- j45 9y ago
  Experienced developers know that a mess can be made in any platform. One issue with a position and maligning statement like the above against any platform is that it actually enables said charlatans to charge way more for a sub standard developer base who end up being over paid, because skilled developers are not as readily available to fix, and ideally refactor the system. Hardest of all to imagine is systems that have had legitimately tens of millions of dollars of mission critical and hardened infrastructure that manage more complexity than many of us will ever handle.. are written in platforms like Powerbuilder. I have personally never used Powerbuilder. I know some ace developers who spent a lot of time (among other things) using Powerbuilder and they have said it's like any other language or framework - lots of messes, some good stuff too. Still, I won't ever stop noticing the kinds of hateful comments people throw at others because of what stack they work in. It's sheer overlooking of opportunities. Comments like the above are like saying all wood is bad because we saw a house built poorly out of wood. This approach excludes folks from the real huge innovation projects that are coming due as these platforms and projects are gradually renewed or refactored.
pxeboot 9y ago
This type of waste occurs in all levels of government. My last employer was spending over $1,000,000/year maintaining some horrible SharePoint sites that were rarely used.
- vkou 9y ago
  This sort of problem is not limited to government. Private companies waste money on all sorts of dead-end nonsense - all the time. It's why IBM and Oracle are still in business.
  - pxeboot 9y ago
    Of course they do, but it's a much bigger issue when it's done with taxpayer money. I don't really care what Apple or BP waste money on, but I hate seeing important services degraded/cut in order to keep spending on wasteful projects like this.
    - mljoe 9y ago
      How do you suppose we fix this? I'm not being factious here.
      - deleted 9y ago
        [deleted]
      - rbcgerard 9y ago
        I’d start with asking the questions: who was responsible for the contract and it’s implemntation, and what were their motives, incentives, qualifications and abilities. Then I would ask the same question, but what would the IDEAL motives, abilities, incentives and qualifications of that person be? Then try bridging those gaps....
      - ThrowAwayFSp 9y ago
        Privatize the DMV/Allow startups to provide the service
      - 9y ago
atonse 9y ago
According to the audit document, the company was Tech Mahindra. I am genuinely surprised when a 8 to 9 figure software project ever succeeds. But I'm also amazed that the government spent $25mil before they realized they got completely bamboozled. There's something shady going on here.
- sandworm101 9y ago
  >> spent $25mil before they realized they got completely bamboozled. Governments regularly spend that much just on the procurement process, long before the bamboozling can even begin.
- notyourwork 9y ago
  As someone who has worked with state funding contracts I disagree that this implies anything shady. Hourly rates for consultants at exorbitantly high. It also depends on how the project is big, fixed feed versus hourly bulk. Regardless, the amount of hours quoted and the rates are inflated based on politics. It's not shady, its just incompetent people signing contracts to promise tech companies bags of money.
  - frankharv 9y ago
    From the article: "the project was not managed by the state's Enterprise IT Services division, and was managed solely by outside master service agreement contractors hired through the DMV's internal IT department." If that is not shady I don't know what is.
    - matt_s 9y ago
      It's not shady, its politics. The DMV IT department didn't want to deal with "corporate" aka Nevada Enterprise IT. Perhaps Nevada IT was too busy digging out of a debacle with healthcare IT systems to be bothered with DMV stuff.
linkmotif 9y ago
I wish there was a collection of these.
osrec 9y ago
$78m over 5 years for 25 (probably average) developers and a few licenses is excessive. Not sure what massive tech problems the Nevada DMV is trying to solve, but I doubt it's much more than a DB cluster with a web app or two thrown in front of it. Tech Mahindra's developers may be average, but their marketing department seems to be exceptional!
- danudey 9y ago
  Integration with existing/external systems is likely a huge part of the cost. If the DMV integrates with the police systems (so police can run license/registration), they need to be integrated. If they have license plate scanners that do the same, they need to be integrated (or replaced). Point of sale terminals for things like license renewals might need integration. No system exists in isolation.
j45 9y ago
I would love to see how much of the purchasing and decision making committee was composed of people who didn't understand technology, let alone how to procure and implement technology. At the highest levels, there is a self-preservation disease permeating most organizations where CxO's try to fake it till they make it with the IT/Systems decisions they take on, and it turns out like this.
notananthem 9y ago
Tech Mahindra contractors, not surprising. An acquaintance of mine came in on a job with them- they pay all their guys salary which is kind of crazy. That guy was doing better than the hourly contractors with family time and pay. Something sketchy is up with them.
- aleksandrm 9y ago
  Kinda offtopic, but apparently they also own a Formula E team. Big money.
- megy 9y ago
  Not that odd. A lot of contracting companies do that, then bill you out at a day rate.
i_feel_great 9y ago
I am currently working on a largish COBOL codebase which the company has tried 4 times to port to Java, each time by porting all at once. It cannot be done all at once.
bovermyer 9y ago
It's stories like this one that make me want to pivot and go work on projects for the government. I KNOW I can contribute something useful.

