3 ms·

Thanks for the information. But I can't see how even those technologies could begin to justify even the initial price (unless they were trying to develop their

by tgflynn 16y ago

Thanks for the information. But I can't see how even those technologies could begin to justify even the initial price (unless they were trying to develop their own biometrics systems from scratch, which I don't think is necessary given today's state-of-the-art). My guess is that the biggest risk in trying to develop such a system is making something that's completely impractical for the end user.

elblanco 16y ago
Oh, I agree. Even the original bid price seems outrageous to me. However, one thing to keep in mind is that the city government of NYC is massive. Something like a bit over a quarter of a million employees working in everything from teaching to subway track maintenance, with a budget of $50 billion/yr. Just stopping the fraud issue with the time and attendance system would have saved the original cost of the system! One side-issue that's caused some of the bloat was the various city-employee unions fighting against biometric scanners for time-in/time-out logging. Here's some of the sources I used in my study (note the great discussion here on the same topic a while ago): https://www.nydailynews.com/news/2010/03/26/2010-03-26_city_pours_722m_down_consulting_contracts_black_hole.html https://www.nydailynews.com/news/2010/03/26/2010-03-26_city_... http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/23/nyregion/23scanning.html http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/23/nyregion/23scanning.html http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1221068 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1221068 http://www.nyc.gov/html/opa/html/about/city_time.shtml http://www.nyc.gov/html/opa/html/about/city_time.shtml http://www.democracynow.org/2010/3/26/juan_gonzalez_ny_pays_230_consultants http://www.democracynow.org/2010/3/26/juan_gonzalez_ny_pays_... http://www.nyc.gov/portal/site/nycgov/menuitem.62e273bb0ef1f307a62fa24601c789a0/ http://www.nyc.gov/portal/site/nycgov/menuitem.62e273bb0ef1f...

by tgflynn 16y ago

elblanco 16y ago

Oh, I agree. Even the original bid price seems outrageous to me. However, one thing to keep in mind is that the city government of NYC is massive. Something like a bit over a quarter of a million employees working in everything from teaching to subway track maintenance, with a budget of $50 billion/yr. Just stopping the fraud issue with the time and attendance system would have saved the original cost of the system! One side-issue that's caused some of the bloat was the various city-employee unions fighting against biometric scanners for time-in/time-out logging. Here's some of the sources I used in my study (note the great discussion here on the same topic a while ago): https://www.nydailynews.com/news/2010/03/26/2010-03-26_city_pours_722m_down_consulting_contracts_black_hole.html https://www.nydailynews.com/news/2010/03/26/2010-03-26_city_... http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/23/nyregion/23scanning.html http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/23/nyregion/23scanning.html http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1221068 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1221068 http://www.nyc.gov/html/opa/html/about/city_time.shtml http://www.nyc.gov/html/opa/html/about/city_time.shtml http://www.democracynow.org/2010/3/26/juan_gonzalez_ny_pays_230_consultants http://www.democracynow.org/2010/3/26/juan_gonzalez_ny_pays_... http://www.nyc.gov/portal/site/nycgov/menuitem.62e273bb0ef1f307a62fa24601c789a0/ http://www.nyc.gov/portal/site/nycgov/menuitem.62e273bb0ef1f...