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Arrest In $740M NYC Time and Attendance System Case
theodp writes "Mayor Bloomberg's perception of money, opines Gothamist's Christopher Robbins, is somewhat different than most non-billionaires. Just hours before the leader in the city's $740 million CityTime web-based time and attendance boondoggle was arrested for allegedly taking $5M in kickbacks, Bloomberg said on his weekly radio program that 'we actually did a pretty good job here, in retrospect.' Overshooting the projected $68M it would cost, adds Robbins, 'pretty much sounds like the exact opposite of a 'pretty good job'.' A US Attorney said SAIC Project Manager Gerald Denault was charged with accepting more than $5M in kickbacks laundered through international shell companies while steering more than $450M of city funds to the tech company behind the kickbacks. In December, CityTime consultants were charged with stealing $80 million."
That is actually a pretty decent outcome for an IT project that size.
...corruption in NY politics? What a surprise! The amazing thing is that SAIC managed to get a contract with the MTA after the reports of the CityTime corruption came out.
Palm trees and 8
Open source time and attendance, including payroll.
The law should be that if a company pays kickbacks to get a contract, they forfeit all proceeds from the contract. So if they bribe someone for a $450M contract, they then should be liable for the full amount. I'll talk to my state representative about that.
Obviously the system has global multi-site datacenters, rfid implants, radioactive decay biometric rsa tokens and the system gives world class hand jobs.
"You should always go to other people's funerals; otherwise, they won't come to yours." -- Yogi Berra
Stealing from the taxpayer by government contractors or government bureaucrats is tantamount to treason.
I wonder how toothy the Bloomberg L.P. media coverage of this won't be?
Setting aside why anyone would need to spend that kind of money developing a time and attendance system, why not just buy an already established system? For example, web-based T&A systems are already used heavily in the federal government.
Could someone please point me to something they've actually DONE? I mean something that works, and actually performs a physical task? I was with a friend of mine, and I met their CTO a couple of years ago, and he asked me. "Do you think he's ever written a line of code? Soldered a board? Anything. What a technical Milquetoast". Franklin Antonio would have eaten his liver.
When will we put the upper class in with the gereral population. I have a feeling a lot of this kind of this type of corruption (stealing) will stop . A guy rob's a store get $150 and does not hurt anyone and get 15y. This guy is taking money from the city budget, and we end up with more budget cuts that hurt the most in need. Put his ass in very small a cell with a guy that greats him "Boy, I bet you make a nice tossed salad"
When will we put the upper class in with the gereral population. I have a feeling a lot of this kind of this type of corruption (stealing) will stop . A guy rob's a store get $150 and does not hurt anyone and get 15y. This guy is taking money from the city budget, and we end up with more budget cuts hurt the most in need. Put his ass in very small a cell with a guy that greats him "Boy, I bet you make a nice tossed salad"
I'd like to know how they made the T part of the T&A system work for MEN employees? Probably didn't even handle implants properly.
A US Attorney said SAIC Project Manager Gerald Denault was charged with accepting more than $5M in kickbacks laundered through international shell companies while steering more than $450M of city funds to the tech company behind the kickbacks.
Having worked for them, I can totally see it happening. They are constantly yammering about ethics but I never saw much in the way of internal audits or investigations. Results apparently speak louder than web-based training modules.
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
Will that lead to a reduction in crime?
Or is it perhaps not a reduction in crime you're after, but base revenge?
The problem isn't the severity of the punishment (except that it's too hard for other crimes - there's a strong correlation between severity of punishment and recidivism), but the feeling these people have that they can get away with it, and not face a court at all. Because most of the time, they can, and don't.
Let's put it this way: Would you pick up a suitcase full of money if there was a 1% risk of getting caught? Would it change your decision if the penalty was increased from 2 years in jail to 10 years? Nah, didn't think so. But what if the risk of getting caught was much higher, say 25%? Would that change it?
Strip away all protections companies have that were meant for individuals only. And have any investment that balloons to more than, say, 125% of the inflation adjusted original be automatically subject to federal investigation. Yes, it will require more people. Some of the unemployed would welcome that. And it would save money.
Bloomberg said on his weekly radio program that 'we actually did a pretty good job here, in retrospect.'
like all government contractors that jack up their prices 2 to 4 fold, they did remarkably well as they got more than 10x times their initial tender out of the process
The difference is that one uses the threat/act of violence to steal, the other does not. Moral relativism is bad, mmkay?
