By George Volsky
georgevolsky@aol.com

For Gee-Ming Chow, head of Coral Gables’ Information Technology Department – or as disgraced former city manager David Brown allowed him to call himself “Chief Information Officer” of Coral Gables – only the best is good enough. And why not, as the Info Chief might say, “as long the poor local sods pay and nobody’s watching.”

Chief Chow has long been the “golden boy” of not only the disgraced ex-manager but also of Mayor Don Slesnick and Commissioner María Anderson. Some seven years ago, the troika was principally responsible for the creation of the I.T. department. Although Miami-Dade County had offered Coral Gables expert information technology services for $1 million a year, the trio wanted the city to have its own department for the same money.

It was so but only at the beginning. In the 2002-2003 Fiscal Year, I.T.’s first, the department’s budget was $1.1 million. But the new “baby” grew by leaps and bounds - like weeds some in City Hall say - indeed more than the city itself. By FY 2008-2009, I.T.’s budget increased five fold to $5.5 million and its personnel to 18. (Curiously, according to that year’s budget, I.T. has 18 employees, yet in the city’s official telephone directory the department lists 37 names.)

In practically all businesses and organizations, information technology is a useful tool to gauge and improve efficiency and productivity in order to reduce labor expenses. This did not take place in Coral Gables. Instead, I.T. has added a new expensive department to the city’s already bloated bureaucracy. More worrisome, though, were City Hall rumors about the intrusive, investigative (if not ferreting) activities of Chow’s department. Some employees have complained that their electronic communications were being intercepted to and transcribed by I.T., especially if they were critical of Brown and Slesnick.

I.T. has also reduced the number of websites that employees can access on the city computers, eliminating those that Chow considered “non-business related.” His action mimicked a practice by his I.T. colleagues in other areas of business. But the procedure is no longer in vogue. Employers have realized that conscientious workers toil efficiently even if they can access all websites. And they know that shirkers always find ways to do nothing, to complain and rest afterwards.

But there are signs that the charming days of the “golden boy” might be over. In the  2009-2010 budget his appropriations have been reduced by almost $850,000, a cut of 15 percent, proportionally the deepest of all departments. And there are City Hall hints that Chow is on the radar screen of City Manager Patrick Salerno.

Should the above be true, it wouldn’t be surprising in the least. It’s probably because Chow still believes he possesses the operational and spending carte blanche Brown had given him. As a result, his department’s penchant for making purchases regardless of cost has continued intact. I.T. keeps buying services and equipment on an unprecedented scale as though the city was in the business of printing $100 bills. Its “requisition list” from Oct. 1, 2008 – the beginning of FY 2008—2009 which still has six weeks to go – totaled $1,959,571.31. With about six weeks more time for buying in this FY, that already was about $1 million more than IT has in the budget to spend, outside fixed items among them  salaries and benefits. In other times, Brown and Finance Director Dan Nelson would have found extra money somewhere – they did that for Chow in FY 2007-2008 – but this year Coral Gables is in a fiscal pickle. That’s probably why someone in City Hall has put many of I.T.’s intended acquisitions on hold when it became known that the Gazette was looking into Chow’s high spending habit.

Many of the I.T. purchases, already paid for by the city, are difficult to decipher, understand and technically justify. That begs the question who supervises the department’s buyers? Was, for example, the payment of $46,000 for “IBM Hardware & Software Maintenance” necessary? Why did I.T. buy a $2,428 “Mackbook” when less expensive, well functioning models are available? Why did I.T. pay $2.100 for “Better Place Renewal for Florida League of Cities”? What did the city get for $2,100? A certificate naming David Brown the best and most honest city manager in Florida?

I.T. paid $13,284.90 for “Dell Desktops for EDEN User Replacement, and $17,713.20 for the same, both charges authorized by Alejandro Gamundi, who also bought Dell Desktops for “City Wide Deployment” for $8,856.60. Ayanes Apolinar paid $15,214 for Dell Poweredge 2950, which only experts know what is. Again Gamundi paid $10,159.80 for Dell Laptop Replacements. The same man paid $40,000 for Desktop/Laptop Lease Project and $95,000 for Mobil PC/Toughbook Lease Project. (Both purchases are “pending.”) Disaster Recovery Collocation Storage, cost I.T. employee Grethel Salas-Perez a cool $54,499.90; and Mark Herbert paid $84,573.44 for “Tyler EDEN Reconciliation.” (According to one black humor City Hall saying, EDEN will bankrupt Coral Gables.)

Donna Rodriguez, by acclamation I.T.’s “Requisition Queen,” assigned several thousands dollars for Chow’s trip to “EDEN Conferences” at a Disney resort, including $50 for “Super Shuttle Transportation to Airport.” (The trip was apparently cancelled by the city manager’s office.)  I.T. also wanted to spend $134.82 for a  manual on “Bankruptcy in Florida;” $103 for a Wall Street Journal subscription; $994 on Dell Ultra Portable Laptop (for whom?), and $209.99 on an AT&T cell phone for Mayor Slesnick.

Speaking about Slesnick, it seems that Chow knows very well which side of the toast he has to butter. His buyer Gamundi has ordered two Dell E4200 laptops for the mayor, each worth $951.83. (Possibly so that Slesnick has a replacement in case someone again pinches his computer, as it happened several weeks ago, according to the police, without a violent entry into his office.) Chow does not forget about himself. Gamundi has ordered for him an HP 470 Mobil Printer for a mere $324. (Mobil printer! Give me a break, as a young person might say.)

This is not all. A printout of purchases made with the city’s Purchasing Cards by three I.T. employees – Juan Miguez,  Mark Lemay and Hebert Ramos – proves that during the last two years they spent $121,300 on countless unexplained – and apparently unsupervised- items and services in various commercial establishments of Miami Dade, as well as on several costly junkets to Marco Island, Disney-Orlando and other places. For example on Oct. 16, 2008 Miguez paid four times $155.25 for “Disney Rsrvtns/tkts;” three days later he gave $297 to Embassy Suits, and on Oct. 20, 2008 he paid $50 for a “Super Shuttle.”

After all this – and there is much more documented waste in I.T., unreported here – the only question is how was  Chow and his people able to spend millions practically without being checked and demanded to explain whether all that fiscal hemorrhage is legitimate and  necessary.