The Legacy Replacement Project (LRP) Fiasco - Trustees - Admin Budget for FY-2027

The NYCERS Trustees will be meeting with NYCERS staff at the end of this March to prepare the agency's FY-2027 admin budget.

Budgeting for the Legacy Replacemet Project Disaster

It is unclear how the trustees will be dealing with the LRP disaster.

Based on a statement in the FY-2024 Annual Financial Statement released in December 2024, NYCERS staff was aware of a big problem with the LRP contract with Accenture in the late spring of 2024.

There was an reduction in the Accenture appropriation for FY-2025 budget from the amount in FY-2024 ($18.7 million down from $23.2 million) but there was no mention of LRP problems in the FY-2025 budget presentation that was sent to me in response to my FOIL request.

But the financial statement is open public record and in December 2024 there is a clear reference to problems during FY-2024 with reference to reworked contract scope available in the spring of 2025.

The spring of 2025 has come and gone with no new contract scope but there is a four and half year delay in the completion date of the LRP project.

The FY-2026 budget appropriation for the Accenture contract dropped to $10.8 million with a claim of completed the "replanning" by June 30, 2025. That date failed.

the FY-2025 annual financial statement issued in December 2025 promised a new "replanning" date of April 2026 with a completion date of December 2030.

Missing Key Data

There was a key piece of information, the schedule of payments to contractors, missing from the finacial statement which I had to FOIL. When I received it, it became clear that NYCERS had paid no money to Accenture during FY-2025.

Note: the official version of the NYCERS FY-2025 financial statement on its website is still missing the schedule.

Yet NYCERS staff had budgeted $10.8 million for work to be paid to Accenture in FY-2026 without mentioning that the $18.7 million for FY-2025 had not been paid.

In conjunction with the main LRP contract. NYCERS has a large quality assurance contract to check the work of the main contractor. In addition the Board of Trustees has a contract for a risk consultant reporting to the Trustees directly for the LRP project. There should be a great deal of documentation on what is happening with the project in spite of the total lack of questions from the trustees about the status of the project.

The tables below display the amounts budgeted and paid for the Accenture LRP contract and other contracts that are part of the LRP project.

Accenture Payments

Fiscal Year	Budgeted Amount	Amouny Paid
2026	$10,776,302	open
2025	$18,728,407	$0
2024	$23,191,794	$17.9 million
2023	$23,057,826	$817,492
2022	$19,317,745	$9.8 million
2021	$825,794	$926,341
Salesforce Project
2020	$6,095,000	$3,614,398
2019	$9,350,000	$7,961,315
Fiscal Year	Budgeted Amount	Amouny Paid

The Gartner IT consultant

Gartner Payments

Fiscal Year	Budgeted Amount	Amouny Paid
2026	$2,640,000	open
2025	$1,764,000	$3,868,000
2024	$2,000,000	$2,020,000
2023	$1,800,000	$2,400,000
2022	$2,300,000	$2,400,000
2021	$1,647,285	$2,230,816
Salesforce Project
2020	$2,180,000	$805,780
2019	$2,395,000	$1,665,620
2018	$850,000	$575,000

The LRP Risk Consutant (Linea) reporting to the Board of Trustees

LRP Risk Consultant (BOT)

Fiscal Year	Budgeted Amount	Amouny Paid
2026	$700,000	open
2025	$700,000	$711,672
2024	$700,000	$602,184
2023	$700,000	$656,928
2022	$700,000	$656,928
2021	$800,000	$624,80
2020	$500,000	$0
2019	$0	$0

The LRP Quality Assurance Vendor

LRP Quality Assurance Vendor

Fiscal Year	Budgeted Amount	Amouny Paid
2026	$1,366,420	open
2025	$1,366,420	vendor not identified
2024	$1,518,244	vendor not identified
2023	$1,518,244	vendor not identified
2022	$2,000,000	vendor not identified
2021	$112,500	vendor not identified
2020	$0	$0
2019	$0	$0

