00001 COUNCIL OF THE CITY OF PHILADELPHIA PUBLIC HEARING BEFORE THE COUNCIL COMMITTEE ON FINANCE - - - Room 400, City Hall Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Tuesday, November 9, 1999 10:45 a.m. - - - BILL 990712 - An ordinance approving the Fiscal Year 2000 Capital Budget providing for expenditures for the capital purposes of the Philadelphia Gas Works, including the supplying of funds to be obtained in connection therewith, and rejecting the Forecast bill for Fiscal Years 2001 through 2005. PRESENT: COUNCILWOMAN JANNIE BLACKWELL, Chair COUNCILMAN DAVID COHEN COUNCILMAN JAMES F. KENNEY COUNCILMAN MICHAEL A. NUTTER COUNCILWOMAN MARIAN B. TASCO COUNCILMAN BRIAN J. O'NEILL - - - VINCENT VARALLO ASSOCIATES, INC. Registered Professional Reporters Eleven Penn Center, Suite 600 Philadelphia, PA 19103 (215) 561-2220 00002 I N D E X Ben Hayllar, President and CEO, PGW. . . . . . 5 Dennis Stinson . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10 Vice President, Operations, PGW Al Webster, Director of Customer Service, PGW 19 Reverend Robert Shine, Chairman. . . . . . . . 96 Civic and Social Committee Black Clergy of Philadelphia Joe Given, President . . . . . . . . . . . . . 104 Gas Works Employees Union Abby Pozefsky, General Counsel, PGW. . . . . . 109 00003 P R O C E E D I N G S
Good morning. Thank you very much. The Finance Committee is now in session. Today, we are here to talk about Bill 7 No. 990712. We have students who are shadowing many members of Council. We have one young lady with us today. Her name is Charmin Frank, from Prep Charter High, which is one of my wonderful charter schools that I absolutely love. And we're going to give her the honor of reading the title of the bill. Charmin?
Bill No. 990712, an ordinance approving the Fiscal Year 2000 Capital Budget providing for expenditures for the capital purposes of the Philadelphia Gas Works, including the supplying of funds to be obtained in connection therewith, and rejecting the Forecast bill for Fiscal Years 2001 through 2005.
Thank you very much, Charmin, very good job, and we're very glad to have you here this morning. As many members of the committee have now learned, and we've talked to the members of 00004 PGW, we do have some problems this morning, and those problems include a press conference that is presently going on in front of the Philadelphia Gas Works with regard to the leader, Mr. Hayllar, and some other issues that are going on with personnel with the gas company. Now, we will say certainly that it is our responsibility, and this committee's responsibility, to do everything we can to help the City move forward in a positive direction and certainly to make sure that its citizens are protected. So we will begin our hearing at this time, and we will entertain questions from members of the committee. We did receive some information this morning, a fax sheet that we thank you for, Mr. Hayllar, with regard to billing problems, but certainly, the committee will decide what happens certainly before our hearing ends. And with that let me ask the committee members if they have any questions. (No questions.)
Please identify yourself for the record and proceed with your testimony. 00005
Ben Hayllar, President of the Philadelphia Gas Works. I am here to testify on behalf of Bill 990712, which is PGW's proposed Fiscal Year 2000 Capital Budget. In the interest of time, Madam Chairwoman, I think it would be appropriate if I summarized my testimony since you have it in writing. With me is Vice President for Operations, Dennis Stinson, and numerous other officers from PGW who are prepared to answer any questions that might arise. PGW seeks the approval of the Finance Committee, and ultimately the entire City Council, on our Fiscal Year 2000 Capital Budget totaling $59,618,000. The proposed budget supports a program to replace existing plant and facilities and some level to acquire new assets. The proposed Capital Budget reflects the continuing refocussing on our core business functions. 9 million, is requested to be allocated to our distribution, field service, and gas processing areas. 6 million, is directed primarily toward transportation and 00006 building facilities requirements. The remaining request is to be authorized for new systems and technology initiatives. The Year 2000 Capital Budget includes $14 million to complete the first phase of the LNG, or Liquification Plants Program. Prudent replacement of liquification is critical to ensure the reliable gas supply since plant failure could impel PGW's supply for design day and supply requirements. 3 million for new-customer 18 requirements. 8 is allocated 21 for the installation of the Automatic 22 Meter-Reading Program. 7 million is for vehicles and mobile equipment replacement. 6 million. 1 million for new application systems, including material and purchasing systems and a new payroll system. Before we go forward, I would point out what I think every Councilmember knows -- that we have completed the installation of what amounts to the heart of the company, and that is the billing, collection and customer service system. This is the computer software that allows us to maintain over 514,000 individual accounts, histories of their billing and their payments, and is basically the center of where a customer goes to PGW in order to have their problems answered or fixed. We converted to the new system on July 5th of this year. Within the first month, it was recognized that there were a series of errors in the conversion that took place. Some of them seemed to be relatively minor, but as we worked through most of the areas during the course of the summer, it became obvious to everyone, including our customers, that there were some serious 00008 embedded problems in the