Posted on 11/02/2016 10:00:53 AM PDT by Reeses
The Obama administration's "18F" program to create its own version of a high-tech startup for government digital projects has foundered since its launch in 2014, losing nearly $32 million as its staff spent most of its time on unbillable work, according to a new inspector general report.
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The 10-month investigation by the GSA's inspector general found that 52 percent of 18F's work was unbillable and included an internal project to change its logo by altering its font, alignment and background color. In all, 727 staff hours, or $140,104, were spent on developing the brand, including that logo change.
Staff spent 13,989 hours, worth $2.34 million, promoting their work through blog posts, websites, social media and speaking events.
The program also spent $235,950 on its internal timekeeping system. The report found that in half of 202 projects it reviewed, the staff frequently started work before the creation of a required agreement, which is supposed to ensure that taxpayers aren't overcharged for work that could be more easily or cheaply provided by a private vendor and that the office is actually reimbursed for its work.
The report said 18F spent about 20 hours or $4,148 on two customized "bots" for Slack, an online messaging application. One of the automated programs would monitor users' messages for the words "guys," ''guyz" and "dudes," which could have been perceived as being not inclusive for women. It prompted users to consider replacing those words with 21 options that included buds, compatriots, fellow humans, posse, team, mateys, persons of any kind, organic carbon-based life-forms living on the third planet from the sun, comrades and cats.
(Excerpt) Read more at phys.org ...
Keep in mind the above link is to an article that is supposed to be super-supportive of 18F.
a descendant of G. Soros?
18Fs cumulative net loss from its launch in fiscal 2014 through the third quarter of fiscal 2016 is $31.66 million. We found that 18Fs plan to achieve full cost recovery has been unsuccessful because of inaccurate financial projections, increased staffing levels and the amount of staff time spent on non-billable activities, the IG stated in its report issued Oct. 24. 18F managers have repeatedly overestimated revenue and, with the support of the administrators office, hired more staff than revenue could support. In addition, 18F staff spent over half of their time on non-billable projects. 18F managers have recently revised their projected breakeven date from 2019 to 2020.
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