« Ind. Decisions - More on: Supreme Court bars Geoffrey N. Fieger from temporary admission | Main | Courts - Two interesting recent NYT stories on courts and judiciary »

Sunday, May 25, 2008

Ind. Gov't. - "Officials debate whether to reboot Lake government's computer provider"

Bill Dolan has an interesting report today in the NWI Times. Some quotes:

CROWN POINT | Workers still were feeding floppy disks into Commodore 64 personal computers and the Internet was just a rumor in 1992, the year Lake County officials hired Cenifax Management Services as its data processor.

But as Lake County is poised to continue the no-bid contract with Cenifax, a 2007 Good Government Initiative study would have county officials look elsewhere for computer services.

The Lake County Council approved a contract extension with Cenifax earlier this month, and county commissioners now must give the deal a final stamp of approval.

Mark Pearman, executive director of Cenifax, said, "We have survived because we are professional and do a good job." He said the company deserves the council-approved contract extension, worth $1.9 million for the next four years.

But critics of the proposal contend Cenifax has thrived in the absence of competitive bidding.

The 2007 Good Government study recommended the county "seek new proposals for a contract service provider to test both the price competition as well as service delivery capacity of the open market."

Several questions occur to the ILB: What was the term of the initial contract? Is a copy of the contract available? How many times has the contract been extended in this manner?

Posted by Marcia Oddi on May 25, 2008 10:58 AM
Posted to Indiana Government