The LRP - Penfax Pension Software

LRP - Penfax Pension Software

Fiscal Year	Budgeted Amount	Amouny Paid
2026	$3,991,767	open
2025	$4,194,802	not reported
2024	$3,991,767	not reported
2023	$3,585,697	not reported
2022	$3,179,628	not reported
2021	$3,059,093	not reported
2020	$0	$0
2019	$0	$0

The General Software Maintenance/Servises and the CRM (Salesforce) Sotware Mantenance Items

Software Maintenance - General and Salesforce

Fiscal Year	General Software Budgeted Amount	Salesforce Softawre Budgeted
2026	$3,879,313	$6,190,865
2025	$1,706,000	$,4,490,865
2024	$1,032,000	$3,150,000
2023	$1,000,000	$2,400,000
2022	$850,000	$2,400,000
2021	$850,000	$2,400,000
2020	$850,000	$1,914,000
2019	$590,000	$956,000
2018	$590,000	$956,000
2017	$504,000	$0

Because A Criminal Can Be in the White House – Need to Reform DOJ

The Problem

Congress created the Office of the Attorney General in 1789 and the DOJ in 1870. Both items are not embedded in the Constitution but are creatures of the Congress.

Currently Congress has no control over DOJ. The President has sole control of DOJ. DOJ must be made accountable to both parties of Congress since the President can be corrupt. As per the statutes, the President nominates the Attorney General and all other DOJ political appointments, including appointments in all DOJ component departments (i.e.: FBI, DEA, and others). They are then subject to confirmation by the Senate.

Solution

The law needs to be amended to require a two-thirds Senate approval vote for the confirmation of these positions as opposed to the current +50% level.

In addition, the confirmation must be only valid for 365 days.

The confirmation must be renewed by two thirds of the Senate every year within 60 days of the end of the 365 days.

If the confirmation is not renewed within 365 days, the appointment is immediately terminated as of the 366th day, and the office holder is ineligible for any appointed federal position for the duration of the president’s term.

The person can, however, return to his/her previous non-appointed position.

Temporary Appointments

Because the Senate has problems with confirming appointments, there needs to be a temporary appointment process.

Beginning at the start of the President’s term, all appointed positions at the DOJ (all departments and offices, i.e., FBI, Marshals, DEA, others) are considered empty and awaiting nomination and confirmation.

The two senators who are majority and minority leaders (when 50-50, majority goes to VP’s party) will make temporary appointments to all open positions picking from permanent DOJ employees.

All the positions will be listed by statute in order of authority within DOJ. For equal ranked positions they will be listed randomly by statute. New or eliminated appointed positions at DOJ are automatically either added to the end of the list or removed from the list of appointed positions at DOJ.

The majority leader will make temporary appointments for odd numbered positions, and the minority leader will make a temporary appointment for even numbered positions.

• Temporary appointments will be valid for 90 days.

• A person can refuse a temporary appointment.

• A person can only hold a temporary appointment once during the term of the President.

• Upon the confirmation of a permanent appointment, the associated temporary appointment is automatically terminated.

• Upon the end of the 90-day period of any temporary appointment because there was no permanent confirmation, the senator who made the original temporary appointment will make a new temporary appointment.

• Upon the termination of a temporary appointment the persom automatically returns to his/her previous permanent position.

• Any one person can only be appointed to one 90-day temporary appointment during the term of the sitting President.

• Any person who fails to be reconfirmed by the Senate is ineligible for a temporary appointment at the DOJ.

• A person appointed to a temporary position at DOJ during a President’s term is eligible for permanent DOJ appointments.

Conclusion

The President can terminate a confirmed appointee, but the subsequent nomination will be subject to the two-thirds approval of the Senate and the temporary appointment process.

The purpose of these reforms is to make DOJ subject to both bipartisan Senate control as well as Presidential control. This in turn protects the country from a corrupt President.