new system that we are still dealing with. I have given you a handout, at the request of the Chairwoman, dealing with the problems that we are currently confronting now. Many of the problems that we have encountered over the summer have been fixed, but these are the ones that I think are most significant and are still requiring remediation. Of the 512,000 customers, most bills that go out are accurate, but significant pools of inaccuracies are out there. For example, we have bills that have not been received. Sometimes we are now -- we are holding bills to make certain that they go out without errors in them. Every day, we send out approximately 22,000 bills, they get mailed. We've held some right now simply because we know there are errors in those cycles, and we want to get those erroneous bills out. The biggest problem we have right now is that the estimation device on bills for customers who do not have automatic meter-readers, whose bills are estimated, the logic that has been prepared by the vendor is incorrect. About 20 00009 percent of our bills are estimated, so we have a significant issue concerning finding a correct way to estimate our bills. This has been a reoccurring problem that, of course, has resulted in, as of yesterday, I think we had some 12,000 phone calls on billing alone to the call system, which we're simply unable to handle in a satisfactory way.
We've had some budget bills that have been inappropriately cancelled. We believe we understand the problem there and are fixing it. Bill messages appear on bills that may not be related to the bill itself. For example, suggesting that people will be thrown off the budget program when they're not on the program, where the messages have been removed until that problem is fixed. Customers who are on payment agreements often have their bill computed correctly, but the box saying "Please pay this amount" shows "0" on it, which is another area that is causing us a great deal of concern. You have in front of you the list of, I think, our top problems to date. We believe that 00010 they can be worked through, but we make no excuse that these are problems that are confronting us and are seriously concerning our customers. PGW has undertaken a philosophy that we are accountable to our customers for what do. We stand accountable for fixing these problems and providing the service that our customers have a right to expect from us going forth. The Capital Budget before you would allow the company to continue to maintain its essential infrastructure to supply natural gas safely to our heating and our other users for the next year. We ask that Council approve the authorized Fiscal Year 2000 Capital of Budget of $59,600,000. I will be more than happy to answer any questions that you may have. Thank you.
All right. The Chair will now entertain questions from the committee. Councilwoman Tasco? 00011
Mr. Hayllar, you talked about your information technology system. Could you give us an idea of where you are in the revitalization process for getting this system up to speed?
We have retained about two months ago Ram Technologies and Myra Management who have done extensive work on City installations of this nature. They have been on site. They now have, I believe, five people in the building, assisting the IT people in getting their arms around these problems. Much of the problems that we have seen over the last six months have simply been bad data being put through the new system and turning out bad bills or incomprehensible bills for some people -- not all, but enough to cause a serious problem. Ram has instituted procedures that we previously did not have, protocols that we did not have, so that we would stop literally shooting ourselves in the foot. For example, we would often put in a 00012 fix to a problem without testing it in a proper environment first. And if the fix didn't work, we created a whole new problem. These procedures, I think, are essential to being able to resolve these remaining issues and reduce the amount of bad bills going out and the calls before us. We've also retained Sherry Rubin, who will be the new Chief Information Officer. She comes to us from MOIS. Most recently, she has been the Chief Information Officer for Community Behavior Health. They are a $400 million managed-care nonprofit. Then she has seen many of the problems that we are confronted with now, and when she went to CBH, was introduced to the same kinds of problems that we have seen. She starts on the 15th of November, but she has actually been part-time at PGW for the past week.
Is there any kind of ongoing training for the employees on the system?
Yes. Al Webster, who is in charge of the customer information, the Customer Service Center, can, I think, speak more completely about the training that has gone into 00013 -- that has been provided to our customer service reps and others who are now manning the phones. We have on an average day now almost 100 people dealing with the phones. Some of them are not experienced but are taking only, for example, service calls. That has assisted us in getting calls answered, and particularly calls for service, where we're doing, I think, almost an adequate job. It's in the billing area -- which is the most difficult area to work because you have to understand the billing system very acutely -- that we have fallen behind. We do have ongoing training -- we are training people who have not been experienced on the telephones. They have performed quite, quite well. And that has been helpful to us in that we've had to avoid an issue of going to an outside vendor and creating a capacity problem with our union. Right now, I think we have almost 100 people. Many of them have been trained just for this assignment. They've done quite well.
