Federal Chief Information Officer Tony Scott has said government agencies spend more than $3 billion on maintenance contracts for information technology products that are nearing retirement and no longer have available spare parts, service or patches, Federal News Radio reported Wednesday.
Scott told Jason Miller in an interview at the ACT-IAC Management of Change Conference that IT vendors helped him gauge government contract spending on network, infrastructure, storage, computer and other technologies.
“When we came up with this $3 billion, it was through some of these mechanisms that we said this is an appropriate number,” said Scott.
“If anything, it might underestimate the real demand, but you have to start somewhere and this felt like it was a good place to start.”
Scott appeared before a House Oversight and Government Reform Committee hearing Wednesday on the proposed $3.1 billion IT modernization fund, the report said.
Miller notes that Scott could use the maintenance spending data to back up efforts to update federal IT.
