McHenry Co. likely to move forward with overbudget software project
Despite a yearlong delay and a half-million-dollar budget overrun, McHenry County leaders appear set this month to approve as much as $860,000 in additional funding for a major revamp of its courts-related software.
And with almost $4 million already invested in the effort, it may be safe to say that, even with the mounting costs, the county has gone too far not to finish the job.
"We do need to finish this phase of the project, absolutely," said Yvonne Barnes, chairman of the McHenry County Board's Law and Justice Committee. Barnes, who has been critical of the spending associated with the project, held a joint meeting Monday of her committee and the board's Finance and Audit Review Committee. Their mission: to get to the bottom of ongoing problems with the county's Integrated Court Information Systems Project.
Initiated in 2007, the project will upgrade computer systems first for the McHenry County Circuit Clerk and department of Court Services and then make the improvements available to the state's attorney and public defender offices. The county board is fronting some of the upgrade's costs, but it eventually will be repaid through court fees.
The project first was budgeted at $3 million, but already county leaders have approved an additional $500,000 for it. That figure does not include the $455,000 paid to the firm managing the project.
The effort's first phase was scheduled for a May 2008 completion. Now officials hope to have it operational by May 4, if the board approves another $350,000 in funding later this month.
Project manager Nick Carroccia said most of the problems stem from an early decision to use existing county staff for some of the work. Although that kept cost projections low, it turned out the staff was not up to the task, Carroccia said.
"We really felt it was a good assumption, but as it turned out, it didn't happen," he told committee members Monday.
County officials hope to recoup some, if not all, of their costs from a rebate plan being negotiated with the software's designers, Schaumburg-based Integrated Software Specialists. The company, officials said, is willing to share with the county a percentage of any revenues it makes from selling versions of the software to other counties.
Along with the extra $350,000, the county board also is being asked to consider another $510,000 to implement the second phase later this year, and for support and maintenance of the new software. The board is expected to vote on at least some of the funding requests April 21.