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When IT and Bad Government Meet, Everyone Loses
Cron-os writes "The city of Wilkes Barre, Pa is furiously trying to enter some 25,000 tax records into their new PC network. Their aging AS/400 crashed sometime around April 15, and the city did not renew a maintenance contract with IBM because it cost more than the PC network. You can read the associated articles here, here, and here. I'm so glad I live across the river in a SANE city." I wonder if these bozos run their schools and roads departments with the same level of professionalism.
About 6 years ago, our little town in southeastern New England said that the town hall would be late mailing out all our quarterly tax bills because the mouse on the computer in the town hall was broken! (I really should have kept that newspaper clipping!)
Not that it will matter, but this is not your ordinary suburb or anything. This is a very old town in the middle of PA that was based on coal mining in the early 1900's. They lost thousands in WW2, the coal business crashed in the 50's, and they never recovered. All of the kids (starting with my parent's generation in the late 60's- yes they are from there) have left, leaving very few youngsters, besides Wilkes College. This is not a place where IT folks flock to, and any that are there most likely get paid at least 1/2 of any of you do. The people there are good people, but they couldn't tell a Mac from an IBM mainframe.
So don't go and call them bozos. Call the idiots who work in the IT divisions bozos if you must, but the average person in Wilkes-Barre wouldn't know what the hell the article right-up means, besides the word taxes.
Vote monkeys into Congress. They are cheaper and more trustworthy.
"First lesson," Jon said. "Stick them with the pointy end."
Imagine a Beowulf cluster of these government officials!
Easy, it's called "Congress"
I went to school in Wilkes-Barre. My father's side of the family is from Wilkes-Barre. So if that qualifies me to pass judgement, I'll declare that Wilkes-Barre is indeed a festering shitpile.
Going to school in Wilkes-Barre is a soul-crushing experience. See, the town is such a cultural mecca that the McDonald's in public square, the main center of town, closes at 4pm on Fridays. There's nothing to do on the weekends, because all the students go home, and all the students go home on the weekends 'cause there's nothing to do in town. If there's ever a town that could be improved by a 100-kiloton airburst, Wilkes-Barre is it.
And it's not desperately trying to recover from its coal mining days. It already did that, back when the river flooded the town away and a truckload of Federal disaster relief money came pouring in. At that point, basically everyone who could leave town, left town. All that's left is genetically inbred hangers-on. Walk down main street at noon, right through public square, and I'll guarantee you've never seen such a collection of human wreckage in your life. Just about everyone you'll see if missing one or more items from the following list:
a. arms
b. legs
c. teeth
d. a chromosome
e. sanity
Trust me, a PC network intended to replace an AS/400, implemented by a corrupt and incompetent government, is the absolute least of this town's worries. I'd say the raw sewage that gets dumped into the drinking water supply is a bit higher on the list.
...blame the city administrator. Working for a municipality myself, I suspected this was probably the case before I read the supporting articles...they just confirmed my suspicion. Basically, what you've got here is a situation where you've got a city administrator that doesn't know diddly squat about computers. I don't know anything about the guy, but I would guess that he's probably in his 50's and may have an accounting background (if he has any credentials at all). Like a lot of people in that type of position, he was being short-sighted and cheap. He got busted for it; lots of others don't. Their computer guy may have (and probably did) protested the city administrator's decision to let the maintenance contract lapse, but obviously, the final decision wasn't in his hands. If anyone should lose their job over this, it's the city administrator.
AS/400s have built in RAID-5 hardware. they also have redundant PSUs, built in UPS, the whole nine yards. they store data in EBCDIC not ASCII but its trivial to dump data from the built in DB/2 database into a PC since IBM AS/400s typically come with a PC expansion card that boots a virtual PC with windows which can see the filesystem. .... those things are bloody reliable and multiply redundant. more likely a crashed job or some other simple software error that makes it appear like the system "crashed" (i.e. not responding).
i have a theory that the midrange (its not a mainframe) somehow killed the process (or batch job) running that operated the front end of their data entry system...or the process died on its own. they probably dont know how to login as QSECOFR and restart the batch process to get their front end back and so they think their system crashed. i doubt its a hardware failure
I was always under the impression that an AS400 was the computing equivilent of a tank; it took a crew of people to maintain and run, but could sustain lots more abuse than, say, a car (PC).
