In this past week’s Maine Sunday Telegram I wrote about the collapse of the State of Maine’s $35 million effort to replace its aging and obsolete human resource management software systems, a situation that’s likely to result in litigation between the state and vendor Workday Inc.
As you can read in the investigation — which includes input from previously unreleased documents and the accounts of three former state contractors who worked on the project — the state’s explanation that Workday was at fault doesn’t appear to be the case. Also the relevant department hired the commissioner’s husband to sort out the mess (he wasn’t able to) and a sexual harassment claim (against one of the state’s mangers, it turns out) has been dismissed. What will the state do now? Apparently looking for a new implementation partner for the system.
COLIN WOODARD is a New York Times bestselling author and award-winning journalist. He is the author of six books that have been translated into a dozen foreign languages and inspired an NBC television drama. He is currently Director of Nationhood Lab at the Pell Center for International Relations and Public Affairs at Salve Regina University. As State and National Affairs Writer at the Portland Press Herald and Maine Sunday Telegram he won a 2012 George Polk Award and was a finalist for a Pulitzer Prize in 2016. He is a contributing editor at POLITICO and his work has appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Economist, Smithsonian and dozens of other major publications.