There are complaints and accusations on the house floor over HB 1228 that the measure is designed for the company, CGI, from the Obamacare website debacle, is working to get the SD Bill collector project being organized by the 1228.
One legislator commented that they’re concerned that the RFP is specifically designed for CGI and that they have 5 lobbyists roaming the halls. (Although, I’m told it was actually 2 who lobbied).
And there was grumbling that the bill is definitely not going to allow local companies to bid on the project.
What do you think about all of this?
They have proved through Obamacare that they get where they’re going because we’re all stupid and can’t stop the trick they use to get approval. We can let this happen and let them be proved right again or we can show their lobbyists to the lobby over at the house of pain.
CGI is THE multinational company that botched the Obamacare rollout. FOX News and many other media outlets at that time quoted man from the Hawaii Dept of Tax who said “The morning I heard CGI was behind healthcare.gov, I said, my God, no wonder that doesn’t work. I can’t believe people continue to hire incompetency.”
One of many examples of their well-documented checkered past is in Hawaii where the state hired them to do what we want them to do here.
A CGI subsidiary was contracted to help Hawaii collect back taxes and develop its new delinquent tax collection services. “Not only was the software and implementation problematic, but the second contract paid CGI millions for work it did not complete, according to a state audit on the matter.”
Unbelievably, last fall South Dakota paid CGI $49,000 to help develop a plan to collect back taxes. A bill was crafted that was tailored to their services making it harder for others to get the bid. According to the SOS website, there are 5 CGI lobbyists here at the Capitol working this bill.
To suggest this bill is not about CGI, when we paid them $49,000 to craft the bill and realizing they have five lobbyists here makes it a bunch of baloney that this bill isn’t about CGI.
The headline should read: South Dakota Pays $50K to incompetant Obamacare Rollout firm to Help Collect Back Taxes.
Read the bill and every time you see the word “The Center” think about “the Capitol” (referencing the Hunger Games.) We are creating a debt collection monster that has the power to ignore the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act and collect 20% over principal and take away your drivers license, your vehicle license, your hunting license and more. It’d be one thing if SD Debt collectors were hired for debt collection. BTW, the SD Debt Collectors who I am usually very much at odds with, they oppose this bill. Here the State is creating a “Center” where these millions go off to the very foreign company that gave us the biggest FAIL of the decade.
This is the WORST bill of the 2015 session. Republicans should run from it.
Obamacare bad.
Auditors office reports we paid them CGI $52,000 to date and the word in the hallway is we have $800,000 set aside for this when the bill passes. I’m trying to confirm that last part.
What the heck are we thinking?
Mr. Hickey, do you want to protect tax cheats and deadbeats? I say people like Mr. Howie who don’t pay their bills need to be wrangled into a corner and have their pockets turned out so I don’t have to pay more in my taxes.
There is likely no state in the country with the depth of talent we have in South Dakota when it comes to consumer collections. It’s likely the second largest industry in the state. If we have folks in Sioux Falls that can ride herd on over $200 billion in consumer accounts at Citi alone, pretty sure we can figure out how to go after a few million owed the state.
for all the blather on this site about rampant cronyism, letting this bunch that couldn’t shoot straight dive full bore into our pockets via a bill they wrote, is worse than cronyism. cronyism would be a welcome respite from this level of playership designed to cheerfully screw each and every person who will be cheerfully screwed.
Absolutely. Pass an appropriation for the Treasurer’s Office to hire a person, write a job description, hire somebody and go to work. There are hundreds and hundreds of experienced folks in the state that may be tired of big bank life and would do quite nicely.
My sole question here is why in the world would anyone in South Dakota think that hiring the same company which showed its ineptitude in the setting up of Obamacare to set up a debt collection agency in SD! What are our politicians thinking? Who is pushing this? And as stated above, why not simply hire a person from our state to do this job? And finally, what is the reason for this all of a sudden – did the state’s debt owed reach some critical mass, what has been the plan to collect debts so far, and why no news on this until now?
Where did SB 38 and 43 come from a few years ago? There’s a portion of the state bureucracy which has a solid steel umbilical cord connected to the national bureaucracy. That’s how this happens. The cord has not been severed, and this is the proof of it.
Not to be obtuse but it’s obvious that the umbilical is attached directly to the Department of Revenue and Regulation, established as it was to accommodate the Federal government. Start there if you’re pruning.
Regardless of the merits of the bill itself, I think one should oppose any involvement by CGI.
Healthcare.gov is hardly their only failure, just the best known, and it’s close ties of its executives with American Management Systems, the Fairfax County IT contractor acquired by CGI (in effect rendering CGI a re-branding” of AMS) should preclude its bid from consideration.
