I'm made this point several times and will do again:

The City never reports against original timelines, budgets and scope. They merely keep changing the reports to show the latest projections, which are continually shifting. For example, the river projects are now labeled as complete but nowhere on current reports does it show there were to be a whole list of things -- like a grandstand and windscreen -- that just got cut. That is also not reflected in the budget.

I've never seen this done in business before. Imagine being a project manager and reporting monthly to your boss and never addressing the original promises made when the project was approved.

The only way to figure this out is to keep the original documents then do your own comparison and the contrast is startling. And as near as I can determine, this happens on all large City projects, not just MAPS 3.

The net effect is that everything always seems to be on schedule and on budget because they merely change the numbers and dates and the amount of work being done to match what actually is happening, rather than reporting against what was originally promised. Not only is it a terrible business practice, it also means there is no way to recognize and correct chronic problems like consistently under budgeting and being hugely unrealistic on timing. Not coincidentally, almost every major City project is way over budget (we just cut way back on the amount of work to be delivered) and time. Then for each subsequent project, we make the same mistakes over and over and find something new to blame like utilities or weather or things we should be able to figure out and make contingencies for in advance.

This goes largely unnoticed because it's very easy to get changes approved by just cutting items and revising timelines. The City Manager writes up a memo, City Council approves (without the benefit of seeing what was originally agreed to in the first place, often years if not decades prior). And the local media just publish what the City tells them without verifying or asking educated questions.


I'll pull together an update based on original promises and you'll see what I mean.