So those are employees who were taken from other departments?
So what is not being done now in those departments they were taken from?
The biggest problem we've had is in the collections area, in collecting past-due accounts. While that is being done to a limited degree, the collections people, who are very familiar with the BCCS system and very familiar with the billings program, they have been back-stopping the customer service people for much of the day. They have also been doing LIHEAP calls, where we call LIHEAP recipients, or people who would be LIHEAP recipients with low-income indicators to make certain that we get that grant for the coming winter season. The biggest deficiencies have been in collections. Much of that was caused by the fact that the system does has not yet provided the detailed information that the collections people need so that they were going to be without some of their essential work to do anyway. We have fallen behind in correspondence. I know that we have fallen behind in cases brought before the Gas Commission where 00015 there are appeals, and we normally were able to address the case back to the Gas Commission in a reasonable period of time. That is backlogged. Field collectors have been on the phones. They now spend the first hours of the morning in the field doing collections. They have been on the phones during the rest of the day, doing -- for people who are not considered to be computer-literate, they've really done a superior job. They will be back in the field collecting very shortly. We believe that that part of the wave of calls is behind us.
I would like not to be embarrassed by the end of the year. That's not a complete fix; there's always going to be something. Also, we believe that there were things that should have been done initially that were not done with the BCCS system that we're going to have to put in. So we'll be limping for a while. But the problems that we are confronting right now, I would like to have it done by the end of December. 00016
So this company is putting the plan in place or working to reach that goal?
It's an ongoing process. What we want to do is stop creating a new problem by something we've done, then generating a new problem that needs to be fixed. We want to have the criteria, the protocols that make certain that when you've corrected a problem, you're not creating a new one, and then correct these problems I have on the list. With SPL, since it's their logic that does the estimation on a bill, I mean, we're hoping that within a few days, we'll be able to end this problem of the estimated bills.
Well, in a perfect situation, if your system were up and working 00017 properly, how many employees would be working on the system, and how many of these 100 employees would go back --
-- to their jobs? 'Cause while you have them over here working on this problem, then you're exacerbating other areas where they are not getting attention.
Because we have gotten calls about people who've sent checks in and the checks haven't been applied to their account.
I think that problem -- we had that problem -- I think that problem has been fixed. We're not aware of posting problems within the last few weeks. That's not to say that it hasn't happened, but I think that's a problem of previous months.
People who write us letters with a, you know, a problem, and we haven't answered their correspondence. Now, some of it got fixed anyway. Some of them got back and got through to us on the phones, but it's piled up. And, normally, you want to know that everybody who sent you a letter at least got some kind of a response.
So given a perfect world, how many people would be on the system? And how many people would --
I believe it's 65 on the phones. There should be a full-time complement in collections.
Is that -- 65 people in a perfect world, would that be adequate enough staff to handle all of the telephone calls?
With this system, with this system, we believe that it could be done, with perhaps even less, but we don't know. Hang on a second. (Mr. Hayllar confers off the record with Al Webster.) 00019
This is Al Webster. He's responsible for -- he's a Director in Customer Affairs and is responsible for the --
I'm Al Webster, the Director of Customer Service for the Philadelphia Gas Works.
A perfect day would be that we would have anywhere -- about 65 individuals that have started on our shift to take care of our phone calls that we have coming in. Those individuals would be assigned to handle those calls, and we would have a staff that's in the evening that would complement that as well, that would take our calls up until 8 o'clock in the evening.
So if someone were calling during the day and you had 65 employees on 00020 the phones, they could get through and not get a voice mail?
Even in a perfect world, they may have still a waiting time, but they will get through eventually, yes. In a perfect world, we're hoping that our customers would not have to wait any longer than about five minutes or less to get through to us.
Mr. Hayllar, are there enough resources in the proposed Capital Budget to fix the problems? And if not, where will PGW obtain these funds?
The Gas Commission has for quite some time raised the issue of the simple replacement of pipe underground, particularly cast-iron pipe, of which we have about 1700 miles. We have increased the allocation for the replacement of cast-iron pipe, but we are hoping that in the course of the next six months, we will be able to, through a swap of fixed to potential --
I'm talking how you're going to fix -- the resources to fix the computer problem.
