Georgia to Outsource All IT

It's a bad day to be an IT professional in Georgia, where state Governor Sonny Perdue has announced that he is moving all of the state's IT over to the private sector.

The move—what Perdue calls the most ambitious outsourcing over services in the state's history—is expected to result in pink slips for about 200 state employees.

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Perdue told a press conference Dec. 11 that Georgia's executive branch is currently spending more than $617 million each year on IT and that his new plan will consolidate the 11 state agencies that make up most of the branch's IT spending.

Of the 1,100 positions that will be affected, more than 20 percent belong to workers who will be eligible for retirement in the next 12 months, after which their positions will be eliminated. Others will be shifted to the private sector firms that win the IT contracts.

Yet another 200 will be laid off.

"Maintaining the status quo is not an option," said Perdue at the conference. "Technology is the underpinning for a well-run, modern enterprise. My vision is for Georgia to lead the nation's state governments in IT enterprise management and the innovative use of technology."

This announcement follows an assessment which found large gaps in the state's IT network security.

"I believe we need to stop paying for what I have determined to be inefficient and ineffective technology," said Perdue.

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