I just want to point something out here. This is barely worth a post, but I don’t think anyone’s considered the cost-benefit perspective here.
King County has or will spend something over a hundred million dollars replacing and upgrading their computer systems, if I’m not mistaken. The state Department of Revenue might be smaller than the county, but let’s consider what the alternatives actually are here.
The state collects billions in revenue each year. To replace that computer system would likely mean buying an entirely new system, running them both in parallel and cross-checking the results of any number of different types of collection by hand – and this for at least a year. Such a contract could be astronomical in cost – and during a time when the state needs to cut costs by five or six billion dollars.
So, three million dollars? While it sounds like a lot, I think having this happen and then repaying it is likely much cheaper for everyone.
It sounds like the data is the problem, not the computers. Our short lived Monorail had the same problem I believe, because the zipcodes don’t relate exactly to the boundaries of the taxing authority. So unless you want to check every boudary area manually, you’ll get some errors.
Yeah, I think you’re attacking a bit of a strawman here, Ben. No one’s saying the whole computer system needs to get chucked.
I agree that the cost-benefit needs to be taken under consideration, but “Let it happen and then fix it” is not great government policy… it erodes people’s faith in their ability to do it right.
The problem is, saying that ‘let it happen and then fix it’ is not good leads to trying to replace the computer system.
I think there’s a disconnect there. A lot of people are saying ‘this needs not to happen again’ – but not realizing that actually trying to do that will cost more than just some overpayments and repayments every few years.
um, three million dollars for what?
Well, we’re plastering annoying ads all over our nice transit tunnel for $0.23 million.
And this sort of thinking is why I voted against Prop 1. A million here, a million there and pretty soon we’re talking real money.
When the state is redistributing wealth, it needs to show a little bit of respect and foresight, and that includes standing up to both budgetary and timeline committments.
This is exactly what I’m responding to. It would cost you MORE to ensure this doesn’t happen. The state already has the most efficient system in place – not replacing the current one.
I strongly disagree with your post. $3m might not be much to the DoR, but $300 or $600 could be a lot to an individual family. Obviously, the state is refunding payments so it has determined who is outside of the boundary correctly and not all of those folks have filed lawsuits or discovered that they’re owed refunds.
That $300 or $600 is going back to the families, yes – so I’m saying don’t let this turn into a call to replace the system.
Well I don’t know why we’re talking about $3 million specifically, but he’s right, that’s pretty much nothing for the government. That’s about .005% of ST2, for example. I know saying that sounds all elitist or whatever, but it’s true.
Why we’re talking $3 million: see previous blog entry. Is it that hard?
It’s harder than that. The steps the state would have had to take to prevent the problem would have cost much more than the problem itself, in the end.
i tend to agree with john and frank. it’s not the amount to st that,s important, its the tim eymanesque mistrust of government mishaps like this create.
see brdnt’s comment for an example
The overall cost of preventing the problem would probably not cost more in public opinion – you’re right. It’s just not something the state has any incentive to spend on.
I don’t know about redoing the computer system, but however they determined who to give refunds to could be used to determine who not to charge — even if it requires an extra step of human intervention. In fact, they could have done this before charging people and it seems like they will in the future.