“AMS projects had run into trouble at the federal level and in at least 12 states, according to government audit reports, interviews and news accounts. The purchase of AMS was CGI’s entree into the U.S. government market, and AMS executives flocked to CGI Federal. Today, more than 100 former AMS employees are senior executives or consultants working for CGI in the Washington area.”
http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/healthcaregov-contract-politics-not-a-factor-but-neither-were-firms-ties-to-failed-projects/2013/12/22/61728fca-6753-11e3-a0b9-249bbb34602c_story.html
Since the fact that CGI gave us the biggest FAIL of the decade was not sufficient to dissuade my colleagues from voting for this bill, I’m stepping it up a level….
CGI has transgendered restrooms in their HQ, their estimate numbers are the product of Common Core math and I think they played some role in the Armenian Genocide.
GOOD LORD you mean this is on its way to Governor Daugaard? What a disappointment. Major bummer. We have to find out how this worms its way in and cut off that route permanently.
Looking at it from one angle, it’s hard to understand how a company with such history of failure seems to continue its operations virtually unchecked and untainted by their failure. They thus must be doing something RIGHT, which could well be funneling sensitive private information up the chain, and screwing up service coming back down the chain to provide distraction and cover. I’m just daydreaming here, just letting the mind wander…. it’s just strange.
It’s not on the way to the governor yet. It’s now been amended to bring it down to a majority vote since the red flags we raised yesterday caused it to fail under the two-thirds requirement. It’s losing support in the Senate now too.
Is there a list of those who amended to reduce the passage threshold? What is wrong with this session? I want to move out of SD if it is going to be run by idiots.
Keep fighting!
Cronin, Dryden, White, L. Tiezen
and most importantly the office of Governor Dennis Daugaard.
Tidemann not Tiezen
I wrote to my conference representative, and I wrote to the Governor. I’ll write again as needed because this is disturbing. It’s potentially worse by orders of magnitude than the stinky lease leaseback bills from a decade ago.
I mentioned Lease Leaseback. I could also mention Chem Nuclear / Waste Management. In each of these cases, overly-interested lobbyists were working intimately with lawmakers and bureaus to set up major laws that would have codified their special access to the state’s business. It’s bad no matter where or when it happens.
Well Hickey, you will have an opportunity to show your ability to provide leadership. Or not,
Rep. Hickey, well fought but no minds were changed with a 46-23 outcome. I guess we’ll have to trust the majority that paying a 20 percent bounty on collected funds will bring expert collectors a-runnin’. Is the RFP rigged so that only CGI can win the bid? The majority didn’t seem to worry about that. The major reasons not to do this were clearly laid out, and the reasons to go ahead where slathered right over top of them. The only thing left is to track the actual performance of the o.c. setup and execution and see if it’s a waste or not, once the Governor signs it. Again, thanks.
After changing the vote threshold, this has passed the House this afternoon. They are in trouble though in the Senate with this bill. It only passed 18-17 and that was before the controversy over the bill was stirred. Since a couple Senators are gone today they are postponing their vote until tomorrow. These are the Senators who we want to flip to a NO vote: Bradford, Brown, Cammack, Frerichs, Haverly, Heinemann, Heiner, Lederman, Monroe, Rampelberg, Rave, Rusch, Tidemann, Tiezen, Vehle and White. These all voted yes the first time through the Senate. Please contact them tonight.
Steve they might be afraid of having Stace Nelson call them funny names……
Shocking! Shocking I say! But not surprising. The stench of the rampaging rino herd continues to pollute our fine state
I think any true conservative not only pays their bills but believes that scofflaws and cheats need to be brought to the table the make retributions. It is the libbiest of ideas that our laws would let these cheats get away with ripping off taxpayers. The libbiest indeed!
I believe that everyone should pay his bills, but why the need to use an out-of-state company that has a questionable record to do it? Why not use a division of our current state government or a South Dakota debt collection agency? And they are getting a 20% recovery fee on top of what the poor slob already owes? And why the sudden need for this? Too many questions about this thing. Go back to the drawing board and develop a sensible plan. And why already paid $50,000 to CGI to draft this bill?
Hopefully everyone reading this will send a note to the legislators that Mr. Hickey referenced above and encourage a note vote. I just did, and it’s not very hard to do.
oops, not “note” vote but NO vote!
Yea, you tell ’em springer. Sensible plan. No vote. ‘Merica!
What the brilliant Hicky wasn’t able to stop this in the House? I thought he was powerful enough to do that. At least he thought he was. It would appear that those in close proximity to him have figured out what a blowhard he is.
i think the question with this whole mess is centered on the ability of relative newcomers to the collections question (lawmakers) being able to effectively digest the state’s long history of collection problems, and come up with the most prudent examination of the problem and the solution. why do collections from the worst deadbeats languish in such low recovery rates time and time again, and will putting a fresh whitewash over the process problem with a new expensive database recommendation from the company that wants the bid help in the long run? maybe the attorney general needs to order more sheriffs to execute collection orders and put the money into more fte’s and legal fees.
They got’er done. Bending rules and bending arms ….this thing is off to the governor’s desk. Here is a Mercer article on who switched:
Steve, had any temper tantrums lately, like Friday?