Rocket Science!
(A phrase describing complicated,
esoteric financial calculations.
Sometimes used in in derision.)
to the anti-ceti page.
The education bureaucrats at Cal State headquarters in Long Beach have done it again. They're trying to negotiate an excruciatingly complicated deal with GTE, Microsoft, Fujitsu and Hughes to privatize the University's computer network, phones, and internet connections. This week and next they're disappearing under the sheets, to emerge with the final CETI plan that will be presented to the public on March 1. They've had their hearts set on privatizing, via a corporate partnership, since the summer of 1996. They've been grooming their corporate partners since last August, and they've been hammering out the terms of the partnership with the select four companies since September.
So guess what? They've just put out for bid a consulting contract to tell them if any of this is a good idea, and for advice on what precautions to take. Eight and a half months pregnant with CETI, and the education bureaucrats start wondering about birth control!
I'm not kidding. On February 12, assistant vice chancellor Thomas West sent a letter of intent to the corporate partners, saying how committed the CSU was to the CETI project and how the negotiations would be finished by the end of February. The faculty and students have been told that the deal will be wrapped up by March 15th, and presented for campus comment (a way of saying "ineffective consultation") during the next six weeks.
But now the CSU bigwigs want some independent advice. Fast. The notice for bids went out February 16, the proposals are due in by the 27th, the contract begins on March 16, and the report is due on April 3rd. Here's what they are asking for:
"The CSU recognizes that to truly validate the business proposal, the analysis must be undertaken by a firm that is not a part of the negotiations and is a disinterested third party.
To be complete, the analysis must include:
2.1 an evaluation of the economic requirements of the business relationship placed on the campuses of the CSU;
2.2 an evaluation of the economic benefits that should accrue to the campuses of the CSU under the business relationship;
2.3 an evaluation of the economic risk to the CSU as a system, or the campuses individually, under the described business relationship;
2.4 recommendations on mitigating any such risk;
2.5 an opinion on whether the economic value that the CSU will receive from the business relationship is appropriate."
Two years into the planning of CETI, and now they decide that it might be a good idea to evaluate the costs and benefits and risks! There's some truly brilliant thinking going on at Headquarters. After the negotiations are over and done, CSU will get a consultant's report saying what it should have done and whether it will get "appropriate value". Knee-deep in the quicksand, the education bureaucrats decide to look at a map.
What's going on? Is the CSU headquarters cabal behind CETI really so dumb that they don't know the report will arrive too late? They must be, because the only other possibility is that they are wasting tax dollars on a sweetheart deal. What's to be gained at this stage from paying a pet consultant to crank out an overnight report about the wonders and blessings of CETI, except cover when the whole thing collapses in a tangle of lawsuits, conflict of interest charges and bureaucracy? Why, it wouldn't even be ethical!
Of course. suspicious minds will look at the fine print and see that one of the selection criteria is
"4.2 Consistency of approach with CSU management intent project strategy and schedule."* * (This clause is as grammatical as it is clear.)
The cynics would conclude that the CSU bureaucrats are lying when they babble about "objectivity", as in: "The objective of this analysis is to provide the CSU executive management with an independent, objective report on the business and financial plans of the LLC." Those academic types who see hidden agendas everywhere would hypothesize that "disinterested" consultants are those who agree with the education bureaucrats, and that these are the only outfits with a snowball's chance of being awarded this contract. But it can't be so. Even CETI's opponents should hesitate to make such accusations of sleazy practices, and should recognize that education bureaucrats operate by mistake, as well as design.
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Build Date 2/20/98 Robert H. Daniels Back to Anti-Ceti