Oh, okay. We are -- one of areas that we hope to increase our allocation and come back to the Commission and Council is in the area of pipe replacement. In the area of technology, we believe that we can stabilize and get this system working appropriately. However, there are pieces that are in this budget -- for example, a materials processing unit that should have been installed and it wasn't. And what the lack of this procurement piece does is, it makes financial control of contracts much more difficult. So we believe that we need to install that next year so that we will have much better control of our contracts. Contract control, the ability to monitor that we have not exceeded the term or the amount on a contract, has been a serious problem. And by removing this module when the system was installed, it precluded us from being able to monitor appropriately our contracts. And that's a high priority. 00022
Well, I think my question was, in order to fix your information system, do you have enough money? And if you don't, where do you plan to get the money from?
We hope that we have enough money available. If we do not, we come back to the Commission and to City Council.
What was the initial cost, budgeted cost for the system, and how much is the overrun?
The approved amount was $9.7 million. That was approved for billing, collection, and customer service amount. To date, we have spent $25 million. So the difference between 9.7 and is the unauthorized expenditure 17 that amounts to the cost overrun. 18
Is the Board 19 familiar with this situation, the PFMC Board? 20
They started asking for 24 accountings of the BCCS system. I know one 25 request was made by one member in July, and I 00023 believe there were requests prior to that. That information was not forthcoming in a meaningful way. Only in October were we able to secure -- the corporate counsel able to secure, with the help of other individuals in the company, an accounting of how much had been spent.
What is the responsibility of the staff to the Board to inform them of what the operation is of PGW?
I believe it is the absolute responsibility of every employee to keep their superior, their supervisor, aware of any problems that exist. And, certainly, it is the responsibility of senior staff to inform the Board of any problem that they know to exist. Regrettably, we've had a culture where problems were kept under wraps in hopes that perhaps they would go away, and that has proven to be an extremely dangerous practice.
Budgets submitted to the Philadelphia Gas Commission, are they reviewed thoroughly? Well, we can't answer that question. Are they reviewed by the Board? And at what point do you give that budget to the PFMC 00024 Board for review prior to coming to the Commission?
The Board reviews the operating budget, I think, quite thoroughly through its finance committee and also through its own deliberations. As a matter of fact, this year, I think it took the Board two meetings to approve the Operating Budget before it was sent over to the Gas Commission. The Capital Program is done in the same way, but I think with less intensity than the Operating Budget, 'cause the Operating Budget tends to be the more defining document in the future of the company.
One question, and then we will go to Councilman Nutter. The current list of the billing problems that you provided and that we're glad to have, when did you say these will be corrected?
I am hoping that it will be stabilized by the end of December so that the situation which we currently have where we repeatedly send out the same kind of bad bill, the same error, which is overcrowding our Customer 00025 Service Center, defined by that level, that we will be in seriously better shape by the end of December.
One last question, and then we'll go to Councilman Nutter. As a follow-up, Councilwoman Tasco asked about a budget that you then go take to the PFMC Board. In other words, we assume that you are the top officer of "the buck stops with you." In terms of -- all of my information is that in terms of all billing processes and monies spent, that your system is such that all paperwork has to be okayed by you before it goes any further; is that correct?
Under the current payment system, each officer has a payment threshold or a limit that they can sign for. In the case of BCCS, the payments were made either through the Chief Information Officer or the Chief Operating Officer.
Everything 00026 that the Chief Information Officer and the Chief Operating Officer sign off on that affects all the citizens of Philadelphia, don't you see those records?
No, I do not necessarily see those vendor payments. Those are invoices from the vendor, and they are reviewed at that level and paid. I wouldn't see them. I would see only the largest dollar amounts -- and I can't remember offhand what my limit is. But after a million dollars, it has to go to the Board for approval.
So you only see what you send to the Board, is what you're telling us. You don't sign off on everything that deals with public dollars, then, is what you're telling us.
No. Depending on the size of the invoice -- and this is the payment of the invoice for work done -- the dollar amount of that invoice determines who has the authority to approve it. 00027 In terms of the contracts that are let, those contracts were let, I believe, in '96 and in 1997. And while the Board approve the budgets and contracts for certain projects, they do not see, nor the Chief Executive Officer would not see the individual payments that occur on an ongoing basis after that. That's principally the CIO's job.
Who's tracking the budget, Mr. Hayllar? If you have a $16 million cost overrun on your information system, who knows about that? And at what point do you know about it?
