Piracy Setup Discovered in WV Capitol Building

arakis writes "Someone in West Virginia has apparently spent tens of thousands in state funds to acquire computers and video gear to copy movies and music. From the article: 'Ferguson confirmed Tuesday that his staff found the makeshift audio-video studio amid his widening probe into spending and other abuses at the state General Services Division.' Looks like some employees are getting the axe for everything from purchasing abuse to time fraud."

Comments

Re:Oh, no!

[tulmad]

Anyone know what the "crack the headers" bit refers to for CDs?

It means "I'm a journalist and really have no clue what I'm talking about, so I'll make up words that sound dramatic".

Misleading headlines...

[happyfish]

The real issue here is not that someone had 14GB of mp3s or 40 movies; that simply makes for a better headline. The real issue is that someone in the capital was abusing the purchasing system and bilking the state for all they could. Buying barebones PCs on one purchase and then purchasing the remaining components on a separate order is a big no-no. It means that the PCs appear to be far less expensive, and exempts them from inventory control systems. The purchases basically fly under the radar, and the goods could be anywhere now; some other office, somebody's house, or sold on eBay.

Re:Gotta love that headline.

[kimvette]

{
last time i checked my 3 towers and 9 hard disks didn't cost tens of thousands (and two of them are macs!)
}

You didn't buy them from state-approved vendors who are on the official bidding lists.

State bidding lists work like this: when the contract is about to end, the state invites vendors to bid (more actually they obfuscate the process to make it more difficult to newcomers to get in on the process, so the system is weighted toward favored vendors), in a superficial effort to meet state law in controlling budgets.

In reality, the bidding process is made as difficult as humanly possible. The regulatiosn are hard to find, each responsible person tells you to call someone else, and the folks who succeed in getting in on it invariably are the ones who wine and dine the officials.

ANYWAY the bidding process usually gives you two optios:

  - bid cost + percentage (which practically no one does because it would reveal the markup)
  - bid MSRP/List Price minus a percentage (and as you know on most products list price may be as low as 30% over cost, or as much as 300% to 400% over cost on average for different products and brands)

Once you win the contract, you now have the "right" to sell directly to state and municipal agencies, completely bypassing any further bidding processes. This is intended to reduce the budget by being able to plan cost of operations up front, and to eliminate paperwork and delays introduced by conventional bidding processes. Unfortunately it's all to common for vendors to get in on the list bidding a PITTANCE of a discount (example: Dell, 2% off of list price, which is an inflated work of fiction) knowing that the process to get IN on the bidding is painful at best.

Even worse, the lowest bid does NOT always win on the bid lists (this goes for both state and GSA lists) and in fact the officials/agencies overseeing the bidding process can choose to ignore the bids and pick whomever the heck they want to win. They can cite support reasons (Yeah. Dell support is just WONDERFUL compared to local Dell vendors), size of the company, or any other contrived reason that sounds remotely plausible.