120 points by us0r 9y ago

us0r 9y ago

Audit: http://budget.nv.gov/uploadedFiles/budgetnvgov/content/IAudits/About/AuditRpts/C18-01%20DMV%20Audit.pdf http://budget.nv.gov/uploadedFiles/budgetnvgov/content/IAudi... This one is extra bad. Not even a communication plan? They did manage to spend $13 MILLION on Oracle shit though. The best part is the solution they sold, which is not even working in New Hampshire, and was built on DynamicsCRM (not portable to oracle) The grand finale: "The contract was amended in February 2017, which extended the termination date for an additional year for maintenance coverage. It also increased the maximum amount of the contract by $3 million, primarily for additional hardware and software." That person needs to be fired immediately and probably arrested.

us0r 9y ago
EDIT: NV always responds really fast to info requests but this one is taking a while. I specifically asked for reference letters with everything else. Who ever filled in the info on the BOE meeting clearly lied. They've had a contract with another state and my guess is unhealthy. http://purchasing.nv.gov/uploadedFiles/purchasingnvgov/content/Bids/Documents/RFP3158a.pdf http://purchasing.nv.gov/uploadedFiles/purchasingnvgov/conte... They want something "cloud ready" yet acquired $600,000 of Oracle cloud licenses (what ever that is)? "The Department purchased and received Oracle hardware, Oracle Software, Network and security Hardware and Software, and the Oracle Cloud Software. The hardware is located in both the Department's Carson City and Las Vegas (Flamingo) server rooms. To-date, the purchase cost for hardware and software is $11,408,412. The cost breakdown is as follows: 1. Oracle Hardware - $3,000,000 2. Oracle Software - $5,900,000 3. Oracle Cloud Subscription - $618,000 4. Security-Network software and hardware - $1,890,412 Total Costs $11,408,412" http://budget.nv.gov/uploadedFiles/budgetnvgov/content/Meetings/Board_of_Examiners/2016/April_Complete.pdf http://budget.nv.gov/uploadedFiles/budgetnvgov/content/Meeti... Page 262. "This is a new contract to provide, design and implement a new system to replace the existing and aging client server application. The modernization of the current system will provide better customer service, reduce transaction processing time, increase speed-to-market of NV DMV products and services, enhance security and reduce system backlog" Very clever choice of words. I'll bet the board who approved that contract didn't know they signed a contract for nothing. From their own site: https://www.techmahindra.com/media/press_releases/TechMahindra-to-modernize-the-US-State-of-Nevada-Department-MotorVehicles.aspx https://www.techmahindra.com/media/press_releases/TechMahind... "The solution will be migrated to the Oracle technology stack" So they are going to migrate 4 years worth of Dynamics customizations (which aren't even working) to the Oracle technology stack. Right. No shit they didn't even show up.
- tajen 9y ago
  Is this decision so bad that it’s highlighting a potential red flag for a bribe between Oracle and managers of this company? « Probable cause » warrant investigations in other areas, wondering about this one.
  - us0r 9y ago
    Personally I have no doubt someone has a job offer at oracle or two people are exchanging envelopes. If the vendor suggested Oracle maybe not but since it was someone at the DMV, 100%. I'm about 90% sure Oracle isn't even fully implemented in any DMV.
    - deleted 9y ago
      [deleted]
- inferiorhuman 9y ago
  > They want something "cloud ready" yet acquired $600,000 of Oracle cloud licenses (what ever that is)? Chatting with a former coworker and apparently Oracle has their own (dysfunctional) cloud offering these days.
  - megaman22 9y ago
    Yes indeed. I know a couple of Oracle salespeople, and they appear to be pushing it hard - they were giving insane incentive bonuses for selling cloud subscription signups until recently. Not sure that they're really making inroads though.
  - sitharus 9y ago
    They even have a fleet of branded cars they drive around competitor's events to promote themselves: https://twitter.com/Oracle/status/935647345823309830 https://twitter.com/Oracle/status/935647345823309830 They promise to cut your Amazon bill in half. I guess they have scissors.
