De Blasio hits reset on 911 System Overhaul, Consolidates Project Management, Reduces Consultants

The de Blasio administration has a new plan to rescue the city’s problem-plagued overhaul of the emergency 911 system.

 

Top City Hall aides revealed the plan exclusively to the Daily News on Tuesday, following a two-month suspension of work on the mammoth technology project and a top-to-bottom review ordered by the mayor. “At every level we found issues that needed to be addressed,” First Deputy Mayor Anthony Shorris told The News.

“We were probably relying too much on outside consultants, (and) had too many middlemen taking pieces of the project off the top, making it run slower and in a more costly fashion.”

From now on, Shorris said, all work will be under the direct control of one city official, Information Technology and Telecommunications Commissioner Anne Roest. The number of high-paid outside consultants will be sharply reduced, and the project will be broken down into smaller pieces that can be tackled separately.

Meanwhile, city Controller Scott Stringer and Department of Investigation Commissioner Mark Peters issued separate reviews, which Mayor de Blasio had requested, on the 911 project.

Their scathing reports blasted years of mismanagement on the project under former Mayor Michael Bloomberg, with Stringer highlighting massive cost overruns. Peters urged de Blasio to appoint independent fiscal integrity monitors on all huge technology projects to guard against possible fraud by contractors.

“For folks at City Hall to move forward the past five years on a project of this size without a single person in charge, without having a well-defined game plan, and without an independent monitor is nothing short of governmental malpractice,” Peters said.

While the DOI report found no “overt illegal activity” by contractors, Peters said his office was reviewing more than 250,000 documents and invoices from the past 10 years and will issue more detailed findings in a few months on “more serious issues” involving the project.

Stringer’s review noted that the 911 overhaul, originally launched in 2004, was supposed to be completed in five years. The end date has now stretched into 2018.