Riddle me this: Why do government projects never seem to be completed efficiently, on budget and on time?
Currently, national attention is focused on the failure of the ObamaCare website. Not since the launch of the Titanic has so much gone so wrong. After three and a half years and a $1 billion investment, most of those visiting the site found it non-functional — reports are that on the first day, only six individuals were able to sign up on a website intended to serve millions. However, this is only the latest IT project to be bungled by government officials.
A September $62 million systems “upgrade” by the California Employment Development Department triggered a backlog of 100,000 jobless claims and thousands of unemployed were still waiting for their benefits more than a month later.
An isolated occurrence? Hardly. In February, state officials jettisoned a flawed overhaul of the state’s payroll system that was $250 million over budget and four years behind schedule.
Earlier this year, the Sacramento Business Journal reviewed some of California’s biggest technological boondoggles and concluded that canceled projects, cost overruns and delays have cost taxpayers more than $2 billion. That’s nearly what the state’s general fund spends on the entire University of California system in a fiscal year.
Yale Professor Peter Schuck, author of the soon to be released, Why Government Fails So Often, and How It Can Do Better, has described most government agencies as operating in an “informational stone age.” He blames government for failing in the design of its own information systems and for pushing unworkable systems on the private sector.
But the failure of government to properly manage projects goes well beyond information technology and very expensive examples are as near as the latest newspaper.
Few Californians can avoid the impact of the gross mismanagement of transportation and highway construction projects in what is becoming the “pothole and detour” state.
A $1 billion widening project on the nation’s most congested roadway, the 405 Freeway running through the Sepulveda Pass, is now estimated to take 15 months more than scheduled with an additional cost of $100 million. Among the causes for the added cost and delay is the faulty construction of miles of new sound walls that had to be demolished and rebuilt.
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