  - thisisit 9y ago
CapacitorSet 9y ago
Unsurprisingly, the work was outsourced to an Indian company, "Tech Mahindra". Nothing against Indians as a people, but Indian outsourcing companies are known for the terrible product quality.
- us0r 9y ago
  My problem is the tax payer is paying $195 an hour and the Indian guy is maybe getting $5? Nevermind the tax payer getting ripped off, it just seems wrong.
  - linkmotif 9y ago
    Also totally a waste practically because you get no product.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- ehnto 9y ago
  I just don't understand why public works should ever go outside of the local economy, globalisation or not. I don't just want my tax dollars to give me a new thing, I want that new thing to be built in my state. If we don't have the skillset then let that money stimulate growth there. Recently our government outsourced some naval ship building outside the country at the last moment after having expressed they were going to have them locally built. The reason for the switch was cost. To shave a million or two off the price of a many hundred million dollar project they decided to completely remove our local economy from the benefactors. Private projects? Do what you like. Global times. But a governments role is to grow the economy and welfare of its people, public works are excellent ways to stimulate that.
  - mc32 9y ago
    Or local universities[1]. I think they had their then current staff train their replacements --what gall. Now, imagine if the faculty president thought "hmm, I bet we can save a bunch if we do remote teaching. We'll get super large interactive displays in every classroom and we'll have faculty in [some country] teach our students. We'll save millions!" [1]http://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/UCSF-to-outsource-dozens-of-tech-jobs-to-India-10414432.php http://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/UCSF-to-outsource...
chimeracoder 9y ago
> This one is extra bad. Not even a communication plan? They did manage to spend $13 MILLION on Oracle shit though. The best part is the solution they sold, which is not even working in New Hampshire, and was built on DynamicsCRM (not portable to oracle)... That person needs to be fired immediately and probably arrested. To be honest, as someone who lives in New York, that doesn't even sound that bad, as far as corruption in government contract goes. To give you an idea, the MTA was recently caught paying $200,000 per day to people who literally did not have any jobs to do[0]. They were able to cover this up for years, and when it was finally made public, nobody batted an eyelid because, well, this level of corruption and wasteful spending is so commonplace that nobody was surprised in the least. Hopefully Nevada has a functioning democratic government (unlike New York) and the state government decides to hold these people accountable. It's been over a month since that NYTimes piece came out, and Governor Cuomo hasn't even felt the need to respond to it - that's how little accountability our elected officials here have. [0] https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/28/nyregion/new-york-subway-construction-costs.html https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/28/nyregion/new-york-subway-...
- cookiecaper 9y ago
  From your link: > The labor deals negotiated between the unions and construction companies also ensure that workers are well paid. The agreement for Local 147, the union for the famed “sandhogs” who dig the tunnels, includes a pay rate for most members of $111 per hour in salary and benefits. The pay doubles for overtime or Sunday work, which is common in transit construction. Weekend overtime pays quadruple — more than $400 per hour. Wow. Seems like programming isn't a good field if you're in it for the money. The base pay may not be far off if you're a big shot superstar in a small market or normal in SV, but which of us gets 4x salary for weekend hours?
  - ofcrpls 9y ago
    I am sure the workers wouldn't see much of this overtime pay as the TM would have just billed NV DMV at that rate.
- acct1771 9y ago

