Detroit is a shrinking City. Once the 3rd largest in the country, now has a population of around 717,777. Detroit is now ranked 18th in the U.S. between 17th Charlotte, N.C. (731,424) and 19th El Paso, Tex. (649,121).
The city’s IT department must be re-thought with fresh ideas, upgraded, and must include focused cost savings better serving the citizens of Detroit with an open and transparent Web Service.
Detroit's yearly $22,000,000 IT budget should include a web team that focuses on nothing other than making the city transparent, open, and user-friendly.
Contracts
Contracts must be scrutinized. There has been no scrutiny on ITS contracts in the last 10 years, allowing the number of ITS contracts to surpass 115 Million dollars, nearly 3/4 of the city’s Deficit. Because of the rapid advance in technology, it is important to audit the ITS budget on a weekly, monthly and annual basis.
The chart below shows the spending of over 115 Million dollars on over 50 contracts the city currently has with over 20 companies.
| Service Provider |
Task |
Cost |
| Unisys |
Contract for the Licenses and Support Services for the City of Detroit Mainframe Environment |
$41,314,226 |
| Futurenet Group |
Provide personnel for computer programming, coding and analysis services as needed by City departments and agencies. |
$5,890,000 |
| Data Consulting Group |
Provide personnel for computer programming, coding and analysis services as needed by City departments and agencies. |
$5,760,000 |
| Compuware Corporation |
Provide personnel for computer programming, coding and analysis services as needed by City departments and agencies. |
$6,700,000 |
| Groundwork |
To Provide Leased or Purchased Network Equipment and Related Services |
$6,000,000 |
| PMV Technologies |
This contract is to provide qualified service personnel for the maintenance and hardware support of Personal Computers, Terminals, IBM Compatibles and Peripheral equipment for all City Agencies. The contractor will be notified by the City’s Client Support Center of service |
$600,000 |
| Motorola, Inc |
ITS is responsible for the management and maintenance of the City's 800 Mghz Radio System; This includes the required repairs and maintenance of 10 tower sites, consoles, city-wide dispatch sites, microwave network and the core system services located at the Radio System Control Center. This contract was created with Motorola |
$9,000,000 |
| Finsilver/Friedman Management Corporation |
This contract is for the LEASE of space (not construction as indicated) on the roof of the Penobscot Building and to use the space for communications equipment, antenna and related equipment. The antenna is required by Police, Fire, EMS, Water & Sewerage and 12 other City agencies. |
$500,000 |
| Leader Business Systems |
The contract provides for the delivery of technology defined to include: personal computers, software, peripheral equipment and related services in support of Information Technology related projects. |
$3,000,000 |
| Compuware Corporation |
Costs are based on the hourly fees which range from $48, for Help Desk Technician to $150 per hour for Program Director. |
$6,000,000 |
| Sify Technologies |
Costs are based on the hourly fees that range from $30, for several positions – Telecommunications Technician, System Administrator, Help Desk Technician, Technical Writer - to $135 per hour for Program Director. |
$2,000,000 |
| IBM |
The Tivoli Enterprise Management software was installed in 2004 to manage desktops and server environments. |
$425,000 |
| Data Consulting Group |
|
$4,000,000 |
| Sigma Associates |
Costs are based on the hourly fees ranging from $35 per hour for Technical Writer to $97 per hour for Oracle Developer/Analyst. |
$500,000 |
| Computech Corporation |
Contract is for the personnel proficient in providing information technology services, to support information technology related projects. |
$2,500,000 |
| Pie Management, LLC |
Costs indicated to be budgeted to various accounts as required. This contract is for the provision of technical resources to various City agencies |
$2,000,000 |
| Sync Technologies, Inc |
Costs are based on the hourly fees, which range from $42 for Help Desk Technician to $100 per hour for Program Director or Project Manager. |
$3,000,000 |
| The OAS Group, Inc |
This contract is for provision of computerized technology (hardware and/or software) on a City-wide request basis. The City recommends contracts with multiple vendors (pre-approved spending ceilings) to ensure the lowest prices continue to be offered for City purchases. When equipment is requisitioned by Departments, costs or quotations are requested from the vendors under contract to obtain the best prices. |
