Still keeping CityTime

From the Daily News:

Even as he freezes pay for teachers and slashes budgets for most city agencies, Mayor Bloomberg plans to toss nearly another $100 million into the CityTime money pit next year.

That's the computerized timekeeping and payroll system that is seven years behind schedule and has already cost taxpayers more than $700 million - 10 times its original price tag.

The mayor has admitted CityTime is "a disaster," yet he refuses to turn off the spigot for the army of computer consultants that has fed off the project for at least a decade.

Beginning next month, the Office of Payroll Administration will hire 61 computer technicians at an average salary of $77,000 - and all will be assigned to CityTime.

But those new employees will cost only a tiny portion of the new spending allotted for CityTime.

An official at the Office of Payroll Administration confirmed yesterday that the agency will spend an additional $93 million next year on the project...

From Crains:

Mark Page, the director of the Office of Management and Budget, told members of the City Council Finance Committee that to cut off funding now to the CityTime project would render the investment made so far worthless, forcing the city to spend more money in the future for a new system. Mr. Page said once CityTime was fully implemented, by the end of 2011, it would eventually cost around $30 million a year to maintain the system.