marktangotango 9y ago

Ah the good old responsibility dodging and blaming following legacy modernization project gone off the rails. At least they got out spending only $27 million. The state says bait and switch, I wager the contractor never got requirements or basic documentation for the project. I’m at a company now that’s planning one of these projects for a core system. I’m looking forward to having a front row seat!

us0r 9y ago
Read the audit i posted above. The contractor didn't even show up LOL

aerotwelve 9y ago

How does this happen? Who in their right mind thought it was a good idea to outsource the development of this critical system to a foreign contractor? Did anybody stop and think about what might happen to all of that public money if the contract is breached?

mrep 9y ago
Happens all the time. Worst example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_Martin_F-35_Lightning_II https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_Martin_F-35_Lightning...
Spooky23 9y ago
You can can tell from the auditors report that the RFP or other solicitation was fubar. Many of the deficiencies there are standard contract terms that were probably missing. It also sounds like the project was getting done on the cheap. The actual dollar figure is buried a bit... it sounds like they got their hands on a big wad of cash and went on a spending spree. I bet they bought a new mainframe, lots of of network crap, etc. The poor procurement practices led to the state ending up with some two-bit bodyshop that just tried to job out the work. My guess is that the state program side is barebones and some political hack pushed this through.
- dboreham 9y ago
  Interesting. In my teeny tiny company our insurance policy states that we must have all contacts over a certain value reviewed by an attorney. Wondering how a vast beurocracy somehow isn’t subject to that rule?
  - Spooky23 9y ago
    Lawyers will tell you if things are legal. They won’t generally stop you from doing dumb, legal things.
    - dboreham 9y ago

greatamerican 9y ago

I feel like I could provide the Nevada DMV with whatever it needs for significantly less than $78 million.

wavefunction 9y ago
Only one way to find out! There's so much opportunity to improve the "non-sexy" work of governments and institutions and the interface between them and the people they help/serve/administer that it's crazy there isn't more start-up attention focused there.
- craftyguy 9y ago
  In reality, there is very little realized opportunity to improve the 'non-sexy' work of governments and institutions, because you're up against either big names like Oracle or <insert official's nephew's name here>.
  - wavefunction 9y ago
    I won't argue that Oracle isn't optimized to meet and take advantage of public institutional procurement policies but if you've ever seen one of Oracle's offerings, it's easy to surpass their quality and given their rates, trivial to come in cheaper. My mom was an instructor with the community college system in Colorado and about ten years back they rolled out an Oracle based-and-delivered student enrollment product that failed during its first enrollment after being deployed because it had been set up to only allow 100 concurrent connections to the state-wide persistence solution. Oracle was of course 'earning' something like $90,000 every day the outage continued despite it being their own direct fault. I can't stress enough how incompetent or over-priced Oracle solutions are for pretty much anyone.
  - HeyLaughingBoy 9y ago
    Like wavefunction points out, only one way to find out. You'll never know unless you try.

atarian 9y ago

It's kinda crazy how much money gets thrown around by an org you wouldn't think twice about. If a group of engineers from HN got together and secured a deal like that, they could easily retire with that kind of money.

