Bloomberg Wasted Millions On 911 System

He tried to hide the waste, mocked an audit that was to look at his vaunted 911 system upgrades - and now we see why:

Less than a year after Mayor Bloomberg derided an audit of the 911 system as “stupid,” his own review revealed poor bookkeeping that resulted in up to $24 million in unnecessary payouts.

The KPMG review, commissioned by the Mayor’s Office of Citywide Emergency Communications, concludes that contractor Hewlett-Packard was overpaid for upgrades of the emergency call system between 2005 and 2012. The mismanagement resulted in as much as $11.5 million in unnecessary payments for 217 invoices and 5,850 time sheets.

The entire cost overrun over seven years was set at $24 million.

The 25-page report was completed last November but not released publicly. It was obtained by the Daily News through a Freedom of Information Law request.

City Controller John Liu, who conducted the audit that the mayor mocked, saw vindication. “This audit very clearly lays out fraudulent billings,” he said.

The errors read like an accountant’s nightmare:

• Hours claimed on Hewlett-Packard invoices were greater than the hours approved in time sheets, costing as much as $4 million.

• Underqualified contractors were paid more than they deserved, projecting to $3.4 million in unnecessary costs.

• Documentation was often unavailable, leaving KPMG unable to determine whether the price tag on services provided was appropriate.

The emergency communications office said it agreed with the KPMG findings, and would “strengthen the invoice review process.”

Liu has for more than a year tangled with Bloomberg over the upgrade of the 911 system, which is overdue and overbudget. During the summer, 911 was prone to crashes.

The full upgrade of the 911 system, initially projected to cost $1.2 billion, has ballooned to more than $2 billion.

Liu, who is running for mayor, claims Hewlett-Packard owes taxpayers $163 million for overbilling uncovered in the audit conducted by his office last year.

Bloomberg last year called Liu’s charges against Hewlett-Packard “intellectually dishonest” and “stupid."Liu’s auditors found Hewlett-Packard charged the city $192 an hour for menial tasks like opening a door for visitors.

$192 an hour to open doors.

Nice work if you can get it.

Gee, how will the city get by without the fiscal genius of Mike Bloomberg?

I have said before, I will say again - if there was ever a truly independent accounting of Bloomberg's time in office here (as opposed to one he pays for or one done by an entity with some ties to either Bloomberg the Man, Bloomberg the Company Or Bloomberg the Philanthropy), they would find the billions wasted in this man's 12 years in office.

They would find all the data has been phonied up - from the crime stats to the emergency response times to the graduation rates and test scores.

Michael Bloomberg the Genius is a fraud - and yet, because he has more money than God, he is feted as a fiscal genius and a municipal visionary and the like.

That's all about the power of his wealth and the fundamental flaw we have in this country whereby we worship money and believe people with it have it because they are smart and innovative.

The truth is, people with Bloomberg's kind of money are cunning and ruthless - that's all.

That's how he's been able to fool people over the last 12 years into believing he has made this city better.

He has not.

He has increased income inequality, he has made the city into a playground for the rich and famous, he has moved poor people to the edges of the city or out of the city (those he terms the "less fortunate") so that he could bring in the "fortunate" (i.e., rich white people.)

He has waged class warfare for the 1% and largely won that war.

Because he is a media mogul and because he is a billionaire, the press do not give him the scrutiny they will almost certainly give to his successor.

But make no mistake, he has been a disaster for this city and the people in it.

Just look at all the privatized public spaces, corporate stores that replaced the mom and pop places, the luxury housing that has replaced whole swaths of the old city and ask yourself if this city is better for the 99% who can either barely afford to live here anymore or cannot afford to live here at all.