Wednesday, Aug. 27, 2003 | 10:57 a.m.
Embattled Clark County Recorder Fran Deane admits she has made mistakes, but vows to keep fighting a $4.9 million contract with a Virginia-based company to automate her office's records.
Virginia-based AmCad sparked close scrutiny of both Deane's professional and personal comportment after the company wrote a letter to Clark County demanding at least $2.3 million over the original contract. The Aug. 14 letter said the extra costs were because of delays by the county and the county recorder, whom AmCad Chief Executive Officer Ronald Cornelison accused of deliberately blocking installation of the new computer system.
The issue took on a different dimension when it became public two weeks ago that Deane and some business partners were initiating paperwork to create a company that would have sold access to documents at the recorder's office for a fee. County officials said such a move would be an ethical conflict and has undermined their efforts to negotiate with AmCad.
Deane said that she wanted to block the installation of the system, which ultimately would make available critical documents such as property records and birth certificates to the public over the Internet for free. She admits that setting up an independent company to provide the information for a fee -- a move that would have put her company in competition with the company under the county contract -- was a mistake.
But Deane said she started working against the company after AmCad submitted a $1 million bill for work that was not approved by the Clark County Commission.
The original contract was for the company to "convert" 18 million documents to images that could be accessed by anyone over the Internet. Now the company says it can only do 7.4 million documents rather than the full amount, Deane said.
She said other hardware and software the company promised to deliver has not arrived during her tenure as recorder, which started in January. Additionally, Deane charges that AmCad, despite a $300,000 review last year of the needs of the office, was not prepared to handle many of the documents that the recorder's office accepts daily.
Deane blames many of these problems on oral agreements that she says were made between the former recorder, Judith Vandever, and AmCad.
The county is not required to bring such a professional contract up for a public bid. Deane, however, said the same service could have been provided for much less money by a local vender. She even has a clear favorite: Southern Nevada Micrographics, a company that already performs a similar service for many county departments.
The cost of Southern Nevada Micrographics, which provides very similar "imaging" services to the Clark County Assessor and other departments, is about 5 cents a page. AmCad's cost is about twice that.
Many of the documents already on line through the assessor's office and other sites are duplicates of those that would be destined to go online with the AmCad systems.
"Why are we duplicating efforts at 10 cents a page?" Deane said.
Vandever did not respond to calls to her home. Clark County officials did a review of Vandever's recommendation last year when the former recorder, herself the subject of considerable controversy and suggestions that she should be sanctioned for failing to attend to her office, pushed for the AmCad contract.
County staff found other municipal governments generally satisfied with the company's work, which it does for governments coast-to-coast.
The commission heard but ultimately rejected arguments from Southern Nevada Micrographics that the local company could perform the same service as AmCad for a fraction of the cost -- $800,000 versus AmCad's $4.9 million.
At the time, County Manager Thom Reilly said county staff found "a level of comfort" with AmCad because of the review but would continue to provide "tremendous oversight by the county manager's office and finance" department at the county.
Deane, however, said the county commission failed to adequately look out for taxpayers when it approved the contract. She said her campaign to ditch at least part of the contract is the result of "spending money like crazy" on a system that has yet to perform for either employees in the recorder's office or the public.
AmCad's Cornelison, through a receptionist in Virginia, referred questions to Las Vegas attorney John O'Reilly. O'Reilly did not return phone calls Tuesday, but in the past has referred questions to the company's last letter to Clark County.
That letter said the rising charges are not AmCad's fault.
"To the contrary, any and all delays in this contract have been due to actions or lack of contractually required actions by Clark County," the company said in its Aug. 14 letter. "It should be noted that the newly elected county recorder has played a significant role in creating obstacles and generally making the environment difficult for AmCad to work and complete this installation."
County Manager Reilly said Deane may have valid concerns about AmCad contract.
"I'm sure she has lots of legitimate points," he said. "I don't think AmCad is all right. I never thought that."
He noted that the county suspended the contract with the company in June after Deane raised her objections.
"The problem is she has compromised our position because of what she did," Reilly said, referring to the pay-for-access proposal. "Now our ability to negotiate a new contract is jeopardized because of her behavior."
Reilly said the issue of what the county should do now will likely come before the county commission in the coming weeks, perhaps as soon as Sept. 16.
Deane said she will make a pitch to re-examine at least one critical part of AmCad's contract, the $1.8 million that originally was slated for the company to convert images into an Internet-friendly system.
She believes that it would still be better to somehow cancel that portion of the contract and find a new vender. Deane said she does not have a problem with the other part of the contract, originally set at $3.1 million, that the company would automate the recording of the thousands of documents that come into her office daily.
"AmCad is really two separate things," Deane said.
Assistant County Manager Rick Holmes, who said he has been devoting a large part of his work time to the issues of AmCad and the recorder's office, said the contract cannot be rejected, regardless of Deane's wishes.
"The merits, the pros and cons of different approaches were considered by the board," Holmes said. Deane "may disagree with the decision, but nevertheless the county has a contract. ... Those are not really decisions we can undue at this point."
Both AmCad and the county have obligations that must, legally, be fulfilled, he said.
Holmes said that the contract, now suspended while the county and company negotiate the sticking points of how much work must still be done for how much money, can still be completed in three to four months.
Holmes said he believes the contract can be largely completed without paying the $2.3 million the company says it needs. He believes the total price for the "basic work" can still be held to about $4.9 million.
His recommendation now is to increase the contract price by about $25,000. But Holmes warned that the scope of the work would have to be modified.
The problem is that AmCad has found a very high error rate in documents that it is converting to the Internet-friendly imaging system, Holmes said. That means the company is spending more time and money than originally intended on converting contemporary documents.
So AmCad can burn through the original $1.8 million in the contract dedicated to image conversion quickly, leaving nearly a century of historical documents largely unprocessed.
Additionally, as the contract is suspended and work is not being done now, more and more documents are coming into the recorder's office that eventually will have to be converted. That will cost the county more money, Holmes said.
The county still has several options, Holmes said, which the county commissioners could consider Sept. 16. The county could open a request-for-proposal, seeking another company that potentially could do the remaining work at a better price.
Holmes said the commissioners also could go back to AmCad for the unfinished work, do the work in-house by county staff or simply shift the emphasis completely off historical documents, instead only converting new documents to an Internet-accessible system.
Deane, despite criticism, said her battle with AmCad is too important to give up. She said she will bring her case to the county commission when the board looks at these issues next month.
"I think these are valid questions."
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