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Florida is still paying SunPass contractor, even after officials said they would stop

 
Cars pass through the Sun Pass toll lanes at the Sunshine Skyway Bridge toll booth plaza in St. Petersburg. [EVE EDELHEIT | Times]
Cars pass through the Sun Pass toll lanes at the Sunshine Skyway Bridge toll booth plaza in St. Petersburg. [EVE EDELHEIT | Times]
Published July 20, 2018

Florida has not stopped paying the SunPass contractor responsible for the tolling system's outage, even after transportation officials said the state would suspend all payments.

In a letter on Monday, FDOT secretary Mike Dew said the state would not pay Conduent State & Local Solutions, Inc. until all pending toll charges are fully processed.

RELATED COVERAGE: Florida suspends payment to SunPass contractor until tolling system is fixed

But a day after Dew sent the letter, FDOT paid Conduent more than $265,000, according to Chief Financial Officer Jimmy Patronis' website. On Thursday, FDOT paid Conduent almost $10,000 more.

The second payment was tied to a different ten-year contract with Conduent worth more than $13 million that was signed in April 2017. According to the CFO's website, that contract is for Conduent to provide "information technology consultation services" as a "toll equipment contractor: — the same service as the first contract.

Since the tolling system malfunctioned during an update in early June, many SunPass users have had difficulty using the customer service website, call line and app, and have seen wrong charges posted to their accounts — or no charges posted at all, despite passing through toll booths. Conduent is working through a backlog of at least 100 million charges that weren't processed.

RELATED COVERAGE: SunPass is a mess. Florida could have seen it coming.

Even though its tolling problems still haven't been resolved, the state amended the second contract with Conduent on July 1, awarding the company about $100,000 more — paid in $10,000 monthly increments — to install new tolling software, hardware and equipment.

FDOT officials did not respond for comment.

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Contact Hannah Denham at hdenham@tampabay.com. Follow hannah_denham1.