City & County Information Technology Work Going To A Foreign Company
Posted by Jeff Pruitt - 5/22/08 @ 7:23 pm - Filed Under Local Politics
Nicole Pence of Indiana News Center reports that the city and county are rebidding their IT services contract and that the two finalists are both foreign owned companies.
Out of eight potential bids, the group is now down to two: “ATOS Origins” and “CMC limited”. Both have operations in the united states, but their headquarters are in France and India. Clarke argues even if these are foreign based companies, the money would stay local.
Now I’m extremely jingoistic when it comes to government contracts and that’s why I could never support this decision. Essentially I don’t think taxpayer dollars should ever go to a foreign company as long as there are companies stateside willing to do the work. I also disagree with Clifford Clarke that “the money would stay local”. But first, here’s the rest of what he said about that:
There is nothing about the offering that they have to take off-shore. Absolutely nothing. And, we will make sure that doesn’t happen via contract.”
Clarke will not tell INC how much money the two final bids are being negotiated for. He says people employed with the ACS contract now, could be hired on with the new company.
Well they’re certainly going to take the profit overseas as they aren’t doing this work out of the kindness of their hearts. I have a hard enough time watching the profits (if there ever are any) from Harrison Square go to Atlanta but this just crosses the line. Our tax dollars need to stay in this community whenever possible and nobody can convince me that Fort Wayne doesn’t have the expertise to run the city and county’s IT services…
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[...] council candidate Kevin Knuth has issued a press release condemning the city’s decision to “outsource” local government’s IT work. “Sending taxpayer dollars from Allen County to overseas companies makes no sense, especially in [...]
While the “work” would be local the profits would be going out of the USA. The profits are what drives growth. Pure and simple!!!
Look at what Rogers, Scotts, Roots, and bunches of other local companies use to do in our community. They are all gone. Their impact into making Fort Wayne better is gone and never will return.
The new company always says they might hire the current employees, but it rarely ever happens.
This will be a good test for the people who have been complaining about the potential costs of different projects. Do we want the cheapest offer or the local one?
John,
The city doesn’t always choose the lowest bid so there’s no guarantee a local one wasn’t the cheapest to begin with. Also, money that stays in the local economy has a cascading effect as it gets spent locally. Money sent to a foreign company (even if it’s just profits) will not get spent locally and thus will have no economic impact here…
Although I rarely agree with Kevin on political issues, he’s definitely on to a viable solution here. I applaud his initiative. We need to see more forward-thinking partnerships like this in our community.
Our elected officials run for office promoting economic growth, they preach it after elected, and then we get this as a result. Once again talk from both sides of their mouths.
I would propose, because of time, they extend the present contract six months. This would allow for local companies to work with our local schools to see if some of Kevin’s ideas can be married into it. Plus study the economic impact by having the local business operate it. Plus how many people (a hard number) of the current people would be offered jobs.
Ms. Goldner ran on the idea of getting more work to remain in Allen County. This would a great example of it.
Also young adults thinking of going into IT work would know how they would be trained in school and also in the real world as part of their education. This would draw more of the top notch students to Fort Wayne.
I have worked with engineering interns and I would say 95% of them broght something to the plate when they showed up. They are high on learning, they are motivated, and they can bring some inovative ideas along at times.
If we want to move Fort Wayne from the manufacturing world into the tech world this would be a great place to start.
More wisdom from J.Q.!
It’s high time we turn the table - India and France should be outsourcing to Fort Wayne. Let’s give them a reason to do so.
This has been a BIG sore spot for me since the RFP came out in January. At that time I suggested to the city that they amend the RFP to include Emerging Business Enterprises (EBE’s) which are small businesses, including minority and women-owned but not limited to that. Because prior Councils had never done any sort of “Buy Indiana” ordinance there was no ability to require anything beyond that, but they COULD have included EBE’s. The City’s EBE policy has traditionally been for construction projects, and the answer I got was, “huh, we hadn’t thought about using an EBE process for IT.” When I said, “okay, now that you’ve thought of it how about doing it” I got a blank wall. In January or even early February they could have EASILY amended the RFP to add points for including EBE’s but no, that path was not chosen.
As I have been saying all along, the community gets much bigger value when we essentially recycle our dollars into local jobs, local supplies, and local profit. We get more tax revenue and we get more jobs. But the people reviewing this procurement are extremely tunnel-visioned in their approach, IMHO, and refuse to see those as legitimate criteria. How can we say that we want to build a technology economy and then refuse to even interview our own local companies? They are missing the big picture.