We knew about it much too late. The tracking should have been done in the CIO's office and in the information technology area. And there should have been long ago red flags throughout the system so that people would have gone back to the Board and said, We cannot complete the system within this budget; we will need the authority for more. And that didn't happen.
So how did you get 00028 the million cost overrun? Was it in the budget?
The Board most definitely 16 was not aware of it, and the Board repeatedly was asking for an accounting and did not get an accurate accounting.
How are you, the CEO, in control of the company if you aren't aware of what is going on in terms of the spending?
You're not. That's the point. That's the point. If people are spending without --
What controls are 00029 in place? Which we have asked for before when we were dealing with the Hawes situation. What controls are in place to monitor the spending of PGW?
The fundamental control, the procurement module that I spoke of a minute ago, that was not installed. So that people who paid the bills, unlike in the City of Philadelphia, where invoices are sent in based on a contract, they did not have a knowledge of what the time limit of the contract is. In other words, that the term of the contract had been expired; nor did the people in treasury who paid the bills know what the amount in the contract was. So that once it was exceeded, they had no 17 way of knowing to stop payment. They just continued to receive the invoices and were told to pay them. And that is a completely inappropriate system.
How do they track it? You have a budget, they know that we approve a certain amount for expenditures. So no one in the Treasurer's Office -- 00030
They don't know that there's a limit on how much they can spend, so that they can just spend infinitum?
No. The Treasurer's Office simply pays the bills. They had no 8 controls, such as is found in the Accounting Department, the Depart of Finance in Philadelphia and in the Controller's Office. They had no 11 documents to tell them that this contract had been exceeded. They just simply got bills and paid for it. The accounting was supposed to be taking place in the Information Technology Department, and they were supposed to be managing their contracts. And that clearly was not being done.
That absolutely does not give us anything to take to the ratepayers about who we're paying and why. If you, the former Finance Director for the City, and you are the head of the gas company, and you say that there is no system, then why did you not then take steps to install one? How can we tell John 00031 and Jane Q. Public that money is spent and there's no record, and that when it goes to the Board for their approval, you haven't okayed it, and maybe two other people have, and we don't know where that money is, where it starts and where it stops. That's what you're telling us, that there's no system, so, okay, there's just no 10 system.
Well, we are moving far along to have the system where every payment is supported by a contract and the contracts are monitored. The corporate counsel's office had worked out a system to install the computer piece that was missing so that it could have been done this winter and this fall and completed. But it was never implemented by the IT people, for whatever reason.
I don't understand any of this. I don't understand how we can sit here and be asked to okay a capital budget of this size and be told that there's no real system but we should just continue the status quo, that, you know, we kind of gotten along this far 00032 and that it's okay, let the citizens pay.
We have got to sit there and listen to senior citizens who can't pay, senior citizens whose bills goes up every year. It's tough enough to try to explain to them that your gas bill is dependent upon the cost of gas, but when they hear this kind of confusion, I can't explain to them what their billing situation is because I don't understand it myself and why you can't give us clear answers on what billing is at the gas company, especially given the current social, political, and economic situation that the gas company's facing. I don't understand how you can come here and not have clear-cut answers to such simple questions. I don't -- well, maybe you do have clear-cut answers, maybe the answer is that there's no real system in place and when we get it straightened out, it's okay. That seems to be what I hear. Let me defer to Councilman Nutter now.
Thank you, Madam 00033 Chair. Mr. Hayllar, what is the current upper-management structure or team? There have been so many departures and arrivals here recently that PGW almost looks like Philly International Airport. Who's working there now and who's not there and who's in charge?
The Operations -- Vice President of Operations is Dennis Stinson to my right. That is all the field activity in the company.
About 30 years ago, and he has been in this position for a long time. He will also be given the responsibility for certain operations, support systems that were under somebody else. They're combining that now under him.
They were under a separate vice president. They were individuals 00034 who reported to the Chief Operating Officer, Mr. Bridges, who will report to Mr. Stinson 'cause it's all operations support. We will also have the liquification plant operations, which were previously under gas management. Craig White will be responsible for -- is responsible for marketing and will be responsible for gas procurement. Bud Karachiwala who I believe you've met, will be responsible for state regulatory affairs. It's an entirely new operation that must be constructed.
Abby Pozefsky is Corporate Counsel. John Straub is Vice President for Human Resources. Sherry Rubin will be the Vice President for Information Technology, starting Monday -- though she is there now. Peter Yaffe is Vice President for 00035 Public Policy. And the Chief Finance Officer position is vacant, but Mr. Bob Denovitch (ph.), Mr. Golden, and Mr. Gallagher function in their areas of treasury and budget in that area. Oh, and Karen Sweat is the vice President of Customer Affairs.
