"Bewildering inefficiency"
There are some shocking numbers in a series of audits being prepared for the Cuomo admin. Among them: more than 1 million square feet of state-owned or leased office space is empty; the state has 1,719 vendors that provide it with pens, paper and paper clips; it spends $938k a year on kosher hot dogs; and a computer tracking system for one agency was started in 1993, has cost $351 million -- and still isn't finished. [NYT]
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It's almost as if the government is a structure connecting complicated humans instead of a complicated structure connecting humans!
... said mr slow loris on Apr 28, 2011 at 7:36 PM | link
Good for them for finding this stuff. Now hopefully they can get rid of it!
... said Jessica R on Apr 29, 2011 at 9:11 AM | link
This stuff is just the tip of the iceburg.
OGS and OFT are there to provide central procurement and services to state agencies. Yet they have to include their overhead of providing those services(shipping, inventory, lawyers, purchasing staff costs), so they mark up the product and sell it to the agencies. But the agencies are not _required_ to purchase through OGS/OFT, so they buy direct from the vendors for the same price that OGS pays. And thus the taxpayer now pays for 2 purchasing systems.
On the flip side, one agency could save nearly $2M over the next 18 months by purchasing the goods from an outside vendor rather than OFT. But politics prevents them from doing so.
Even OFT doesn't buy from OFT. One arm of the organization runs its own data centers because the other arm charges too much and is too difficult to deal with.
Insane.
... said komradebob on Apr 29, 2011 at 9:51 AM | link
And the private sector always excels and is most efficient. Maybe NYS can learn from this example:
“The audit, performed by Liberty Consulting Group of Quentin, Pa., found the integration of the National Grid and KeySpan accounting systems was in many ways a failure — and a major reason why National Grid is now the subject of an ongoing accounting probe by the state Public Service Commission. (TU)â€
... said Bob on Apr 29, 2011 at 12:19 PM | link
Wow. I'm NOT one of those people that complains all the time about high taxes, government waste, etc., but this is incredible! Kudos to the governor & his staff for ferreting out this information... let's hope he is able to address the problems once and for all and save the state some money!
... said Ellen on Apr 29, 2011 at 12:51 PM | link
This is disappointing. I'm normally a defender of the costs of doing business--after all, everything costs something--but even I am nauseated by this concrete proof of unchecked spending.
Of course, this all did give me a great mental image of a harried Gov. Cuomo at a kitchen table reviewing receipts and bills and screaming, "That's it! We're using coupons from now on, dammit!"
... said SiobhanGK on Apr 29, 2011 at 3:43 PM | link