COST OF SYSTEM SIGNIFICANTLY EXCEEDED ORIGINAL CONTRACT AMOUNT

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In his continuing effort to cut City waste, New York City Comptroller William C. Thompson, Jr. released an audit today that detailed several costly problems with the Human Resources Administration's (HRA) Auto Time System (AutoTime), a paperless system which captures and processes employee timekeeping, attendance and leave information from HRA's 112 work sites.

"HRA spent over $24.8 million, more than double the initial contract amount of $9.6 million, for an incomplete timekeeping system," said Thompson. "Our report also shows that none of the estimated $15.7 million in savings claimed by HRA will be realized. The City can ill afford this type of waste, particularly during these tight budgetary times."

AutoTime was created by Davisco Inc. to help HRA reduce the cost of timekeeping, eliminate paperwork, reduce errors in employee time records and enable the transmittal of Electronic Time Records (ETR) and data adjustments to the City's Payroll Management System (PMS).

The audit revealed that HRA did not develop a design document that included system specifications, and it did not assign a sufficient number of business analysts to develop system design specifications that would have enabled the vendor to program, test, and implement the system quickly. In addition, although users find basic functions to be satisfactory, some users of AutoTime stated that several functions do not work properly. Moreover, HRA does not monitor the12 Davisco employees who have "super-user" access to AutoTime. A "super-user" has the ability to create, modify and delete all database records.

The City Comptroller's Directive #18 statement, established in 1998, requires retention of an independent quality assurance consultant to oversee the development of projects. Although the AutoTime project began before the implementation of Directive #18 there were five amendments or renewals of the AutoTime contract made after Directive # 18 was established. Had HRA retained an independent quality assurance consultant at any time during this process, the functions, noted by the users as not working properly, could have been identified and AutoTime, might be complete.

The audit generated six recommendations, which suggest that HRA should:

• Assemble a project team headed by a full-time manager to ensure that all AutoTime functions are identified and implemented,
  
• Immediately survey system users to determine areas of AutoTime that require changes to meet their needs,
  
• Monitor the activities of the "super-users" to ensure that only authorized work is performed on the system,
  
• Amend the contract company's renewal contract to include training for HRA's technical staff so they can take over programming, maintenance reporting and database administration when the renewal contract ends,
  
• Use the experience of developing AutoTime as a guide in development of future system projects,
  
• Retain an independent quality assurance consultant to help identify the needs of the users and evaluate the proposals received in response to future RFPs.

HRA stated that it "will consider the findings and recommendations of this report in evaluating the overall success of the AutoTime project and in planning, developing and implementing future information systems." HRA also noted that it does not believe it should be held to the requirements of Directive #18 which require the hiring of an independent quality assurance consultant, since this provision was not in effect until after the initial AutoTime contract was let.

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