3 GaComputers O'Boyle

Customers are turned away from the crowded waiting room at the state Motor Vehicle Commission office in Newark after a computer crash in July 2013. The MVC has been trying for 9 years to replace its old main frame computer system which failed four times this year. (John O'Boyle | The Star-Ledger)

When the computers that run the state Motor Vehicle Commission's 39 agencies were new, Duran Duran topped the charts and the Chevy Cavalier was a best-selling car.



Thirty years later, a driver who wants to register and title that Cavalier as a classic car will deal with the same computer system that processed the vehicles paperwork when it was new.



The MVC's computer system has been blamed for failing and shutting down motor vehicle agencies statewide four times this year, sending drivers away empty-handed.

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For the past 10 years, the MVC has unsuccessfully tried to retire the old COBOL computer system with a new system, dubbed MATRX. The original plan was to have MATRX running in three years, said Mairin Bellack, an MVC spokeswoman.



"This has burdened us since the day we walked in," said Raymond Martinez, MVC chief administrator. "We inherited it. I believe it was a snake pit from the start."



MATRX was proposed in 2005, scoped out in 2006, advertised in 2007 and a contract awarded in 2008. Since then the project has been delayed while costs have increased. The MATRX contract bounced to three vendors, with HP being the last company to inherit it from EDS, a predecessor company, MVC officials said.



"All through that time there have been delays on part of the vendor, (such as) change orders and complications that, without them, this project would have moved forward," Martinez told a senate panel. "It generated two complaints from the MVC to treasury on contractor rules."



This year, the state Attorney General negotiated a $30 million settlement with HP. In the deal, the state kept $14 million, HP kept $16 million for work they'd already done. The state also refused to pay another $5 million in change orders.

"We suspended work with HP in July to focus on meeting some federal requirements we had to meet and then we negotiated a settlement and separation occurred in January," he said.



New Jersey's experience isn't unique. Motor vehicle departments in five other states, including Vermont, cancelled contracts with HP to do similar replacement work of an old mainframe computer system. In December 2012, Vermont officials announced a $8.37 million settlement with HP for a project that started in 2006 to replace that states 35-year-old DMV computer system.



"HP appreciates the changing needs of the New Jersey Motor Vehicle Commission and the opportunity for a mutually agreeable conclusion to the contract." Said William R. Ritz, a Hewlett-Packard spokesman.



The $14 million the MVC got in the settlement will be applied to continuing "modernization" of the computer system and doing priority work to meet state and federal mandates. What the MVC got for the remaining $16 million of the contract includes document scanning upgrades, new software and hardware and servers which the agency is currently using.



That work will also provide the technological infrastructure that the MVC can build on to move more functions from the main frame and to a web-based system, Bellack said.



MVC officials are planning what additional work will be done beyond this fiscal year, she said



"In review, what they did is not wasted. Over the course of the project, we got value for the balance of the system." Martinez said. "We regret this project went on so long."



Larry Higgs may be reached at lhiggs@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @commutinglarry. Find NJ.com on Facebook.