So what's "crashed"? Does it not turn on? Does it just need a replacement card of some sort (I thought everything was hot-swap on these things)? Are the drives bad and there's no backups? Did the magic smoke come out of it? What?
ZOMG I WOULD LOVE TO KNOW ABOUT YOUR FEELINGS ON MACINTOSH VERSUS WINDOWS, VI VERSUS EMACS, AND HOW YOU'RE NOT A DORK
"tax office employees have been entering the tax information in two personal computers."
...
Ok. They said 6 months to re-enter the data. Two people, two computers. Let's say they earn $10/hr.
6months *4 weeks/month * 40 hours/week * $10/hour * 2 employees
= $19,200
That's almost enough for two years of their service contract.
PCs:
$1000 each * 2 + misc expenses puts it over the top I think.
The fact that these employees will be maintaining these PCs ad infinitum doesn't even need to be considered to show the stupidity. Not to mention the BSA audits, the MS support calls, the endless software licence upgrades,
I think what we have here is the ever popular job security plot. We junk the good hardware and buy the bad hardware because we can maintain the bad hardware ourselves and thus we create ourself a job. With the good hardware, all we have to do all day is drink coffee and gossip. We're the first guys on the chopping block when costs have to be cut.
I've seen this time and time again. Junk the $20,000 Unix server that runs the entire company and gets rebooted once a year, replacing it with a network of NT boxes which require 3 full time employees to maintain and crash weekly.
Why don't people get fired for this?
So far in his 8 years of office(estimate) he has managed to get 2 government buildings and a telemarketing center in the downtown. Government buildings may look nice but they are basically a resource drain because they don't pay any taxes. There are some other new businesses, but they are in tax free development zones. The one government building is home to the offices of rep. Paul Kanjorksi who as actually managed to a great disservice to the community but he is a senior congressman who will never loose an election due to name recognition and voter habit. Anyway, it looks like Mcgroarty will not be reelected this year so the situation may improve but most likely not.
McGroarty actually looked promising initially because he was very enthusiastic. It turned out that he just craved attention. The problem with WB and all NEPA politics for that matter, is the fact that competent people do not want to run for office. Most of the talented younger people leave the area, and the people who are left that would make a difference are usually tied to a business or career path which prevents them from running for office. I really don't see an end to this cycle unless competent people start getting politically involved in this area.
I dont know how you got modded insightful... but here goes my beef with your comment...
... and B. take away from the pocket stuffing money-pool. (I have yet to meet a non-corrupt city-manager) ... and if it isnt the city manager ...someone else is blocking progress.
A. The town has no excuse. Hiring a IT + a IS person only 5 years ago for a paltry $50,000 a year each + replacing the AS/400 and it's software with a least cost approach is very doable, and aould have been the minimal approach. 100K a year + 50K a year for department expenses (Yes, you CAN do this with less than $50K a year in department expsenses INCLUDING equipment purchases for a town with a population 60K)
Problem #1 - I'm betting the City/town manager is stuffing his pockets heavily and will NOT hire someone smart enough to A. notice this fact
Federal grants have been available for over 15 years to help city's and towns replace aging computers and actually get technology and tech positions..
Money is not the problem... no matter what they say. The problem is incompetence and FUD. they liked how the 30 year old computer+program worked.. Sally, dan's sister and married to the chief, in the accouning department doesnt like change... we have to keep her happy... and Steve, the brother of dan, knows how to work the AS/400 and is allowed to do that every other thursday unless the hallways need waxing...
THAT is the problem... and all small towns have that problem... morons got voted in, and they keep getting voted in (By the same morons, and relatives).. I spent a year living in my cabin on horsehead lake in Mecosta, MI. A town that if you sneeze when driving through you will miss it.. what is the general population made of? Sociopaths.. people that dont like people and like tons of crap in their front yards, houses that look crappy and they are HAPPY that the town doesn't enforce lawn mowing, not living in a house that should be condemned and 3 cars in the front yard that should be crushed for the steel.
Dont ever expect something smart to happen in small town government (mid-sized either) as the smartest in town is there only on vacation or is trying to get the hell out.. NOT there to be the mayor.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.