Accenture work behind schedule

By Judith Davidoff    The Capital Times
March 2, 2005

  Wisconsin Elections Board members and staff are concerned that Accenture LLC is already running behind in its contract to produce a statewide voter registration database for Wisconsin.

According to minutes from the board's Jan. 26 meeting, obtained through an open records request by state Rep. Mark Pocan, D-Madison, and provided to The Capital Times, board members expressed concern that Accenture might miss its deadline for creating the software that will be used to create the voter list.

Kevin Kennedy, executive director of the board, acknowledged in an interview on Tuesday that there is concern over Accenture meeting that deadline, which is April 5.

He said holding Accenture to all its deadlines will "be a constant ongoing concern." But, he added, "it wouldn't matter which company it is" because it is inevitable that projects of this magnitude run into issues that cause delays.

Kennedy signed the contract with Accenture on Nov. 12 and the company began work on the project that month.
 

Kennedy said the contract contains "tight financial controls" over Accenture regarding deadlines. For instance, the state keeps 20 percent of the fees due to Accenture for each completed task until the system is up and running.

The board's minutes indicate that other states are having similar deadline issues with Accenture and that Kansas pulled out of its voter registration contract with the company.

Kennedy said he knew at the time Wisconsin decided to contract with Accenture that the company was behind in its contracts with other states. "That affected how we negotiated," he said.

The board asked that staff develop a contingency plan should Accenture default on its Wisconsin contract and Kennedy said staff have "talked" about such plans. "But there's not a whole lot we can do," he said.

Kennedy said if the state were to start over, it's unclear how that would be accomplished and whether any of the work already done could be salvaged.

"When you're this far in, your choices become limited, depending on what your responsibilities are," he said. "Ours is to have a list up and running by January 2006."