Tavares, lake County, FL - Thursday, Dec. 20,2012
The City of Orlando CFO, Rebecca Sutton, signed a major software contract for $8.7-million without requiring any bids on the new software project.
Then she flew with several other staff members to Las Vegas using $20,000 in City funds to announce the contract at the software developer's conference.
All this without any bidding.
The Orlando Sentinel provided many details HERE. (Note - READ the comments, which are more blunt than I am).
I was a software developer for seven years, and before that I was an internal audit manager in large firms like Nissan, ARCO (the oil company) and the County of Los Angeles.
A big red flag to an auditor is lack of competitive bidding, called sole sourcing, for large contracts.
The Orlando CFO completely skipped that process because some sales people got to her and convinced her there was no need for competitive bidding. YOU NEVER DO THAT IF YOU ARE A PROFESSIONAL.
You always go through the bidding for several reasons:
- The competitors ask questions and flush out details or issues you did not consider. Picking just one vendor allows them to snow you with only favorable features and avoid issues their competitors may know about and have solved.
- Any favored vendor will provide better service or prices in a competitive bid.
- You never know, you may find a better provider, which is the CFO's job, not to just arbitrarily pick a vendor "you like".
- Even if you think some providers are expensive, they may give you a deal to get a reference account. Orlando is well known enough, that could have happened with other providers, not just the one they think is best.
- Sole sourcing or no-bid contracts are a huge red flag for corruption. Relatives get hired, side deals can be cut, or the product may have LOW quality or poor customer service because the vendor underpriced the product and cannot make enough to maintain the product (remember, I was a software developer).
It appears this CFO didn't want to go through the needed work to ensure bids were taken, and she "trusted" this vendor, so I predict the software, since it is the first time it will be used by a City government, will explode with problems handling fund accounting, grants, etc which are not used in the private sector. Staff may resist the standard cost accounting reports which demand accountability like in business.
The Orlando taxpayer got screwed on this no-bid government software selection. Fortunately, I live in Lake County, so won't be paying for that mistake.
Vance Jochim
FiscalRangers.com
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