ben_jones 9y ago
We'd have to work a lot on our golf game to secure that kind of contract.
acdha 9y ago
Never underestimate the complexity of those projects: I’d bet that the requirements would fill a bookshelf, and simply navigating the hurdles to bid & convince them that you have the resources to deliver would rule out a group of engineers below the triple digit range. (Yes, that’s not a good way to build things successfully. Welcome to enterprise IT.)
- Retric 9y ago
  In theory the requirements fill a bookshelf in practice nobody checks them that closely outside of fairly basic automated tests for things like 508 compliance.
  - acdha 9y ago
    This is both untrue – maybe they don’t check 100% but everyone who put something on that list is going to notice if you leave their needs unmet – and it doesn’t matter unless you know which things won’t be checked. Otherwise you have liability for not delivering, which probably means you take on the same level of complexity as requested even if much of that effort is wasted or counterproductive.
    - Retric 9y ago
      It's true that a range of stakeholders care about different things, but the solution is to demo the project regularly to verify it fit's basic needs and covers everyone's pet issue. Gov software projects are on a pass fail scale, and people have minimal expectations despite what they may hope to see. The waterfall approach of gather a bunch of details > build something is more about budget than a black and white must meet 100% of every specific req.

snowpanda 9y ago

I'm sure that money will find its way back to America, in political donations to be exact. Kind of gullible to think these 'failed to deliver' accidents keep happening on accident after half the budget has been spent.

maerF0x0 9y ago

I wish code for america would take these kinds of things on. I assume the DMV rules are sufficiently similar that most/all of them could benefit from opensource. https://www.codeforamerica.org/ https://www.codeforamerica.org/

dboreham 9y ago
I’m guessing it’s actually the humans that cost $$$ not some source code.
- jachee 9y ago
  They spent $5M on Oracle software. That's a LOT of someone else's source code they paid for.
  - matt_s 9y ago
    And at one point Oracle was just using open source software, adding on some things and calling it something with a $10k/cpu cost. They may still do this.
sidlls 9y ago
What makes you think they would be able to do anything about it. Assume they're above average in technical competence: so what? Whatever makes you think technical competence has anything to do with any of this?

kabdib 9y ago

Prior version of the system used PowerBuilder. That figures. My fly-by of PowerBuilder 20 years ago made a deep impression. Like, I never wanted to even think about that hunk of garbage again. It's right up there with PeopleSoft. If you're ever offered an opportunity to work with these systems, just run away. The state didn't know how to buy or develop software then, and it doesn't know how to buy or develop software today.

hinkley 9y ago
I worry that nobody who hires a contractor has the slightest clue how to develop software. After working contracts off and on for a while. I’m starting to think of “we need a contractor” as an open admission of guilt.
BHSPitMonkey 9y ago
> If you're ever offered an opportunity to work with these systems, just run away. And we wonder why the only bidders on these projects are frauds.
j45 9y ago
Experienced developers know that a mess can be made in any platform. One issue with a position and maligning statement like the above against any platform is that it actually enables said charlatans to charge way more for a sub standard developer base who end up being over paid, because skilled developers are not as readily available to fix, and ideally refactor the system. Hardest of all to imagine is systems that have had legitimately tens of millions of dollars of mission critical and hardened infrastructure that manage more complexity than many of us will ever handle.. are written in platforms like Powerbuilder. I have personally never used Powerbuilder. I know some ace developers who spent a lot of time (among other things) using Powerbuilder and they have said it's like any other language or framework - lots of messes, some good stuff too. Still, I won't ever stop noticing the kinds of hateful comments people throw at others because of what stack they work in. It's sheer overlooking of opportunities. Comments like the above are like saying all wood is bad because we saw a house built poorly out of wood. This approach excludes folks from the real huge innovation projects that are coming due as these platforms and projects are gradually renewed or refactored.

pxeboot 9y ago

This type of waste occurs in all levels of government. My last employer was spending over $1,000,000/year maintaining some horrible SharePoint sites that were rarely used.

