Secretary of State Ruth Johnson has declined to blame her predecessor, Terri Lynn Land, for a debacle in which $30 million was spent over several years for a new computer system that never worked – “not a single minute.”
Land, a Republican Senate candidate, faces renewed criticism over the computer project from her Democratic opponent, U.S. Rep. Gary Peters, in an online campaign ad.
When Johnson took over in January 2011, she sharply criticized the Secretary of State’s Office she had inherited from Land for a failed attempt to modernize the department’s outdated computer network.
But in an interview with The Macomb Daily, Johnson, a Republican, said the IT agency under the administration of Democratic governor Jennifer Granholm was a key source of the problem.
“There was a lot of bickering and discord within IT itself. The past administration couldn’t really get it going,” she said, insisting that she didn’t want to comment on the amount of blame Land shared.
Land, who served as Secretary of State from 2003-10, has pointed out that the project was hampered as three separate contractors worked on the project over time.
Johnson spent her first 10 months getting the plan for the Business Application Modernization system, or BAM, back on track.
In an April 2011 “State of the Secretary of State Speech,” Johnson said the computer upgrades were needed to introduce numerous online services, which she now credits with reducing long lines at branch offices.
“This was supposed to revolutionize the way the Secretary of State Office did business and put our services online 24/7,” Johnson said at the time. “Instead, it has never worked -- not a single day, not a single hour, not a single minute.”
Johnson said in the Macomb Daily interview that she was not fazed by a 2012 Land comment to her hometown newspaper, the Grand Rapids Press, when she responded to questions about the BAM failures this way: “It’s Ruth’s gig now.”
A former state legislator, Johnson has maintained neutrality in the Senate race. But a radio ad for her Secretary of State re-election campaign, which is a surprisingly tight race with Democratic challenger Godfrey Dillard, does Land no favors.
The 30-second spot says that Johnson cleaned up a department plagued by poor customer service, where long lines made a trip to the Secretary of State’s Office about as welcome as a dentist appointment.
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