State comptroller orders IT contract progress reports
SPRINGFIELD — Illinois Comptroller Susana Mendoza has suspended $5.7 million in payments on an online state-employee health insurance program, a project so botched it also prompted her to begin ordering performance reports for all large state technology contracts.
Mendoza told The Associated Press she will review the contract with Georgia-based Morneau Shepell before deciding on payment. She plans a Monday announcement on that and the new requirement that state agencies complete annual reports for the public on the progress of their information technology deals exceeding $5 million.
A state audit last week found that the previous administration's contract with Morneau Shepell for a custom-benefit portal that was supposed to save the state $500 million a year was so sloppily executed that the program, which auditors determined could have been done in house, is costing taxpayers $10 million extra a year and still isn't delivering the services promised.
The Department of Central Management Services, which issued the contract, has had 24 chances to dock the company for missing performance goals, but has taken no action, according to the review by Auditor General Frank Mautino. Lawmakers ordered the audit after a 2017 Associated Press report that Morneau Shepell was the only company to respond to a hasty solicitation and that the program produced payroll errors, unexplained cancellation of coverage and other difficulties.
Read more: https://thesouthern.com/news/local/govt-and-politics/state-comptroller-orders-it-contract-progress-reports/article_3aa904f2-5032-540d-9bd3-afbdec9a6a4a.html