So I asked And GOt The Answer

Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "My Secret Anxiety": 
Can't you just ask someone at the region whether or not they have been through a failed attempt at implementing Maximo, and what it cost? If they do not answer, is this the type of information that can be gotten through the freedom of information act?
*************
So I asked. The Region has been working with the system for
six and a half years  The first year and a half prior to implementation. .Five  years  of  implementation without complete success. 
Some benefit has been achieved. Not what was expected, There have been changes in equipment and personnel in the process.
The system has not been abandoned
Neither has it accomplished its aims.
I did not obtain a figure for amount expended. 
The program is used in Regional Environmental Services. A different progrem is used in for  Regional  fleet assets. 
I suspect  the region's cost would not be relevant to the Town's.
According to town records, the first step was taken in August 2010.  A call for expressions of interest was  recommended and approved.
Recommendation to approve purchase of software in an amount of $444.611 was accepted in November2011.
A further sum of $38,000  was approved in February 2012.
The total budget to date is $788.000 plus. Almost all expended .
I have not full  confidence in my own ability to assess such contracts and programs. 
Staff expertise is an essential component of  my judgement. 
But intuition intervenes. I have learned to be sure of my ability to discern.
I had received a communication which caused me concern. 
The Province had directed municipalities to make an inventory of all assets and maintain  records.
The assets  took  years to inventorise.  It was  done on Excel spread sheets.
A  program to meet  Provincial requirements would have cost $50,000.
That was  not the program  recommended to Council. 
Even after  and if the Maxima program is fully implemented, the asset  inventory will still be done on Excel spread sheets. As it is now.
The Maxim program is far more far-reaching in its objective and as can be seen , costs twelve times more. 
It calls for workers in the field to file details by computer after every work order is completed.. 
Garbage in,garbage out. Computers have created mountains of useless information.
An example;
Two weeks ago all the painted picnic tables were assembled  in the courtyard outside the town hall for judging. 
This week,there are two.
The rest have presumably, by work order, been distributed among the various parks.. 
What purpose is served by a member of the work crew sitting  down with a computer to file  details of that job, while  everyone else on the crew waits for  that task to be fullfilled before proceeding to the next work order.
It may or may not be as simple. But whatever it is ,it will not be the same.
A second work order might be forming a foundation pad for the Petch House in Lambert Wilson Park behind the senior's centre.
A project not likely to be repeated any time soon. 
What use could possibly be made of a computer file on that.project?.
These are the things I understood about the Maximo software program .We paid $444,611. for it  in November 2011 and another $38,000. for in February 12th 2012. With previous expenditures ,a total of almost $788.000 plus.
Even before  I was aware of the Region's experience with the same program. I could not support it.
Now that I know about the Region ,frankly my friends, my heart sinks. 
It's not a good thing to know you were right when being right means
 a bad,very bad outlook for the  town's taxpayers. 
The Region is five yeasr into trying to make this program work. 
In their fifth year, we launched ourselves into the same predicament
The Region is obviously too far in to extricate itself.
I fear  we are too. 
It isn't as if we could not have made ourselves aware of the problems.