vkou 9y ago
This sort of problem is not limited to government. Private companies waste money on all sorts of dead-end nonsense - all the time. It's why IBM and Oracle are still in business.
- pxeboot 9y ago
  Of course they do, but it's a much bigger issue when it's done with taxpayer money. I don't really care what Apple or BP waste money on, but I hate seeing important services degraded/cut in order to keep spending on wasteful projects like this.
  - mljoe 9y ago
    How do you suppose we fix this? I'm not being factious here.
    - deleted 9y ago
      [deleted]
    - rbcgerard 9y ago
      I’d start with asking the questions: who was responsible for the contract and it’s implemntation, and what were their motives, incentives, qualifications and abilities. Then I would ask the same question, but what would the IDEAL motives, abilities, incentives and qualifications of that person be? Then try bridging those gaps....
    - ThrowAwayFSp 9y ago
      Privatize the DMV/Allow startups to provide the service
    - 9y ago

atonse 9y ago

According to the audit document, the company was Tech Mahindra. I am genuinely surprised when a 8 to 9 figure software project ever succeeds. But I'm also amazed that the government spent $25mil before they realized they got completely bamboozled. There's something shady going on here.

sandworm101 9y ago
>> spent $25mil before they realized they got completely bamboozled. Governments regularly spend that much just on the procurement process, long before the bamboozling can even begin.
notyourwork 9y ago
As someone who has worked with state funding contracts I disagree that this implies anything shady. Hourly rates for consultants at exorbitantly high. It also depends on how the project is big, fixed feed versus hourly bulk. Regardless, the amount of hours quoted and the rates are inflated based on politics. It's not shady, its just incompetent people signing contracts to promise tech companies bags of money.
- frankharv 9y ago
  From the article: "the project was not managed by the state's Enterprise IT Services division, and was managed solely by outside master service agreement contractors hired through the DMV's internal IT department." If that is not shady I don't know what is.
  - matt_s 9y ago
    It's not shady, its politics. The DMV IT department didn't want to deal with "corporate" aka Nevada Enterprise IT. Perhaps Nevada IT was too busy digging out of a debacle with healthcare IT systems to be bothered with DMV stuff.

linkmotif 9y ago

I wish there was a collection of these.

osrec 9y ago

$78m over 5 years for 25 (probably average) developers and a few licenses is excessive. Not sure what massive tech problems the Nevada DMV is trying to solve, but I doubt it's much more than a DB cluster with a web app or two thrown in front of it. Tech Mahindra's developers may be average, but their marketing department seems to be exceptional!

danudey 9y ago
Integration with existing/external systems is likely a huge part of the cost. If the DMV integrates with the police systems (so police can run license/registration), they need to be integrated. If they have license plate scanners that do the same, they need to be integrated (or replaced). Point of sale terminals for things like license renewals might need integration. No system exists in isolation.

j45 9y ago

I would love to see how much of the purchasing and decision making committee was composed of people who didn't understand technology, let alone how to procure and implement technology. At the highest levels, there is a self-preservation disease permeating most organizations where CxO's try to fake it till they make it with the IT/Systems decisions they take on, and it turns out like this.

notananthem 9y ago

Tech Mahindra contractors, not surprising. An acquaintance of mine came in on a job with them- they pay all their guys salary which is kind of crazy. That guy was doing better than the hourly contractors with family time and pay. Something sketchy is up with them.

aleksandrm 9y ago
Kinda offtopic, but apparently they also own a Formula E team. Big money.
megy 9y ago
Not that odd. A lot of contracting companies do that, then bill you out at a day rate.

i_feel_great 9y ago

I am currently working on a largish COBOL codebase which the company has tried 4 times to port to Java, each time by porting all at once. It cannot be done all at once.

bovermyer 9y ago

It's stories like this one that make me want to pivot and go work on projects for the government. I KNOW I can contribute something useful.