Several of the issues raised by auditors during a recent review of the Harford County Information and Communication Technology Department can be “easily explained,” according to a county spokesman who nonetheless said he could not comment on specific details at this time.
The Dagger earlier this week revealed that auditors had found a number of irregularities in the department, including no-bid contracts of up to $250,000. Following up on that story, Dagger reporters were invited to contact acting department director Ted Pibil with further questions.
But a list of questions sent Tuesday to Pibil were answered instead by county management assistant Ben Lloyd, the acting spokesman for County Executive David Craig.
A list of irregularities and concerns were detailed in an undated agenda (reprinted below) of a meeting between auditors SB & Co. and county officials which was provided to The Dagger by a source. Lloyd said several issues were explainable, others less so. The simpler issues would be detailed in a forthcoming management letter, an analysis of an auditor’s findings prepared for a client.
“Some issues were identified during the annual audit process,” Lloyd wrote in an e-mail to The Dagger. “As is often the case with audits, some of the issues can be easily explained. This will be reflected in the management letter, when it is completed. In other cases, the issues warranted further evaluation.”
Lloyd said issues were initially raised during the routine annual audit of the department last year, and that Craig had taken a “proactive approach” and ordered a secondary audit of the department in mid-November upon learning of issues raised in the first audit. Lloyd said he could not comment on either audit as both remain underway, with reports to county officials not yet completed. He said the audits are expected to be completed “within the next couple of weeks.”
However, a third audit of the department will be required as a result of the departure of Justus Eapen, its former director. Eapen, a Bel Air resident, was confirmed to the position by a unanimous vote of the county council on July 12, but his “service with Harford County ended on January 17,” according to Lloyd, who would not specify whether he was fired or had resigned, citing it as a personnel matter.
However, sources told The Dagger that Eapen was in fact fired from his position. According to the county’s Department of Human Resources website, the “Chief-Information Systems Division” earns between $91,600 and $141,600 annually.
In either case, section 214 of the Harford County Code requires an audit be conducted, reading in part:
“Upon the death, resignation or removal of any County officer, the County Auditor shall cause an audit and investigation to be made of any accounts maintained by the officer and by the agency.”
According to Lloyd, Pibil was hired in June to the position of business architect with the department to oversee implementation of the county’s Enterprise Resource Planning system and to “perform other program management functions.” As acting director, he will now oversee day-to-day operations of the department as a cabinet-level advisor to Craig. Pibil was named to the position Jan. 17, Lloyd said.
However, Lloyd said Pibil was not involved either as a private contractor or a county employee in a personnel services contract to “update Twitter and Facebook for $49,800” which went to the “CEO of a technology company.”
“The contract referenced involved the development, implementation, and maintenance of a social media strategy for all of county government, and while Twitter and Facebook were a small part of that, the purview of the contract and the services rendered were more comprehensive,” Lloyd wrote in an e-mail.
Also unclear was the nature of the “significant number” of contracts the county reached with the company described in the agenda as “ESI,” and subcontracted to Hexaware. Hexaware is a global internet firm based in India which, among other services, provides IT outsourcing services.
At Eapen’s July 12 confirmation, County Council members praised the now-departed director’s abilities.
“Three years ago, Harford County was at the bottom third of all counties in this state in regard to its capability in information technology, known as IT,” county councilman for District C Jim McMahan said at the meeting. “The good news, under Mr. Eapen the department was streamlined, efficiency enhanced and we are truly doing more with less under his direction.”
“Mr. Eapen has saved Harford County several million dollars in less than a year that he has been acting director, while upgrading the system significantly,” McMahan added.
“I just know the name Justus because whenever anything goes wrong, that’s the guy you go running to first,” County Council President Boniface said following Eapen’s confirmation. “Not that he caused the problem, but you know he can fix the problem.”
The SB & Co. agenda follows:
The Company is ESI not EST and Hexaware is a company based in India
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hexaware_Technologies
My copy made it look like a “t” for some reason, but we checked the original and it does appear to be an “I”. Thanks for prompting us to check.
Since you knew the correct company name on your own, if you have any additional info relating to what’s going on with all this, don’t hesitate to drop me a line.
