Citing figures released by the city solicitor, Philadelphia CIO Terry Phillis said this week that the city also has signed an amended contract with Oracle in which the company agreed to pay or forgive costs totaling US$6.9 million as part of the .

In addition, Phillis said that a team of managers from three city agencies has been created to oversee the billing system project. And he will directly oversee the integration of the new billing software in an effort to better control costs. "My head's going to be on the block anyway, so I'd rather have control of my own destiny than have it in the hands of a third party," Phillis said.

Work on Project Ocean was suspended in October 2005 after the city had spent $18 million -- twice what it initially expected to -- without getting a working system. Last September, officials said they had reached an agreement in principle with Oracle that would let the city install unidentified third-party utility billing software at no extra cost.

Phillis became acting CIO in September after predecessor Dianah Neff left to , and he was given the job on a permanent basis in late November. This week, he said the city plans to use Basis2, an off-the-shelf billing and revenue management package developed by Prophecy International Pty., an Oracle business partner in Adelaide, Australia.

Most of the custom-built software that Oracle developed for the billing system "will be thrown out," and Oracle will have "no part" in the revived project, Phillis said. He added, though, that Basis2 will run on top of an Oracle database and work with a set of Oracle's E-Business Suite back-office applications that are used for a variety of city functions, including its finance operations.