Gordon Forgey

The county may be considering getting rid of its expensive and recently activated New World accounting system.

The proper response to this is, “Say, what! We just got it working.”

The New World system initially cost the taxpayer hundreds of thousands of dollars, but it quickly became a nightmare of problems for nearly everyone involved. And, the costs kept soaring. Total cost of buying the software, getting customized patches, getting it on line, staff trauma and turnover and training comes to nearly $1 million.

Now, it has been discovered that it costs more than $40,000 a year just to keep the program updated.

Instead of finally settling into the system and trying to recoup some of the money, pain and anguish already spent on it, Commissioner Michael Largent this week suggested that the whole thing be scrapped and something new be put in its place.

This should not come as any surprise. Things do not go in a straight line at the courthouse.

Even so, this would be a dramatic and expensive change of course.

The county should suck it up and try to live with the program. What is $40,000 compared to what has already been spent? Another new accounting program sounds penny wise but pound foolish.

Presumably, replacing the New World system it is not as simple as buying QuickBooks off the shelf from Staples. If it were, one would have thought that path would have been taken in the first place.

Gordon Forgey

Publisher