LANSING – U.S. Rep. Gary Peters, the Democratic U.S. Senate candidate, began deploying one of the major items in his arsenal Tuesday, calling out his Republican opponent, former Secretary of State Terri Land, for the troubled Business Application Modernization project that an audit lambasted Land’s Department of State and the Department of Technology, Management and Budget for botching.

The goal of the Business Application Modernization project, or BAM, was to improve department business processes and replace the department’s outmoded information technology systems that support its major operations like driver’s licenses, vehicle registrations and titles and voter registration.

There are any number of major faults the 2012 audit highlights in its review of the handling of the project from 2005 through early 2011 (all but a few months of which occurred while Ms. Land was secretary of state). But probably the biggest one was that as of June 30, 2011, six months after Secretary of State Ruth Johnson had succeeded Land, the Department of State had authorized payments to the contractor of $27.6 million (78 percent of the contract’s $35.6 million) even though “only a small portion” of the project’s functionality had been implemented.

The Peters campaign also pounced on a 2012 interview Land did with Mlive in which she seemed disinterested in reviewing the audit. “It’s Ruth’s gig now,” she said in the article.

“Terri Lynn Land’s ‘biggest priority’ as secretary of state turned out to be a massive failure with a $30 million dollar price tag for Michigan families,” Peters spokesperson Haley Morris said in a statement. “It’s hard to say which is worse, the fact that Land wasted millions in taxpayer money on a website that never worked or that she was satisfied leaving the entire mess for the next person. As Ms. Land’s Republican successor, Ruth Johnson, said, ‘the people of Michigan deserve better.'”

Land was quoted in a 2003 Detroit Free Press story shortly after taking office as saying that upgrading the department’s information technology infrastructure was her “biggest priority.”

The Peters campaign also circulated a video of a 2011 speech by Johnson in which she ripped the system. “The computer system has never been operational. Not for a single day, not a single hour, not a single minute,” Johnson said.

Land’s campaign laid the problems for the BAM system at the feet of then-Governor Jennifer Granholm’s administration.

“This is just another failure of the Jennifer Granholm administration, which was also responsible for the loss of 800,000 jobs in Michigan and led to the Lost Decade,” Land spokesperson Heather Swift said. “Terri worked with members of the administration to try to correct the issue and after that with Secretary Johnson. Thanks to Michigan’s leadership under Governor Snyder, Secretary Johnson was able to was able to fix Granholm’s boondoggle. Terri is proud of her work as Secretary of State that resulted in shorter lines for customers, more efficient processes, and millions of dollars in savings to taxpayers.”

The Department of State appointed a project manager who was “assigned the responsibility for ensuring the success of the BAM project,” the audit said, including the scope, schedule, issues, risks, quality, resources, communications and finances. DTMB contracted for a technical project manager who was responsible for the project from an IT perspective.

Among the audit’s Department of State-specific findings:

? The department senior executive at the time approved payments to the development contractor that were not approved by the BAM project manager.

? That same individual amended the development contract’s scope, deliverables, time lines and payment schedule with minimal input from the BAM project manager and the technical project manager with department officials telling auditors the BAM project manager did not see the final contract amendment until after it had been executed. Auditors said this resulted in the state paying for software containing errors that prevented it from being implemented.

? The department authorized payments of $3.3 million to the development contractor in 2008 that should not have been paid.

The BAM system has yet to be fully implemented.

Johnson’s spokesperson, Gisgie Davila Gendreau, said after implementation of part of the project for the department’s website in 2011, the department expanded it to all of its self-service stations. It continues to test the program for use in branch offices, she said.

“When she took office, Secretary of State Ruth Johnson worked with the new governor, attorney general, Department of Technology Management and Budget leadership, and the vendor to ensure the project was moving forward. We’ve since made significant progress with their support,” she said in an email. “We’re committed to develop a modern, cost-effective product that improves service for Michigan residents. The system is more intuitive, easier to use and will allow for more functionality.”

Gendreau, asked about the Peters campaign using Johnson’s remarks to criticize Land, said Johnson’s “focus is on progress, not on placing blame.”

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