State Transportation Computers Over Budget, Behind Schedule

A computer system designed to make it easier for Idahoans to deal with the Department of Transportation is $300,000 over budget and one year off schedule.

The delayed system is part of a five-year, $10.5 million plan to coordinate communications and financial operations at the department.

Among other things, officials say Idahoans will be able to change their address on their driver’s license, vehicle registration and ownership records in one keystroke. The new system also is expected to cut personnel costs.

State Sen. Stan Hawkins, R-Ucon, said lawmakers will look at computer purchases by state agencies when it reconvenes next year.

“I’m one who has watched this computer craze take place,” said Hawkins, a member of the Transportation and Joint Finance and Appropriations committees. “Agencies say they are going to be more efficient and have fewer employees. But I’m skeptical, and I’m wondering if we have to spend as much money as we do.”

The first sign of serious trouble surfaced in a staff memo dated June 15, two weeks from the date the first phase of the project was scheduled to go on-line. The memo suggests near mutiny from the 24 team leaders assigned to make the system work. They laid out three pages of questions including how Oracle Corp. was selected and even whether its software could accommodate their agency.

Cindy Prosnik, the manager who wrote the memo, was reassigned immediately. She left the agency a short time later. Another worker associated with the project declined to be interviewed because she said she feared losing her job.

The agency’s deputy director, Keith Bumsted, said Wednesday that the staff memo helped convince him to delay the July 1996 implementation until July 1997, the start of the next budgeting year.