But not for long. Tuesday I am introducing the Buy Local ordinance which will be discussed at Council in June (presumably June 3).
I hope that this procurement is seen as “Exhibit A” in why we need to adopt this ordinance.
And P.S., I like Kevin’s idea as well.
It would be great to have his fresh approach to problem-solving on County Council!
And I bet none of you ever shop at Wal-Mart.
The reason it didn’t go to a local firm is because there wasn’t one that was qualified. You people sound like you want a wall put up around the country.
The dollar’s value is so low, they can invest foreign dollars (Euros) here and get a higher rate of return spending it here than elsewhere.
Then again, maybe all of the military work that comes in from other nations to Fort Wayne should be banned as well?
We’re operating in a global economy, you’d better get used to it.
Wal-mart is immaterial to this discussion - private enterprise can do as they please. We’re talking about taxpayer dollars going to a foreign company.
Other countries choose to send their money to Fort Wayne because we offer products they simply cannot get in their country - again that’s not what we’re talking about here.
I completely reject the idea that we don’t have any local firms that are qualified to run the city and county IT dept.
Karen hit the nail on the head. Having govt officials blather on about moving from a manufacturing based economy to a “knowledge based” one only to turn around and outsource the govt’s own technology work is just myopic…
If I remember correctly, some years ago when our city was looking into the purchase of new parking meters, our local Fort Wayne Engineer’s Club offered to do the research as a volunteer project. The city accepted their offer and we ended up with a good result. This goes along with what Karen is suggesting - we have the talent locally - let’s use it.
Sometimes a business will put a job up for bid with specific enough requirements to ensure just which person in the firm gets the job. I would guess that the same could be true with this IT situation. Things may have been worded so that the local group was excluded. Especially since they have been doing this work downtown for the last fifteen years, there may be some complaints about how they go about their responsibilities. I don’t know, but it would be interesting to hear the city answer that question at the Council table.
I am all for local businesses getting these opportunities.
Penny, I am sorry but I must disagree with you. There were local companies qualified to do the work and who bid on the contract, in one case as a consortium and in another case as a subcontractor to a much larger vendor. In my opinion, these local companies should be given MORE consideration rather than less which seems to be how it happens now.
Ms. Goldner,
I agree with you 100%. I think there should be some weight on economic worth of the contract.
While the IT Manager for Fort Wayne stated all money would be spent locally is either speaking out of term, or he is dealing with two NON-PROFIT companies, which I doubt. These two companies plan on making a profit and taking that profit outside of the United States.
Profit is what drives growth. Fort Wayne needs growth.
The next time some company in Fort Wayne decides to bail out of the city Mayor Henry should be the last person saying how bad or sad it is. He is leading the way, by example on how to export Fort Wayne business!
Go, Karen Go! This is exactly what we need to see happen!
[...] Goldner and her efforts to keep our tax dollars local. At issue is the city and county’s IT services contract that will likely be awarded to one of two finalists which are both foreign companies. “I, as a [...]
I am a Senior Account Representative with Technology Integration Group. TIG is a MBE based out of San Diego. I work out of our Indianapolis office and come to Fort Wayne very often. TIG is also a sub for ACS under the current contract with the City of Fort Wayne/Allen County.
ACS is already giving local college students from the Fort Wayne market jobs today. TIG has 15 contractors onsite with ACS currently. That number has been as high as 24, and all of those contractors have come from the Fort Wayne market.
The majority of them have come from the local colleges. ITT and Ivy Tech students have worked as contractors to ACS. ACS has gone on to hire some of these students as full-time openings become available. ACS even has members of its team who are onsite at the City-County building serving as advisory board members for some of the local schools.
Kevin’s plan is already being carried out to a certain degree as part of the current contract that is going away.
The majority of Atos Origin employees in North America were once parts of an outsourced community, just like the City of Fort Wayne. While the company has a strong global/Europoean backing, the work, workers, and developers are very much looking out for the interest of their local communities.
Look what they’ve done for Cincinnati: http://www.interalliance.info/
[...] jobs will be in Indianapolis and not Fort Wayne. Of course that sounds slightly different than what Clarke told Indiana News Center just a few months ago: Both have operations in the United States, but their headquarters are in [...]