New York City comptroller John Liu in January refused to approve a $286 million contract for Northrop Gruman to design and install computer software for a $650 million backup 911 call center being built in the Bronx. This week Mayor Bloomberg’s office returned to Liu and submitted an amended Northrop Grumman contract for $94 million.
According to the New York Daily News, “they gave in to his demand that it be a fixed price contract that guards against cost overruns, instead of one that pays consultants by the hour.”
Despite this conciliatory action, Liu has already pushed back on the Bloomberg administration with some “remaining questions,” which, according to the Daily News, are problematic because “the project is years behind schedule and has skyrocketed in cost from $1.3 billion in 2005 to nearly $2 billion today”