Crony Communist Bloomberg's One Last Act Of Sleeze

01.25.2014

EXCLUSIVE: Bloomberg gave 311 contract worth $10M to company behind Obamacare rollout

CGI, the Montreal-based company that was fired by the feds after the botched rollout of HealthCare.gov, was awarded a contract by the Bloomberg administration to overhaul the city's 311 call system — hours before Bill de Blasio was sworn in as mayor.

BRYAN SMITH FOR NEW YORK DAILY NEWS

Then-Mayor Bloomberg made the call to give the contract to improve the 311 system to CGI, the firm at the center of Obamacare website fiasco.

In one of its final acts, the Bloomberg administration pushed through a costly contract to modernize the city's 311 call system — hiring the same company fired by the feds for the botched rollout of the Obamacare website.

The city’s Department of Information Technology and Telecommunications, known as DoITT, awarded the contract to the Montreal-based company CGI on Dec. 31, hours before Bill de Blasio was sworn in as mayor.

Bloomberg administration officials were keen on approving the deal because the former mayor sees the 311 hotline as one his legacies, sources said.

But rival companies are up in arms, saying CGI has little if any experience managing call centers. A website,Dont911nyc311.com, has popped up to protest the contract.

CGI has never overhauled “a 311-type system,” said a source in the information technology industry.

“We’re transferring a service New York City provided to its people to a service New York City is contracting to outside parties to do. It’s a serious situation.”

EVAN VUCCI/AP

Cheryl Campbell, senior vice president of CGI Federal (left), testifies on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., on Oct. 24 before the House Energy and Commerce Committee hearing with contractors that built the federal government's health care websites.

The contract will cost taxpayers $10 million this year — and potentially tens of millions more in future years.

The last-minute nature of the contract has piqued the interest of Controller Scott Stringer, whose office has a 30-day window to raise objections before the contract becomes final.

"We are conducting a thorough review and analysis ... which includes an examination of the vendor's track record and expertise in projects of this nature," Stringer spokeswoman Nicole Turso said.

Earlier this month, the Obama administration declined to renew its contract with a CGI subsidiary to design and build the government’s health insurance website, HealthCare.gov, after myriad glitches thwarted countless Americans from buying coverage.

CGI spokeswoman Linda Odorisio defended the deal: "CGI was awarded the contract for system integration services for New York City's 311 system through a full and open competition.”

She added, “We look forward to working closely with ... city officials as they bring new capabilities to their 311 system.”

KAREN BLEIER/AFP/GETTY IMAGES

The Obama administration declined to renew its contract with a CGI subsidiary to design and build the government’s health insurance website, HealthCare.gov, after myriad glitches thwarted countless Americans from buying coverage.

The Bloomberg administration decided to upgrade 311 because of concerns the system could fail during emergencies, when it is flooded with hundreds of thousands of texts and calls, a DoITT spokeswoman said.

The upgraded system would be cloud-based, meaning some data would be stored on computers outside of the city by another vendor, Microsoft.

First responders also have voiced concern about the contract, because a malfunction in the 311 hotline, which is for non-emergency calls, would prompt people to call the 911 help line, which is for emergencies.

“We're concerned that whoever the city selects has to be a vendor that has hands-on experience with similar systems, and a track record in keeping systems just like this running," said Robert Ungar, a spokesman for unions representing city first responders.

“This is New York City, it's not a good place to guinea pig an experiment. We want the city to pick a vendor with provable hands-on experience,” he said.

It’s not the first time CGI has been hired by the city for tech work, but the contract would be by far the largest with the city. In 2013, the company was paid about $10 million for its work under several city contracts.

A DoITT spokeswoman said the agency stands ready to “work closely with CGI to handle all facets of the project, including solution architecture, design, development, and integration, to ensure project success.”

DoITT is one of the city agencies awaiting the appointment of a new commissioner by de Blasio.Mayor Bloomberg’s last appointee to head the agency, Rahul Merchant, stepped down this past week.

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