CDT has been enmeshed in the problems surrounding the beleaguered Department of Motor Vehicles and its chronically long customer wait times, its flawed rollout of Real ID, and its tens of thousands of botched voter registrations. Fong called last October for Tong’s resignation, along with that of the DMV's since-retired director, Jean Shiomoto, for similar reasons.
“With the confusion and chaos, it begs the question: Who’s responsible?” Fong said Tuesday in a phone interview with Techwire. “It’s a very disconcerting story. They (DMV) had two outages today,” one statewide and one regional. At least one was reportedly attributed to a problem at a state data center.
CDT was asked to comment on Fong’s demand that Tong resign.
“I am referring you to the Governor’s Office on Assemblymember Vince Fong’s call for Director Tong to resign,” said CDT Deputy Director for Communication Alice Scott-Rowe. “Amy Tong is an appointee, and they make that call.”
Fong noted a number of state IT-related projects that he called troubled or failed, and he cited CDT as the common denominator.
Beginning with the $900 million Financial Information System of California (FI$Cal), the state’s unified accounting system whose rollout has been balky, Fong said: “We have a failed FI$Cal system; we have a failed accounting system upgrade; we have a failed nurse licensing IT project that was highlighted as a flawed project by the state auditor. The auditor has outlined 20 to 25 projects that are failing” because of technology, Fong said.
“CDT is struggling and can accurately be described as a disaster right now that demands major reform,” he said. “The taxpayer is the one that’s the victim. As a legislator, who do we hold accountable?”
Fong first called for Tong’s resignation last October in a video posted on his Facebook page. His complaints then were similar — he alleged that Tong has failed to provide the leadership that such a large and essential agency as CDT requires.
Secretary Marybel Batjer, who oversees the Government Operations Agency, CDT's parent entity, has defended Tong in recent months. Tong also spoke about the DMV issues in an appearance at last May's Code for America Summit in Oakland.
Also Tuesday, The Los Angeles Times published a lengthy story about the DMV and CDT problems, including a buggy rollout and issues related to Motor Voter. Scott-Rowe, when asked whether CDT had any response to that story, issued this statement:
"Every large IT project has challenges that surface during development, and in this case, the California Department of Technology took immediate steps to address issues as they arose. The Department of Technology understands the importance of safeguarding voter registration data and building secure systems that can protect it."
Also Tuesday, The Sacramento Bee published a DMV story stating that some 3 million people, who have already visited a DMV office to secure a Real ID, may have to go back again because the state failed to follow guidelines from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.
