Even when the vendor is authoring the RFP, the state has the say over its content and the requirements. The state contacted the vendor to write the RFP for a specific reason and the state already had an idea of the system in mind. The state is not going to suddenly change their mind about anything important. What can and does happen is the vendor convincing the state that they need extra project communication methods or warranty or some other non-essential thing that is one of the things that vendor offers, but not every other vendor does. This is not malicious. The vendor offers it because the vendor thinks it provides value.

> They are not outsourced to out-of-state vendors
> to “keep costs down” (this is ridiculous).

You provide no evidence to back this up. What other responder to the RFP provided the needed functionality at a lower cost? If the state wanted to give the project to a crony, how could it possibly keep another firm from submitting a more attractive proposal? And once they did submit a more attractive proposal, how could they justify still giving the project to their buddy?

There is a lot of corruption in government, but your the stuff you’re saying here is off-base.

> The bidding process is nothing more than a
> side-show to “prove” that state agencies are
> actually giving an equal chance to all
> potential vendors.

This is mostly true. It’s the same for most government proceedings. No one is deciding whether or not to vote on a bill based on the oral arguments on the House floor, for example. That’s for show, as are the committee hearings with various people testifying, etc.

But what you don’t have quite right is that it is not the government giving the contract to their “friend”. The client will have existing work relationships based on previous projects with particular vendors. These things do not happen in a vacuum. Have they worked with PCC before on a successful project? Or perhaps they’ve worked with PCC’s owner before on a successful project? The public says that should not be factored in, even though it is probably one of the biggest indicators that this project will be successful.

If you are hiring for a job, you don’t really evaluate everyone the same. If you have worked with someone in the past and they were successful, you will hire them over some stranger with a Word doc of his experience.

As for your comments saying it has nothing to do with “track records”, that is unlikely. Most likely, PCC transferred much of this software from another state. We do it all the time, and the states generally ask us to do that in order to reduce their risk and cover their ass. They want to be able to say they are implementing the system that has been working in State X for the last 2 years.

The RFP process has more do to with CYA than anything malicious, and that’s where you’re not quite accurate.

In Georgia, landing a state project is akin to winning the lottery. It’s nearly impossible. No matter how qualified a local vendor may be.

Nine times out of ten, the selected vendor has already been chosen prior to offering the project to the bidding public. In many cases, the selected vendor actually helped write the submission guidelines including requirements so minutely specific that only ONE company could possibly fit the criteria – themselves. The bidding process is nothing more than a side-show to “prove” that state agencies are actually giving an equal chance to all potential vendors.

What I am getting at is that state contracts are not awarded to the best vendor or even the best local vendor. They are not outsourced to out-of-state vendors to “keep costs down” (this is ridiculous). They are not outsourced to “proven” firms with long “track records” of dealing with out-dated and bloated technology infrastructures (this would make too much sense).

Political nepotism. Contracts are awarded for favors, campaign contributions, or to friends of someone in office. It’s that simple. Learn who the owner of the company knows in the Wisconsin government and you will learn the answer behind the $2 mil contract.

I realize this price tag doesn’t fit your gut feeling for how much a site should cost, but that’s largely bcause we are not talking about the cost of “a site”. Referto my other comment for further detail.

in the end, I am just trying to provide some insight based on working with state governments on large projects similar (but larger scale) to this one for years. If you believe your intuition trumps that, I don’t have a problem with you rejcting my insight. But I think it would be hard to disagree with what I have laid out AND be able to explain why a competitively bid project resulted in that price tag. Your only possible bailout would be “corruption”, in which case I would advise you to hit the media circuit t expose the favoritism at the tax payers expense.

but the is a more simple explanation for why the price ta is so high: that’s what it costs. That’s less exciting, though, so I guess you can take it or leave it.

And based on how thorough (and for $2 million, it should have been extremely well documented), there is a very good chance that the change treasurer is talking about are out-of-scope and will cost additional dollars to correct. As a matter of fact, treasurer seems to be talking about functionality that is counter-intuitive, not broken. These are items that are specifically detailed in various project documents (or should be) and why, as Dan points out, there needs to be some serious technical oversight that includes full rounds of user testing. I can’t imagine charging this much for *any* site with such poorly thought-out user experience. Form fields overlap, labels float no where near the field they title. It’s really almost comical.

Finally, you are kidding yourself if you don’t think this project contains code stripped from other places — and that is not a bad thing. It could have been vetted for years, and further, testing this code moving forward would have provided the same level of assurance as custom code written from scratch.

But also, add a requirement that whatever company gets the busi ness, their exectives or their wives are not campaign contributors.

But if you acknowledge the consequences and still think it’s a good idea, then I’d be 100% on board with that (you know, a cost-benefit analysis rather than just a benefit analysis, the latter of which seems to be favored by most modern voters).