ST. LOUIS — When Comptroller Darlene Green appeared before the St. Louis Board of Aldermen in May, facing questions about unpaid city vendors and a new accounting system in her office, she blamed former Mayor Lyda Krewson’s administration.
“The actual choice of the new accounting system, as you know, was the previous administration,†Green told aldermen. “And with that, we are working very hard to lift up what we found to be some of the issues. We dove right in to try to pull that up.â€
She called the new system “horrific.â€
“We were sold something that is kind of wacky, and so we’re fixing it,†Green said.
Blaming your predecessor is a tried-and-true move in politics. But the dodge obscures what current and former comptroller staff say is the real issue: a lack of preparation and training for the switch in the comptroller’s office. And it’s not clear that Green actually had any reservations about the contractor.
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“I don’t know if that statement’s 100% true, that it was pushed by the prior administration,†said a former comptroller’s office employee who spoke on condition of anonymity.
In June 2020, Green voted for the contract at the city’s Board of Estimate and Apportionment — the city’s powerful three-member board made up of the comptroller, mayor and president of the board of aldermen that must approve all city contracts.
“And this is considered an upgrade for the city of St. Louis?†Green asked the city’s information technology director, Cindy Riordan, following an overview of the contract Green requested.
“Absolutely,†Riordan responded.
Green joined Krewson and former Board of Alderman President Lewis Reed in approving the $7.9 million accounting system contract that has since ballooned to more than twice that amount.
The city’s contract with consultant Accenture was meant to replace the city’s 40-year-old system with cloud-based Oracle accounting and procurement software, known in business lingo as Enterprise Resource Planning, or ERP.
The cost grew from almost $8 million to over $14 million as the go-live dates for the payroll and accounting systems were pushed back from August and December 2021 to March 2022 and April 2023, respectively, according to change orders obtained by the Post-Dispatch.
At least part of the delay was due to a comptroller’s office that was unprepared for the switch, according to a current comptroller employee who spoke on condition of anonymity.
A statement from the comptroller’s office said that “the city as a whole was not ready,†and the comptroller’s office wanted more testing before going live.
The city in March 2022 tacked on an extra couple years of consultant troubleshooting beyond the one month Accenture included in the original contract, a decision that could increase costs to more than $18.5 million by 2025.
Krewson said in a brief interview she wasn’t aware of any opposition from the comptroller’s office over the contract. The former mayor noted the comptroller’s office had a representative on the selection committee that chose Accenture and Oracle.
The city’s Information Technology Services Administration issued the 2019 request for proposals that ultimately led to the selection of Accenture and Oracle. , a selection committee made up of various city representatives ultimately chooses the contract. It was chaired by Riordan, who still serves as the city’s IT director under Mayor Tishaura O. Jones.
Beverly Fitzsimmons was the comptroller’s voting representative on the selection committee that chose Accenture to implement Oracle. The comptroller’s office also had several staffers regularly attend the selection board’s meetings, and at least three comptroller staff were nonvoting advisory committee members, according to meeting minutes.
And, Fitzsimmons said Wednesday, she did cast her selection committee vote for the Accenture and Oracle contract.