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Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Computer System Gets Last Chance Emergency Meeting Planned To Discuss Salvaging Licensing Department Project

Hunter T. George Associated Press

Don’t turn off the LAMP just yet.

The state’s top leaders expect to hold an emergency meeting Thursday to discuss salvaging the public’s $40 million investment in a computer project that’s scheduled to be scrapped in less than a week.

Legislative leaders and the Locke administration are concerned about the political and fiscal impact of last month’s decision by an obscure government panel to cancel development of the Department of Licensing’s new computer system.

The leaders expect to consider a number of options, including removing the project from the responsibilities of the 13-member Information Services Board while they search for a way to preserve at least some of what’s been developed so far.

Known as LAMP, the Licensing Application Migration Project was supposed to improve the agency’s efficiency by combining databases on driver’s licenses with registration lists for vehicles and vessels.

But the Information Services Board, an appointed group of state workers, elected officials and private citizens, decided last month to kill the project because it’s way over budget, behind schedule and of questionable value to the state.

In 1992, the price tag was projected to be $67.5 million over three phases. However, none of the phases has been completed and the cost estimate for the first phase alone is more than $50 million, some $10 million more than the original estimate. The completion date for the first phase now is estimated for November, about a year behind the revised schedule.

Faced with those facts, the Information Services Board decided to cut the state’s losses and ordered the Department of Licensing to cancel the project, effective April 21.

But powerful forces are at work to at least delay the end of the project.

Gov. Gary Locke’s chief of staff, Joe Dear, set up the Thursday meeting that’s expected to include House Speaker Clyde Ballard, R-East Wenatchee; Senate Majority Leader Dan McDonald, R-Bellevue; the Democratic leaders of both houses; the top-ranking members of the legislative transportation committees; and Dick Thompson, the state’s budget director and chairman of the Information Services Board.

“It’s a pretty high-level group,” Dear said.

They’ll be presented with options developed by Locke’s new head of the Department of Licensing, Evelyn Yenson. The options generally break down into two categories:

Put LAMP on hold and perform “minor” fixes to the licensing agency’s antiquated system, which would give the state a few years to evaluate LAMP and develop a better system. Yenson, who prefers this scenario, said the cost estimates range from $5 million to $10 million, depending on how much is done to upgrade the current system.

Scrap LAMP and perform major surgery on the current system. Yenson said it would cost at least $10 million, and probably more, and would not alleviate the need for a new computer system within a decade.

Some decisions must be made soon.

Unlike many agencies, the Information Services Board has the authority to cancel the project without legislative approval. And board members have indicated they’re unwilling to reconsider their decision.

“It’s a project that’s out of control,” said board member Ed Lazowska, chairman of the Department of Computer Science and Engineering at the University of Washington.

“This is an extraordinarily expensive system that probably won’t work,” added Sen. Bill Finkbeiner, a Redmond Republican and one of two legislative members of the board.

As a result, Rep. Renee Radcliff, a Mukilteo Republican who’s serving as Ballard’s adviser on major state computer projects, has prepared legislation that would remove LAMP from the board’s responsibilities.

Radcliff said some lawmakers are uncomfortable with the idea of allowing an appointed panel to cancel an expensive project that the Legislature started.

Lazowska welcomed the offer.

“If the Legislature wants to take over, then by all means, let them have it,” he said.