WHAT A CROCK! We should all feel so comforted that two more of those “made-up job employees” are speaking on behalf of the administration of this debacle. Check from whence they came and how they got their positions with the county. Though the majority of wrong-doings originate with the executive branch, we cannot hold the council blameless. It is their obligation to investigate and either bless or deny the appointments. Judging from the comments made, the council blindly rubber stamps. They were almost on task when Mr. Gibson was narrowly reappointed as Director of Human Resources….what a mistake, they could have done one thing right.
Has anyone done a check on the background and experience of Mr. Gibson, or perhaps his qualifications….HINT HINT??????? Seems like a might big paycheck for someone with his uh credentials.
AMEN !
“OUTSOURCED” to a company based in INDIA!!!??? What about finding local firms to do the work?
BUT WAIT…….ISN’T CRAIGS SLOGAN “BUY LOCAL” ????????? BUT EVEN THE PAINTING OF THOSE BARNS WITH THAT SLOGAN WAS HIRED OUT OF STATE AT DISGUSTING COSTS………I BET THERE ARE SOME WONDERFUL ARTISTS IN HARFORD COUNTY THAT COULD HAVE USED THAT WORK……..MAYBE I AM GEOGRAPHICALLY CHALLENGED BUT IS INDIA “BUYING LOCAL” ??????…SICKENING, THE WHOLE THING, SICKENING !!!!! THE COUNTY SHOULD BE MANDATED TO PUMP AS MUCH MONEY BACK INTO OUR COUNTIES BUSINESSES AS POSSIBLE, AND STOP THIS BUDDY SYSTEM, LOW BIDDER CRAP…….YOU GET WHAT YOU PAY FOR, ISN’T THAT BLATENTLY VISIBLE NOW. AND AS FAR AS I’M CONCERNED WE AREN’T GETTING OUR MONIES WORTH OUT OF THESE OVERPAID, UNDERQUALIFIED, FINANCIALLY ABUSIVE “MANAGEMENT” STAFF !!!!!!!! BUY LOCAL ???……..WE SHOULD, AND I DO, SUPPORT STRUGGLING LOCAL BUSINESSES, FARMERS AND SUCH……….I MAY PAY A LITTLE MORE SOMETIMES, BUT ITS WELL WORTH IT KNOWING I CAN HOLD MY HEAD HIGH KNOWING I AM DOING WHAT I CAN TO HELP MY COUNTIES ECONOMY, CRAIG AND COMPANY CAN YOU SAY THE SAME? SHAMEFUL.
I wish your slogan was “Turn off the Caps Lock”.
I assure you that I fully intended that comment to be in CAPS ! I am very upset about this, as should every Harford County taxpayer ! I will NOT apologize for voicing my opinion and wanting change, thank you very much! This is no joking matter………
I think it shoud be “Buy Local as long as an unnamed CEO or WE can benefit from it”…….
Since there are several hundred Forclosed homes listed in forclosure.com as well as tons of short sales, it seems like the “buy Local” thing doesn’t seem to be working, wonder why…. looks like those of us who can’t really afford it are trying to help the local economy and tax base, but when the Govt, doesn’t believe in employing citizens of the county, that just doesn’t make sense to me!
Mr. Eapen is from India. I would like to see if there is a connection there, as it IS a possibility. Hexaware could even be one of his secret side businesses?
Why would a small county like Harford need to “Outsource” anything? Especially to India! Don’t think there’s anyone out of work in Harford County smart enough to handle the job? Maybe Harford needs to be smarter in their voting next time. I think we need to “OUTSOURCE” all of the politicians to India!
I wonder what the ‘E’ in ESI stands for.
Expensive ………..
The best thing about Harford voters is that the Democrats are just about as conservative as Republicans. We dismiss the palms-up, Liberal whackadoodles real quick. Just check the last local election results.
Otto, how is this comment relevant to the discussion at hand? I’ve seen you fly off topic before but this one is seriously in the rough.
Mr. Eapen is the latest scapegoat for a larger problem with the procurement department whom has committed serious lapses in contract management, issuance of work requests and piggyback on other counties contracts bypassing the rigorous system of checks and balances with most of the time ensures that the lowest, most qualified bidder gets the contract. One can always have IT maintenance contracts and data management systems under a continuous system in which a contractor is hired for emergency assistance and not the current piece meal system in which an emergency contract is issued for system upgrades and data backup. Really, the procurement office didn’t have a system in place to determine where the IT department was spending money? and under which circumstances could the IT department issue work orders without a bidding system in place? Where is the Director of Administration in all of this? How come Mr. Eapen is now the only culpable official in this matter when it has been known for years that departments get to do as they wish as far as spending funds that even if appropriated, doesn’t mean they should just spend it with no accountability.
