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Oracle Wins Contract to Unify State Systems: Republican Party Chief Criticizes $10 Million-Plus Software Deal

Posted on: Wednesday, 8 March 2006, 03:03 CST

By Don Walker, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Mar. 8--The state Department of Administration announced Tuesday that Oracle had been selected to provide software needed to run the state's administrative systems in a deal that is expected to be worth more than $10 million for the company.

The announcement drew an immediate rebuke from the state Republican Party, which charged that Oracle got the contract because of its contributions to Gov. Jim Doyle's campaign fund.

The state's Integrated Business Information System project will impose a standardized system to replace 38 different human resources and payroll systems, as well as more than 59 financial management systems.

But state GOP Chairman Rick Graber charged in a news release that "there seems to be only one reason that Oracle keeps getting awarded lucrative state contracts from Jim Doyle and that's because of their contributions."

Campaign finance filings show that Oracle employees gave $3,250 to Doyle's re-election bid within weeks of being awarded a separate $29 million no-bid contract in May 2005.

Late last month, state officials rejected Oracle software that was being used on a pilot basis to run some of the state's e-mail systems. The state had spent $2.1 million on the e-mail contract, but officials said they expected to recoup that money. The state has decided to stick with Microsoft for e-mail.

The new deal with Oracle and its PeopleSoft Enterprise Solution software still must be negotiated. State officials said the starting point for negotiating would be $10.3 million.

During the process of selecting a vendor, Department of Administration officials hired former state auditor Dale Cattanach as an outside evaluator to oversee the selection process. In a separate report, Cattanach wrote that "at no time in the entire process . . . was any attempt made to show preference or bias toward one vendor over another."

Cattanach added that the procurement process was "open, fair, impartial and objective."

Asked to respond to Cattanach's report, Bob Delaporte, the GOP's communications director, said that the fact the state felt obliged to hire Cattanach "shows they have a fundamental problem."

Doyle campaign spokeswoman Melanie Fonder called the Republican Party's allegations "ridiculous," saying that "there's a firewall between the state government and the campaign."

Stacy Forster of the Journal Sentinel staff contributed to this report.

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Copyright (c) 2006, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

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Source: The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

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