SPRINGFIELD — The Springfield City Commission paid its computer consultant $5,000 last year to redesign its website.
Nearly a year later, the new website still doesn’t function properly.
This week, the City Commission changed network consultants, hiring Aktarius LLC for $49,500 a year. The new company promises to have an employee dedicated full time to helping Springfield with IT issues, including getting the website fixed.
The firm that lost the contract, TJ’s Network Consulting, had been paid $189,280 over the past four years — an average of $47,320 per year — for IT work. But TJ’s owner Banyon Pelham is not bitter about losing the business.
“I agree with them getting more full-time support,” Pelham said.
Pelham said it’s not his fault nearly all the links on the website take visitors to blank pages. The city has not provided enough information for him to complete it.
“I can’t make things up,” Pelham said.
The City Commission was set to approve the contract with Aktarius at its meeting two weeks ago when Police Chief Philip Thorne objected.
“With our software, there’s only one programmer in the state of Florida and that’s Banyon (Pelham),” Thorne said.
Pelham worked for the city of Springfield as a police officer and firefighter from 1997 through 2002. He still works as an unpaid volunteer, with one 12-hour shift per month.
“I feel indebted to the city,” said Pelham, who now is a full-time faculty member at Florida State University Panama City. “That was the job that got me through college.”
At the time he was an officer, he said he did all of the IT for the city. He said the city asked him to submit a bid — which he was awarded — for the IT contract in 2010.
Thorne said the Police Department’s software is proprietary. The police department has a $2,000 a year maintenance agreement with Delphi Enterprises Inc. for the software, which Pelham had the rights to work on. Aktarius could provide maintenance but would need to get the rights.
Mayor Ralph Hammond, City Clerk Lee Penton and Chief Thorne met with an Aktarius representative earlier this month to solve the situation and the commission approved a contract with Aktarius this week.
“We are going to get more service for less money,” Hammond said.
Payments to TJ’s Network Consulting
- 2010: $38,750
- 2011: $50,871
- 2012: $61,990
- 2013: $37,669