Posted at 11:32 a.m., Thursday, December 19, 2002
Feds hire IBM to study housing agency
• Governor to seek public housing probe
By Jim Dooley
Advertiser Staff Writer
Much of the work will be performed by personnel from Price Waterhouse Coopers Consulting, purchased by IBM in July for $3.5 billion, according to officials of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.
HUD demanded earlier this year that HCDCH spend up to $2 million on an independent outside consultant study to recommend structural changes and eliminate widespread managment and financial problems at the state agency.
The money will come from federal grants previously given to HCDCH. Acting HCDCH director Robert Hall told board members that the money to pay IBM will be drawn from "rehabilitation and maintenance" projects that will now have to be deferred to a later date.
The IBM contract, if aproved by the HCDCH board of directors, would include a $401,000 management assessment of HCDCH and a $790,000 study of the physical condition of the public housing projects managed by HCDCH.
The $1.2 million contract will be followed by a second phase "technical assistance" contract to be funded out of the $2 million originally set aside by HCDCH to meet HUD's demands for improvement at the Hawaii agency.
