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From Governing’s Florida
On the whole, Florida is a well-managed state. It has an office of program evaluation that may be the best in the country. Unlike many other states, it appears to do an excellent job keeping up with the maintenance of its infrastructure. Few states are better at training and developing their workforce. On the financial side, investment and debt practices are very good and budget-writers have lately avoided gimmickry. 
Unfortunately, an insidious problem threatens to undermine efforts to deliver services effectively to citizens. The problem is contracting, in which the administration of Governor Jeb Bush has moved far too quickly for its own good. This is not an issue that’s limited to one agency or one area of policy. It affects numerous aspects of Florida’s public management. Last fall, the state’s new chief information officer cancelled more than $250 million in technology contracts, following a report from the auditor general criticizing the State Technology Office for inadequate documentation of contracting decisions and improper evaluations of bids. One of the three contracts cancelled is now under criminal investigation. Nevertheless, the company handling that contract was rehired in January for a much smaller one.
About the same time, the state’s inspector general came down hard on the Department of Children and Families for its contracting processes, leading to the resignation of the department’s chief at the end of August. In mid-December, the director of contracts for that agency resigned as well, complaining bitterly in a three-page letter about the rush to finalize contracting deals. One of the contracting issues that illustrated the state’s tendency to rush was its effort to outsource basic human resource tasks to a private company, including the development of a comprehensive centralized payroll and HR management system. The initial schedule called for the company to use a “big bang” approach to technology installation, turning the switch on at the same time for all the agencies, along with their 130,000 workers, 30,000 retirees and 40,000 university employees. That’s pretty risky no matter how much preparation time is allotted. But the state allowed only nine months from the day the contract was signed until implementation. “Nine months was not a realistic timeline,” admits Taylor Smith, deputy secretary of the Department of Management Services. Even after the state gave up on the nine-month deadline, problems abounded. Many of them stemmed from ignoring the inherent difficulties in cramming data from dozens of disparate agencies into any one system with little advance preparation. “We had some agencies which are on a biweekly payroll, some on a monthly,” says Smith. “We had some start the workweek on Friday and others on Thursday. We have 65 or 70 types of leave. We should have done a better job of streamlining our processes and procedures.” Florida does deserve some credit for being set up to catch these things, however belatedly. In many other states, contracting problems can go unnoticed. But between Florida’s auditor’s office, its inspector general and the Office of Program Policy Analysis and Government Accountability, very little goes wrong in the state’s management that somebody doesn’t see. Additional efforts are now underway to make sure the problems don’t come up again. The Center for Efficient Government was established in March 2004 to provide a standard and transparent process. The Division of Accounting and Auditing has set up training programs on internal control issues and best practices in contracting. These courses aren’t just for the staff but also for the vendors that do business with the state. Managers say they’ve learned a lot from the contracting mistakes. That argument will be tested this summer when a new information system for financial management begins to roll out. It’s a much-needed change. The state has been unable to get financial reports out on time, and agencies aren’t able to get information they need. “When accountability stops at the state agency, then short staffs are hard-pressed to oversee and monitor these contracts,” says Cheri Greene, chief of the Bureau of Auditing. “We’ve gone one step beyond that and are deploying that accountability training to the actual providers. If providers know what the requirements are, then agencies will be able to monitor them more effectively.”
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