$5,000,000 |
| Sync Technologies, Inc |
This contract is for provision of computerized technology (hardware and/or software) on a City-wide request basis. The City recommends contracts with multiple vendors (pre-approved spending ceilings) to ensure the lowest prices continue to be offered for City purchases. When equipment is requisitioned by Departments, costs or quotations are requested from the vendors under contract to obtain the best prices. |
$4,000,000 |
| Futurenet Group |
Costs are based on hourly fees ranging from $44 per hour for Technical Writer or Help Desk Technician to $94 per hour for Program Director. |
$3,500,000 |
| Universal Systems Technologies, Inc. |
Costs are based on hourly fees ranging from $29.50 per hour for Telecommunications Technician, $32.50 per hour for Help Desk Technician to $119 per hour for Program Director. |
$1,500,000 |
| The Epitec Group |
Costs are based on hourly fees ranging from $35 per hour for Help Desk Technician to $90 per hour for Program Director. |
$4,000,000 |
| Novell Inc |
According to the Department, Novell Enterprise software has been used for the past 10 years to manage the email and directory services.. |
$409,000 |
A serious look at renegotiating these contracts, and if these contracts still fit with the city’s needs, is needed.
Detroit should benefit from the excellent IT companies worldwide, and should constantly research new technology; Cloud based companies that exist today are constantly working to make things run more efficiently, using fewer resources.
Infrastructure
Mainframe systems are a thing of the past. They cost too much in just maintenance alone. Moving to a cloud based system would provide the city with advances in productivity such as allowing users to work off-site, from smart phones and from their homes, as well as adding dramatic cost savings in hardware and software. Many cities are switching to cloud based systems for Email, Documents and Sharing.
Below are videos about
Cloud Computing and
Google Apps.
What is Cloud Computing?
City of Los Angeles
Pittsburgh
State of Wyoming
List of Government Entities who have saved money and improve efficiency by switching Google Apps.
City of Monroe
City of Seattle
GSA
City of Pittsburgh
City of Mesquite
U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum
City of Orlando, FL
Berkeley Lab
US Navy's Maritime Domain Awareness Program / InRelief
City of Westerville, Ohio
City of Wooster, Ohio
Multnomah County, OR
State of Wyoming
Larimer County, CO
Panama City, Florida
U.S. General Services Administration
Rochester Hills, Michigan
Kansas Department of Wildlife and Parks
Administrative Conference of the United States
Macomb County Circuit Court and Clerk
Amador County, CA
City of Des Moines, Iowa
Department of Health and Environmental Control (DHEC), South Carolina
Rockingham County, NC
Village of Westmont, Illinois
Washington County, New York
National Oceanic And Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)
City of Canton, GA
City of Los Angeles
District of Columbia Government
Google Apps costs just $50 per user.
The cost for the City of Detroit would be $350,000 a year for 7000 users.
Advantages of Cloud Computing such as Google Apps
-
A substantiation cost saving over the current Novell GroupWise and Microsoft Office System.
-
Increase in Productivity and Usability
-
Cloud based, meaning no more days without access to important Emails and Documents
-
Mobile email, calendar and IM access
-
Faster and more User friendly
-
50 times more storage than the industry average
-
Information security and compliance
-
Full administrative and data control
-
Helpful 24/7 customer support
Click Here for more information on the advantages of Google.
Servers
Detroit is not in the business of creating costly information systems. By moving applications to the Web, the cost in hardware requirements decreases significantly. Rather than requiring upgrading and maintenance of thousands of computers, it would be as simple as changing one Web page or a Cloud based company updating city Website. The current in house server system must be moved to cloud servers as soon as possible. Web Servers are faster, safer, and less cost is incurred to maintain and operate.
Revenue
Local Businesses should have advertising space on the City Website as a way to boost revenue.
