Thursday, April 1, 2010

“So we don’t have access to any data from 2008 back, none.” Coatesville City Council President Ed Simpson

I transcribed this from my recording of the City of Coatesville Budget Workshop meeting. My recording equipment is not top notch. There could be mistakes in my transcription. If anyone can point them out, please correct it in a post or send me an email.

City of Coatesville City Council Vice President Karl Marking, “If we don’t have access to that data that really concerns me because that’s like deleting files, which is deleting data, which is like sitting there with a shredder. So I would hope that we get a firm answer as to what the state is in being able to reach back. Data retention is record retention and I would think that we’ve got to be able to access that.”

City of Coatesville Codes Director Mr. Molina, “Mr. Marking, I’ll give you a better answer. My staff indicates to me that there is a possibility the data can be retrieved.”

City of Coatesville City Councilperson Marty Eggleston, “That shouldn’t be a possibility; that’s a mandate!”

City of Coatesville Finance Director Ms Stacy Bjorhus., “The data’s there, it’s just not accurate. “

City of Coatesville City Councilperson Marty Eggleston, “It’s just not accurate. That’s a much better answer than the one he gave me…If they can say it’s there but it’s not accurate that at least tells me that we can go and look.

City of Coatesville City Council President Ed Simpson, “I have a problem with that. If it’s entered, why should you enter inaccurate data?”

City of Coatesville staff person Leslie Proctor, “We were trying to work out the bugs in the first program when, wham, are changing to the new. You had one year fighting with one program. We never had a chance to catch up with the changes and the computer bugs that were in that software at that time.

So in getting reports and closing things and starting a whole new program, we had to---we don’t have the staff to clean up all the data, get you reports from that one year of using that system. Where going forward we still have 09 and 10.”

Ed Simpson, “So all down the line we have the data.”

Ms. Proctor. “We are working on the data that is in the previous system right now… so that we can provide the data from the previous system… We can’t give you that report until we have gotten to that point. It’s going to take us some time.”

Coatesville City Councilperson Joe Hamrick, “So when can that happen?”…

Ms. Proctor, “If we can get overtime, we can do it on weekends...We’re kind of cut (back) here.”

Joe Hamrick, I understand that but, Give me a ball park.”

Ms. Proctor, “We haven’t put a time frame on it. If you want us to we can work harder on that. We work on that with our daily things that are coming in, rental inspections; contractor’s permits everything that comes in of course as we go along. So that’s where we are.

Karl Marking, “So from 08 back it will be more of a reconciliation effort.”

Ms. Proctor, “Absolutely, just for 08… because we had Pentamation before that’s not here at all. We cannot access that at all.”

Mr. Molina, “Let me add that the decision to change to the system was done with no input from the Codes Department and how it would impact the department. So we just inherited the system.

Karl Marking, “So we have no data for the City from 07.”

Ed Simpson, “We have no data from all of the Pentamation system, even the finance data?”

Mr. Bjorhus, “No, apparently the Pentamation system as I understand it was cut in the altercations in information retained in management in the City of Coatesville and the data was pulled, that information.”

Ed Simpson, “So we don’t have access to any data from 2008 back, none.”


Also see Matt Baker’s blog post, “What a mess”:

http://bakerforcoatesville.com/2010/03/what-a-mess/



Tomorrow:
“One thing we are all learning is, it’s a mess.” Ed Simpson.

Listen here:


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