Accenture, Texas finalize divorce

It's all like a bad dream now.

Texas and Accenture LLP on Friday reached a final agreement on ending a controversial social services deal worth hundreds of millions of dollars.

The settlement -- worth more than $100 million to the state -- caps negotiations begun when the two agreed to part ways in March 2007 .

[...]

Under the agreement, [Accenture] will waive $70.9 million in charges for services already provided to the state. Accenture subcontractor Maximus will pay the state $20 million in cash, and Maximus will also provide a $10 million credit toward future services, state officials said.

"We had two primary goals in winding down this contract, and we achieved both of them," said Health and Human Services Executive Commissioner Albert Hawkins . "We successfully transitioned the work to other vendors and back to the state without disrupting services, and we've negotiated a final agreement that protects the interests of taxpayers."

In all, the state has paid Accenture about $243 million , said Hawkins spokeswoman Stephanie Goodman.

You can see the settlement agreement here (PDF). Mighty expensive little experiment, if you ask me. I'd mind it less if I thought we'd learned a lesson from the experience, but it's clear that at least some of us remain untouched.

Kalese Hammonds , a policy analyst at the Texas Public Policy Foundation , which believes in limited government, said the experience "is not a failure of outsourcing" but shows the benefit of being able to hold companies accountable when they don't meet expectations.

Outsourcing cannot fail, it can only be failed, I guess. Must be nice to not have to be concerned about the effect this non-failure of outsourcing had on the people who depended on the service.

Posted by Charles Kuffner on December 15, 2008 to Budget ballyhoo