Now, what happened to the -- the three top positions are President and CEO?
The Chief Financial Officer position, we've held vacant for a number of reasons, one of which is a scenario in which I 00036 have some experience. It was not an area we needed to fill immediately.
The Chief Operations Officer was Gregory Martin; he was placed on administrative leave, and the Board has terminated his employment.
Oh, okay. I just wanted to make sure I wasn't late on my news. Okay, so that was as of this morning.
Okay. And the purpose of that was. . . ? What was the reason for his termination?
A number of reasons, one of which is the unauthorized expenditure of money for BCSS. Another reason was, it was found that the company paid for work on his private 00037 residence, which is, of course, completely inappropriate.
Well, the one, I guess, you were engaged in back and forth with Councilwoman Tasco and also Councilwoman Blackwell is still not completely clear to me how you have the numbers upwards of $16 million in unauthorized expenditure for this BCCS system. You're saying it happened because no one knew that there was a $9 million limit?
I think the people who were doing it knew that they had exceeded the limit, but I think that they believed that with just a few dollars more, they could get it to work and make the conversion. They just didn't --
Yeah, and it went on and on. They certainly weren't sharing the information with anyone. 00038
Well, I mean, if you said that it went from to 10, I mean, that 6 might be in the category of "a few dollars more." 7
But 9 to 25 is 9 obviously not a few dollars more. So, I mean, we do end up going back to the discussion of, how do you spend $16 million that's unauthorized, even for what I assume is a good purpose? Although there doesn't appear to be an end in sight at the moment. I mean, did you think that everyone was going fine at the $9 million level and that they were just, you know, everything was peachy-keen?
I wasn't there at the $9 million level. The information that --
When were you there? Well, you've been on the Board for --
I've been on the Board since '94. I have been the part-time acting president since November of last year. I have been President since October of this year. 00039
Okay. So you were on the Board, and you voted on the $9 million authorization?
Okay. And what kind of updates would the Board get on this project and what the spending levels were?
Periodically, they would get reports from the CIO on the progress of implementation -- of not this, but the other 00040 projects that were underway. It was a massive rebuilding of all the infrastructure of the company. I believe when we go back and look at the reports that were given, that some of the information given to the Board was just plain wrong, that they were showing an expenditure of $12 million at one point, when the actual expenditure, after we looked at it recently, had exceeded that by many millions of dollars.
Well, I assume 00041 that. Was the Board told that they had reached the million limit? 4
The Board inquired and got reports that all is well. The Board inquired again in July of this year during the --
So the Board of the company asked the management team what's going on with the BCCS system installation and what the dollars are to date spent. And you're saying that the response was, "All is well"?
I think the Board became increasingly dubious about the scenario. The 00042 fundamental concern was to make the conversion, and we had a Y2 issue coming -- it was done on July 5th. The accounting information that was repeatedly requested by the then-acting CEO and the corporate counsel was not forthcoming -- until, I guess, the fall or September -- it started coming, I guess, in September of this year, from other sources.
November of last year. So when you became acting CEO, did you inquire as to what the dollar amount that had been spent was and what the progress of BCCS was?
That while there was a general spending of -- that more money had been spent than anticipated, that they were well within the overall budget. And that's not the case. What was happening is, they were taking -- they 00043 were not doing certain things in other information technology initiatives to move money into BCCS. That was not something that was explained by the IT people at the time.
Okay. And then you said in April, you were told that it was $12 million?
So what happened at that point? Even if 12 million was wrong or under the amount that it may have been actually been at that time, 12 is obviously more than 9. So did anyone put the brakes on or say, Why are we 3 over? Or where is this thing going?
I think the fundamental concern was to get it done. Nobody realized, 'cause nobody was told, that that amount of money was going out the door principally to one vendor to get it done. Efforts to get an accounting were met with lack a of response, particularly when the corporate counsel was attempting to get that data 00044 and could not get it from the IT section or from the IT section superior.
Well, I mean, what is your, I guess, level of involvement or responsibility at this stage or at those stages or going back to the fall of last year or whenever you -- I mean, you've been in a number of different positions. I think we had some of this discussion at some hearing.
You were a Board member and acting President and CEO and Finance Director all at the same time.
I mean, what -- some of this happened at the time that your involvement increased.
My belief is that when people believe that there's an opportunity -- that they may outwait you, then --