Looks like even ther audit firm is from outside the county (Hunt Valley) if I did my Google thing right. Probably not a bad thing.
Chief of Information Technology paid $91K-$141K? Having been a CIO for a private company I wouldn’t touch the job for less than $190K in that nest of vipers and I would have to have a pretty nice employment contract in place to do that. You get what you pay for. If you are lucky and recruit well. County Council members wouldn’t recognize a capable CIO if their life depended on it. Not surprising, because they don’t have the background and capability to either select or evaluate a CIO. Mr. Boniface, if the CIO is “fixing stuff” as you observed, it better be really high level leadership, strategy and organizational stuff being fixed or he is the wrong guy for the job.
@ALEX R
Billy Boniface loved that the network administrator err…I mean CIO/CTO made his remote connection work and showed him how to include a signature in his Outlook email template.
Porter,
My company has a Help Desk based in India that can tell you how to do that over the phone.
Wait! That didn’t sound right. Could it be that . . . . . . . ?
@Keesha
You’re so politically incorrect.
Porter,
Why thank you. You make me blush with your sweet words. I do try. I wasn’t suggesting that Mr. Eapen was giving Mr. Boniface special treatment just because of his position. Maybe Mr. Eapen is a specialist at Outlook templates. I know they are technically challenging. My 12 year old nephew just mastered them last year.
Justus isn’t worrying, believe me. He already has businesses running. Check out his web sites at http://www.eapen.net and http://www.eapen.com. But he really might want to think about updating/correcting his LinkedIn page to show that he is no longer employed by Harford County.
And he never was the CIO. The difference between CIO and Director is huge. The position he held was Director of the Office of Information and Communication Technology. He was appointed by the Council on July 12, 2011 and his employment ended about 6 months later on January 17, 2012 according to this article.
Justus Eapen was a poor excuse for a Director of IT, he had no experience in his past that would suggest that he had any ability to run an IT department. Because he was able to get the ear of the King(through his wifes position in the campaign) they listened to him and bought his line. They fired those that he fingered as not being of any use to them, made him Director, gave him a blank check and sat back while he lavished I-Pads, new laptops, and I-Phones on the ruling elite. He was abusive to his employees and wasteful of the money allocated to him, and he fit right in with the rest of the corrupt thieves that make up the inner circle.
Absolute truth…….he was everything you said and sexist, and when anyone went to HR to report this in “confidence”, nothing was done. Thanks to the county connection good ole boy system……….see people they are all personally connected and cover each others butts to perfection. They bend the “county codes and regulations” whenever convenient. Create jobs for friends without following the processes you and I would have to. And deny long standing employees raises for years at a time, then suddenly “find” money to allow for bonuses to pacify disgusted hard working folks when election time comes around. If you even raise an eyebrow from within, you will disappear, and those still there are crippled by fear of losing their jobs………. Most are praying to hold on until retirement or looking for other jobs. Some are holding on to the hope that this group will be exposed and that the community will demand accountability. The county which used to be a great place of prideful employment has become a graveyard of workers stuck mid-career by fear and a mediocre management staff that couldn’t survive in the real world and could only be considered of “management” quality by the county. The “little people” that really make the county function, are not lazy. They work hard to keep this county going, while the overpaid fat salaries sit in meetings planning more meetings all the while taking credit for everything. Start at the top and branch out, it doesnt take long to connect the dots. Skip the few ladies in power, remember this is a good ole BOYS club.
I guess that’s why the highest ranking county employee and half the cabinet members are women, right? Gimme a break.
Sounds to me like somebody got passed over for something they didn’t deserve but thought they did.
The Director of Admin is a fine lady, with class, respect and good judgement. As are the few others that have been there a long time, as for the newbies, I cannot speak. My comment was directed at the Good ole boy circle………those brought in or brought into power with Craig. My comments have nothing to do with me own personal gain, because frankly, the HR system is so crooked, unless you are connected to the top, the “best” person for the job doesn’t even enter the equation.