Transparency
It's impossible for people to understand the city without, well, understanding the city. To understand you must see the situation clearly and quantifiable. As a city employee, it's also impossible to be fully motivated when your actions amount to a series of trees falling without sound. Current systems for understanding city budgets, tax revenues, land status, government proposals, and all manner of public information are completely handicapped at present. Even those interested and motivated may just give up. Instead of a top down approach, allowing only those with time, funding, and connections sort through everything and make proposals from on high, Detroit should embrace the open, social, and grassroots approach that respects and empowers its residents.
The city’s website should be updated daily with local government workings, and offer city payment services such as paying parking tickets, taxes, or bidding on/buying property.
These services should be clean simple and easy to use, as well as always evolving and adding more features.
Mapping and Land Use
There are hundreds of thousands of vacant properties in the city, causing blight, and not collecting tax dollars. The city should visualize this condition in detail, so that neighborhood residents can get to work identifying, purchasing, and beautifying properties. Investors can propose projects in the most streamlined way possible. Truly, Detroit can become the envy of the world in this regard: a city of opportunity and reinvention, where concerns of gentrification and selling out to private investment are balanced against the voices and participation of long-time residents and modest people looking to move to the city. Beyond reinvestment and land use, the mapping platform can also visualize other city data in a geographic context.
whydontweownthis.com is a Detroit based Website that could be the start of a more efficient, transparent, and human solution to Detroit's land use issues.
Resident Dashboard
There must be a better way for residents to understand the latest city news, developments, proposals, and issues, as well as a dependable way to voice concern, ideas, and give feedback that doesn't disappear down private channels like phone calls, letters, and emails, which often go unanswered and always go unseen by other residents. People must be able to check their city as easily as they check email. They should be able to socially vote everyday-through a resident dashboard-on what their priorities truly are, and to follow city progress in real time. There is an untapped city labor force in the form of regular citizens that Detroit can't afford not to tap into. A beautiful, personalized portal for that is a top priority.
"Voluntary Taxes" and Crowdfunding
People do not like taxes, but they will pay for benefits and services. If there are inadequate funds to patrol, light, mow, clean and otherwise service neighborhoods, people will step into a vacuum driven by both self-serving and philanthropic motivations. Look no further than sites like Kickstarter and Groupon that pool collective funding and purchasing power. As many people don't understand where their tax money goes, many would gladly contribute more if they know that they are funding a better quality of life.
Context, Trends, and Precedents
New web-based communication and sharing tools are making the world remarkably transparent in real time. Over the last several years these trends have started migrating into government through the “Gov 2.0” movement. Recognizing the need for more efficient communication in responding to residents, a growing number of cities are becoming more open with their data, and are encouraging web developers to use it’s data to make applications that help improve the quality of city life. Simultaneously, it’s becoming faster, cheaper, and easier for programmers to develop these applications for both desktop computers and mobile phones.
For some analysis see:
Tim O’Reilly on “Gov 2.0: The Promise Of Innovation”
“There is a new compact on the horizon: Government maintains information on a variety of issues, and that information should rightly be considered a national asset. Citizens are connected like never before and have the skill sets and passion to solve problems affecting them locally as well as nationally. Government information and services can be provided to citizens where and when they need it. Citizens are empowered to spark the innovation that will result in an improved approach to governance. This is a radical departure from the old model of government, which Donald Kettl so aptly named "vending machine government." We pay our taxes; we get back services. And when we don't get what we expect, our "participation" is limited to protest--essentially, shaking the vending machine.”
Code for America, a nonprofit organization coming to Detroit, among other cities:
codeforamerica.org
“A new kind of public service: helping government work better for everyone with the people and the power of the web.”
Given the cost-effectiveness, super high impact, and growing trend of creating user-friendly and open interfaces to city data, Detroit has a real opportunity to step up and become a leader in the movement. Residents will revere the city, revenue will increase, actionable solutions to hard problems will be found, and cities around the world will reach out to help and learn.