Consultant's rates for UW project raise eyebrows
MADISON, Wis. (AP) — Four employees of a consulting firm billed more than $200,000 apiece in five months for work on a University of Wisconsin System information technology project.
Another 10 employees of Chicago-based Huron Consulting Group charged $100,000 or more for services on the project to install a new payroll system.
The Associated Press reviewed invoices for the company's work from January through May. Most employees are charging $192 per hour or more, with top officials charging $342.
A past president of the Association of Information Technology Professionals says he and other IT workers with whom he spoke this week are "just shocked" at the rates.
System officials say the firm is providing valuable expertise on a critical project and its rates are competitive with other proposals it received.
Jul 18, 2009 at 9:57 a.m.
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RAF: Great ideas!
Jul 17, 2009 at 12:42 a.m.
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Sounds like a great teaching project for the university.
First have those attending economics courses perform a case study on the wasted way the university spent tax payer subsidized dollars.
Second have the university computer science professors (they are the experts) provide guidance to students to write code/up-dates/support for a new system(s) and include this and other on site projects into the curriculum.
Jul 16, 2009 at 9:38 p.m.
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Right on, greenst!
Jul 16, 2009 at 4:42 p.m.
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This must be what people want. You think you can fix the state budget by laying off state employees. The work still needs to be done now with contractors and consulting groups. Private sector doing work for the government will just about always will cost the tax payers more.
Jul 16, 2009 at 3:56 p.m.
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I think they charged this much because they have to pay for their nice new building in the Chicago Loop area.
Jul 16, 2009 at 2:55 p.m.
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Holy crap! Can I work there? Yeesh.
Jul 16, 2009 at 1:43 p.m.
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Well, speaking as an IT consultant (not presently, but over a period of years) those are ... pretty exorbitant hourly rates, even if you consider time-and-a-half or double-time hours specified in a contract. (For instance, I worked almost 80 hours a week on a Y2K project. Everything over 40 was double-time.) But for a general contract in the payroll area, unless there is a particular system-to-system interface using a rare programming language, these rates are above what I would expect for the market. Payroll is specialized, but there are a lot of people who do it. I would support an audit.
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As to who approves, the UW System is part of the state, but it is not directly overseen by the Governor -- rather by the Board of Regents. I would hope they will be looking into the awarding and oversight of this contract.
http://www.uwsa.edu/bor/
Jul 16, 2009 at 1:04 p.m.
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funny -- at my business, we had to install a new phone system. i did my research and brought in potential vendors. we took bids and reviewed the positives and negatives of each.
No consultants.
ZERO EXTRA COST.
Fantastic, cost effective system.
Jul 16, 2009 at 11:57 a.m.
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I have it for a fack that these guys pay part of this to Doyle on the side!!!
Jul 16, 2009 at 11:35 a.m.
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This is just how government works folks. It's just that we don't usually see the sordid details in the paper.
Jul 16, 2009 at 11:20 a.m.
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Those rates are ridiculous! Didn’t UW see the billing rates on the contract? They should have never signed a contract that had those types of hourly rates involved.
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