PORTLAND (AP) – Secretary of State Dan Gwadosky will spell out to skeptical lawmakers this week a plan to complete a new computer system for Maine’s motor vehicle records.

After spending $11 million, falling more than a year behind schedule and dismissing the contractor, Gwadosky faces tough questions about what went wrong with the Bureau of Motor Vehicles project.

Gwadosky is scheduled to meet with the Legislature’s Transportation Committee on Thursday.

The BMV, part of Gwadosky’s department, has been working for more than four years to move its huge database – including 1.4 million vehicle registrations and 900,000 drivers’ licenses – off of a 30-year-old mainframe and onto a more convenient and efficient Web-based computer system.

In 2001 the state awarded an $11.4 million contract to Boston-based Keane Inc., which agreed to create the system by December 2002. The company has so far been paid $7.3 million, and is negotiating with the state over how much of the system it actually built. State officials say it is about 50 percent complete, while Keane officials say it is closer to being completed.

Gwadosky plans to hire outside experts to help the BMV staff complete the project in-house and audit its progress. He also says the bureau will finish the system in phases using $5.2 million that already has been budgeted for the project.

Angry that they did not hear about the problems until last month, lawmakers have demanded more information and regular updates from Gwadosky. They also placed $200,000 in the pending transportation budget so they could hire an independent expert who will investigate and monitor the project and report directly back to them.

“(It’s) just so we have somebody other than the Secretary of State keeping an eye on their work,” said Rep. Boyd Marley, D-Portland, a member of the committee.

Marley and others hope the BMV’s costly computer glitch will lead to reforms in state government and more technical assistance for state agencies that have been left to fend for themselves on multimillion-dollar information technology projects.

“We don’t have any checks and balances to make sure we’re getting our money’s worth for the taxpayers,” Marley said.

AP-ES-04-12-04 0217EDT