This is Part 1 of a two part series about information technology and New Orleans city government.

In 2002, when New Orleanians set out to elect a new mayor, they chose a no-nonsense businessman with no political background who vowed to run the city like a corporation. Former mayor Ray Nagin understood the importance of technology in city hall and set to bring New Orleans into the 21^st century. In his 2003 State of the City Address he touched on many technological enchantments such as using technology to improve the level of city hall’s customer service, putting a 25-year computer system “out to the pasture”, and allowing residents to apply for licenses and permits over the Internet.  Spearheaded by tech whiz-kid Greg Meffert, who was appointed the role of Chief Technology Office (CTO) under Nagin, the administration boosted many other information technology (IT)  achievements by installing Internet kiosks so that citizens could request an inspection of their homes after Katrina, helped NOPD install mobile data terminals in patrol cars, and saved the city $100 million dollars in 2002 by getting free computer upgrades from Microsoft.

The House of Cards Comes Tumbling Down

House of Cards

By any account, this would be a shining example of how technology and city government could be interwoven to help its citizens.  But little did we know, the house of cards would come crashing down and the words "technology", "city hall", and "New Orleans" would leave a bad taste in everyone's mouth.  Like a boxer that's caught in the corner with no judge to stop his opponent, the cities IT department saw one jab after another and disgraced the city's administration.  Greg Meffert, his wife, and other local business owners were charged with 63-counts superseding indictment with conspiracy, wire fraud, bribery concerning programs receiving federal funds, money laundering, false statements, and filing false tax returns.  Recently Mr. Meffert pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud and bribery and one count of filing a false income tax return.  The new CTO after Mr. Meffert, Anthony Jones had to resign after 18 months because of various controversies including that he lacked a college degree needed for the position and several technology projects failed during his tenure.  In stepped M. Harrison Boyd, who filled the role of interim CTO in the "Who wants to be the CTO of New Orleans gameshow".  While Mr. Boyd had the educational background and was not indicted on any charges, he still had his own set of headaches to deal with.

The crime camera scandal was an eye opener which brought to light some of the seedy dealings that happened in city hall.  It got so bad that the CEO of Dell Inc., Micheal Dell was ordered to testify in court about the companies involvement in the contracts.  If that wasn't enough, it gets even better.  The federal government decided to look at past e-mails from former mayor Ray Nagin and other officials within his administration but found that the server that held these e-mail messages crashed and all the data was erased.  Once the feds issued a subpoena for the documents, the city hired the Louisiana Technology Council to look into the matter only to turn around and file a lawsuit against them over a violation of  a confidentiality agreement.  To put the icing on the king cake, an August 2010 report from the city's Inspector General Ed Quatrevaux gave a shocking report of how the city's administration wasted millions of dollars on IT projects, overpaid tech contractors, how the city wasted money hiring outside workers when it could have hired city staff, and how the city failed to budget adequate funds to cover anticipated costs of IT projects.

Will A New Administration Bring New Hope?

Mayor Mitch Landrieu

As the old saying goes "Out with the old, in with the new".  Mayor Mitch Landrieu was elected with the hope of getting New Orleans back on track.  You name it and he had to deal with it: corruption, crime, an inefficient city hall, blight, etc.  One of his first steps was to setup transition teams, made up of everyday citizens whose jobs was to evaluate certain functions of government and offer solutions about how to fix them.  The newly elected mayor wanted people to know that he was serious about transparency and didn't mind letting us know about the good and the bad.  He created task forces who were in charge of looking at such things as blight, health care, education, and economic development.  But missing from the transition website was any reference to the mayor's vision of technology for city hall and New Orleans.  Sure, we all want technology to improve our daily lives and make city government more efficient, but where was the plan?  Where was the transparency in relationship to IT in city hall?

According to Matt Wisdom, CEO of Turbo Squid, there was a team that asked these very questions.  Mr. Wisdom, who was the head of the IT transition team for the mayor's office, spoke about what the team found during a conference called TedxNOLA and also at a public forum for a technology group called Net2NO.  Mr. Wisdom painted a grim picture of how deplorable IT projects and services were in city hall.

According to the IT transition team, the main problem was that the IT department did not have a clear vision for technology in the city, there was a lack of strategic goals, and a lot of fundamental problems that could be fixed with textbook solutions.  One problem was that most of the people that made the decisions on technology projects were long gone and there was not adequate documentation.  The team found duplicate IT systems, software that was purchased but not in use, an accounting and payroll system that was running on its last leg, procedures that would cause data inconsistency, and no real way to prevent catastrophic data loss.  Many of the systems were "held together with spit and bubble gum", according to Mr. Wisdom.  The silver lining in the cloud was that the city's IT department was cooperative and let the team of outsiders air out all their dirty laundry.

We Have To Start Somewhere

Mr. Allen Square, Jr (Credit: NOLA.gov Website)

You're probably asking yourself the same question I am: "Who in their right mind would want this job?"  That person would be the new city's Chief Information Officer (CIO):  Allen Square, Jr.  The new CIO does not shy away from the problems that plague the city's technology department.  At a recent city council meeting he stated the fact that every major IT project had failed, e-mail servers do not have adequate backups,  and financial systems were in bad shape.  Even Courtney Bagneris, the city's assistant chief administrative officer stated that these financial systems were "being held together by wire hangers and masking tape".

The IT department and technology services within the city have had too many black eyes.  To say that the mayor's administration and new CIO have a lot of work to do would be an understatement.  Will the city be able to migrate its old software onto new information systems?  Will there be more transparency when it comes to technology in city hall or will it be business behind closed doors as usual?  Can the IT department get us out of the stone age and move towards implementing new technology initiatives that rival other cites?  Will our new CIO create a strategic plan when it comes to technology to better service city hall, its departments, and the people of New Orleans?

Even Councilwoman Jackie Clarkson welcomed Mr. Square to his new position and said "We hope you'll be our savior".  Only time will tell.

Be sure to read the next article in this series that will go in-depth about what the new administration and IT department have planned for technology in the city.