Yeah, lets give more money to the government to stop the government from foolishly spending too much money on wasteful things! It's sheer genius.
Qui custodet custodien?
Who else can oversee government than another branch of government?
You sure can't, because if you found anything wrong, you would have no power to change anything.
Businesses can't, because they don't have any power either, and worse, they have a legal obligation to their shareholders to maximize profits, even if that money comes from the tax payers.
Yes, people in government can be greedy bastards. No doubt about that. But business leaders are greedy bastards -- it's their job.
Break the ties between the two, and you lessen the risk.
Even if it means empowering another branch of government.
I'm never sure anymore.
The problem is people that have qualities that make them charismatic leaders that, get them in positions of power. With that, comes all to often, no morals and ethics that reflect those they are representing or working for. Having grown up reading the Punisher comics. Wish he were real.
If you can get white collar crime to face the same penalties (and the same prison conditions) as blue collar crime, you can expect shorter sentences and better conditions for all.
That is especially true if wealthy criminals are no more likely to go to the country club minimum security than poor criminals are.
Of course, just getting caught is only half of it. We have to make sure the "white collar" crime is actually prosecuted as well. A bunck of investment bankers screwed the entire world's economies for their personal gain and not one of them has gone to jail or even on trial.
SAIC were prime contractor to the security systems for the 2004 Athens Olympics. The local contractor was Siemens (Greece) who in effect ran the whole project .
The rollout was a complete disaster and ended up being scrapped apart from the radio network which was finally accepted several years late. Since then the Siemens division has been in the press on a continuous basis as investigators unpick the 'payments' to various individuals for this and many other projects they were involved in. All started from the German investigations which traced Euro100M to a Jersey bank account under control of the management of the Greek division of Siemens. Search for "siemens olympic C4i investigation"[1] in Google for the glorious details.
At least Siemens weren't involved in the recent 'wobbly submarines'[2] scandal which resulted in at least Euro130M in kickbacks [3]. http://tinyurl.com/3ffmloa
[1] http://tinyurl.com/3t3oh4u
[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Type_214_submarine#Greek_Navy_orders
[3] http://tinyurl.com/3ffmloa
Is there an open source project that helps track time for employees?
I'm not a lawyer, but I play one on the Internet. Blog
The problem is people that have qualities that make them charismatic leaders that, get them in positions of power.
No, I believe that's the effect. The problem is idiots who base their votes on factors like charisma. Any old grandmother who votes for someone because "he has such a honest smile" or "he's a good christian" should be taken out and shot.
We don't let people out on the road without a driver's license, but we let them do something far more dangerous: vote.
The founding fathers had the right idea: Only let the elite vote. Unfortunately, they had a couple of bad apples who convinced them that how elite you were should be measured by wealth, and not education. By ensuring that the voters would be wealthy enough to buy politicians, this ensured that every politician since then has been bough and paid for. And sold to the masses who will vote for a smile.
That's a brilliant plan right up until you run out of perfect people, but please, go ahead stating it like it's the obvious answer instead of the problem itself. After all, if we just trust that the people in government will do the right thing, it should work, so lets just give them the power.
for a govt job
I mean seriously, any decent programmer who can code well, cannot do this and would take him hours of hard labour.
Add a clean shirt, and pants, and the fact that you have to get up early 6am to get to work by 8am.
Thats just torture, I mean no real sane genius programmer can ever ever do that. NEVER.
Liberty freedom are no1, not dicks in suits.
There have been times in my life when I was a land shark and have done some lousy things. But when i look at public officials I'm almost a saint. Frankly we need to throw away the key and put corrupt public employees so deep in our prisons that even their bones never see the sun again. There is one thing about life with no hope of parole. That is that you never have to worry about repeat offenders. And wouldn't it just send shock waves to other political and business leaders to see their peers tossed into a one way dungeon?
While I agree with you in principal. Our education standards are so poor that basing it on "education" would be just as bad. I have found that the overlap of knowledge and critical thinking between those that are "educated" and those that are not is so large as to be a useless measure. If you take out the top and bottom 10% of people based on knowledge, you would have a very hard time telling who was "educated", and who wasn't.
So it sounds like the City of New York could use some sort of time-keeping, accounting, and payroll software, to keep track of work and expenses.
deterrent.
What the hell? How does ANYONE justify spending that kinda change for a friggin' TIME CLOCK!
This comment is my opinion and does not represent an official position of Donald Trump or others I do not work for