County systems chief resigns

Alfred J. Leiser, director of information technology, steps down after a list of failures are laid at his feet.

By LISA GREENE, Times Staff Writer
© St. Petersburg Times
published September 24, 2002

CLEARWATER -- Alfred J. Leiser, the much-criticized director of Pinellas County's information technology department, avoided a public flogging from his seven powerful bosses Monday.

He resigned several hours before the meeting.

"That wouldn't have served any purpose," Leiser said of a public showdown.

Over several months, Leiser and his department has faced increasing criticism. County Administrator Steve Spratt and other county officials questioned why a $12-million database system, intended to make finding county records simpler and communication between departments easier, wasn't being used by many departments.

Last month, the St. Petersburg Times reported that Pinellas County's clerk of courts failed to send the outcomes of 76,394 traffic cases to Florida driver's license officials. The problem was caused by a poorly designed computer program used to send data to the state. Cases were sent in weekly. But if a case result for one week arrived late, it wasn't included in the next week's batch.

By Monday morning, Leiser was on the way out.

Leiser reported to the Information Technology Board, composed of Spratt, two county commissioners, three other elected county officials and the chief judge of the circuit. The board members already had delivered harsh evaluations of Leiser's job performance. An average of their evaluations, as well as evaluations from other top county elected officials, gave Leiser a score of 137.3 points out of a possible 400.

Leiser met Friday with Pinellas Tax Collector Diane Nelson, chairwoman of the Information Technology board, and Dave Libby, the county personnel director. Nelson asked for Leiser's resignation and put him on paid leave until Monday's meeting. She also took his keys and access card.

The Information Technology Department provides services for all county agencies, from departments supervised by the county administrator to the courts and other constitutional offices.

Board members have criticized Leiser for failing to lead. They want someone who would recommend new technology and rally county officials behind it, some board members said, while Leiser described the department as a "service bureau," there to respond to members' needs.

"He does not attempt to build consensus or to provide the board with recommendations to improve service," Pinellas-Pasco Chief Circuit Judge David A. Demers said.

Leiser "should convey a positive "can do' attitude to his staff, instead of focusing on reasons projects can't be done," Supervisor of Elections Deborah Clark wrote in her evaluation.

But Leiser said late Monday that he was made the scapegoat for the recent problems. He said a St. Petersburg Times editorial unfairly blamed his department for the failure to transfer driving records to the state. He also said that his department took too much blame for problems with the database system.

"They were more looking at finding fault than accomplishments," Leiser said of the board. "I was being held responsible for something I had no authority over."

Leiser, 62, was making about $110,000. He had worked for the county since 1986.

Board members named Dave Sitter, manager of technology development for the department, as the interim director. They also agreed to have Spratt work with the county's Personnel Department on a recruiting plan.

Sitter, who doesn't want the permanent job, and three other IT managers, all candidates for the job, told the board Monday that the department needs improvement.

"We need to dismantle this, logically, block by block," then put the department back together again, Sitter said.

Sitter also said the relationship between Information Technology and some other county departments and agencies has become adversarial. Sitter wouldn't discuss Leiser's performance later, saying Leiser has been "very fair" to him.

"I can't lay them at any one person's feet," Sitter said of the department's problems. "It's been allowed to evolve for a long time."

Pinellas Commissioner Ken Welch said that evolution is part of the problem. In the past, he said, Information Technology Board members paid less attention.

"We're a much more involved board," Welch said, "and we have much higher expectations for performance."

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