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STEVE BOUSQUETThe Florida lawmaker goes to a friend to fix the new House computer system. The decision costs taxpayers $1.5-million and triggers a lawsuit.
TALLAHASSEE - The 2003 session of the Florida Legislature was just around the corner and Speaker Johnnie Byrd decided the new House computer system couldn't do the job.
The system, used to operate the House Web site and track legislation, had been undergoing tests for months. Glitches persisted. Byrd saw messy problems ahead.
So he turned to a friend and supporter, Tampa lawyer Steve Burton, for help.
Burton, managing partner of Broad & Cassel's Tampa office and head of its technology litigation group, already was a House appointee to the board of an Alzheimer's center Byrd championed. The law firm donated $10,000 to a political fund that helped Byrd become speaker.
Hired by Byrd at $250 an hour to salvage the House computer system, Burton then turned to Jagged Peak, a Clearwater computer firm whose chief executive was a client of Burton's.
It began as a handshake deal with no competitive bids and no written contract with the state. It was lucrative, too, at $10,000 a day for Jagged Peak.
Byrd's decision already has cost taxpayers more than $1.5-million and triggered a lawsuit alleging a "sweetheart deal" between Byrd and Burton.
The allegation is made by Hayes Computer Systems, which did the original work on the House computers but was never paid. The House says Hayes abandoned the job in March after botching it.
"That's a ridiculous assertion," Burton says of the "sweetheart deal" charge. "There's no question this project was in dire straits and was woefully deficient in the fall of '02 and measures needed to be taken to get this project back on track."
Before Jagged Peak stepped in, amendments to bills did not appear online. "The public was getting the wrong information," he said.
Hayes, represented by lobbyist J.M. "Mac" Stipanovich, was hired by Byrd's predecessor, Tom Feeney, and still has not been paid. Hayes says the House owes it $3-million. The firm stayed on the job until March, when it left and filed suit. Each side accuses the other of breaking the contract.
Jagged Peak was paid $10,000 a day for several months, totaling $1.5-million through June, according to testimony in a deposition by the company's chief executive, Paul Demirdjian.
"I was told by Mr. Burton that he needed assistance in evaluating a situation that was developing in the House," Demirdjian recalled in the deposition. "It's been an evolution. ... Whatever the speaker's office or leadership required, that's what we've been doing."
Besides the $1.5-million paid to Jagged Peak, the House also has spent an undetermined amount of money on computer consultants and more to Burton, who had billed the House for $68,000 through February. New figures were not available Wednesday.
"You get to a change in leadership and suddenly everything changes," said G. Donovan Conwell, an attorney for Hayes. "Suddenly we're dealing with a lawyer hired by Johnnie Byrd and he brings in his client on a handshake."
Byrd, a Plant City Republican who is running for the U.S. Senate, declined to comment. Spokeswoman Nicole deLara said that anyone who tried to use the system knew there were "significant problems" and that Jagged Peak did "an excellent job under difficult circumstances."
When Byrd took over, he was eager to use computer technology to reach voters. But he needed a reliable system to operate the House Web site, track legislation and handle a blizzard of e-mail among lawmakers, staffers, agencies and constituents.
The House "Lawmaker" computer system is working now, but the legal battles surrounding it grind on in a courthouse across the street from the state Capitol.
The House won the latest round three weeks ago, when Circuit Judge Charles Francis denied Hayes' request to get its computer equipment back. The judge said Hayes failed to establish "probable validity" of its claims.
The legal skirmishes resumed Wednesday before Circuit Judge Jonathan Sjostrom, with each side accusing the other of missing contractual deadlines for testing the system.
"The system was found to be wholly inadequate when the House began running mock sessions," Charles Geitner, a House attorney, told the judge.
But Sean Johnson, a former House employee who was involved in testing the system shortly before the 2002 election, said in his deposition that he was happy with the system's progress, despite technical problems.
"I was very satisfied," Johnson said in his deposition.
Hayes' attorney, Conwell, argued Wednesday that the House in effect committed to the system last fall when it neither accepted nor rejected it in writing, claiming the contract required such a decision.
"You can't keep us in limbo like this," Conwell pleaded to the judge. "It's been going on for a year."
Meanwhile, the House Web site that Hayes and Jagged Peak helped build beams Byrd's record of fiscal responsibility onto laptops everywhere. The House will refund $2-million to the state treasury, Byrd says, because it did not spend all of its budget.