Three years ago, Baltimore city leaders embarked on a mission to redesign the city’s website, BaltimoreCity.gov.
The city invited six companies to bid on the project, but only two responded with vastly different proposals. One submitted a bid of $1.2 million, while the other proposed $300,000.
Ultimately, the city awarded the project to the highest bidder, Fearless Solutions, whose bid was three times higher than the other.
The company’s owner, Delalai Dzirasa, is a contributor to Mayor Brandon Scott’s campaign and the husband of Baltimore City’s Deputy Mayor Letitia Dzirasa.
“This is a professional service contract. They went out and talked to multiple contractors and decided to go with Fearless,” said Mayor Scott.
Initially, Fearless Solutions’ contract was valued at $1.078 million. However, five months after securing the deal, the company requested an additional $887,000 to complete the project. Seven months later, the city approved another request for a quarter-million dollars, bringing the total cost to over $2.2 million.
Despite the ballooning costs, there is still no website.
“There is no website at this time. In fact, the company we hired stopped working for the city a year ago yesterday,” said Inspector General Isabel Cumming.
A report by Cumming’s office determined that the city should have opened the project for competitive bidding instead of inviting a select few companies. “That type of thing should be competitively bid and put out to many groups as possible,” said Cumming.
In response to the report, the city stated, “The cost was not the result of uncontrolled spending, but rather a structured response to project demands that became clearer as implementation progressed.” The Baltimore City Information Technology department acknowledged the need for improved planning and more explicit scoping in future digital infrastructure initiatives.
Cumming says the project is proving to be a financial burden for city taxpayers. “All this is paid by taxpayer money. We paid for a website that we still don’t have.”
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