Treasury to cut its IT staff by 40 percent
Connecting state and local government leaders
The Treasury Department intends to cut nearly 40 percent of its IT staff and outsource some management functions.
The Treasury Department intends to cut nearly 40 percent of its IT staff and outsource some management functions.
About 75 jobs will be eliminated in the coming months, reducing the CIO staff from 200 to 125, said Mayi Canales, the department's acting CIO and assistant deputy secretary for information systems. Employees affected by the move will be reassigned within Treasury, she said.
The department will use the Transportation Security Administration's model for developing its plans, Canales said. TSA this month awarded a $1 billion contract to Unisys Corp. to build its IT infrastructure and run its systems.
Treasury has begun identifying outsourcing opportunities and expects to release a solicitation this fall for telecommunications services, Web development and seat management, she said.
In addition to its outsourcing effort, Treasury is focusing on three other major projects that it wants to implement this year, Canales said.
First, the department will develop an enterprise IT model to eliminate the duplication of effort among its agencies.
Treasury also will establish a directory with the name, office and e-mail address of all 130,000 of its employees, using Microsoft Active Directory.
Next month, Treasury will issue smart cards to 9,000 employees for a pilot test involving physical access to Treasury facilities and to the department's systems, Canales said.
Under the four-month Electronic Treasury Enterprise Cards pilot, workers from six Treasury organizations'the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, the Bureau of Engraving and Printing, the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center, the IRS, the Secret Service and departmental offices'will get cards.
Treasury turned to the General Services Administration's Federal Technology Service for help with the project. In July, FTS awarded a $1.4 million task order for cards to Maximus Inc. of Reston, Va., under its Smart Access Card Common ID program.
The cards, which hold data in 32-bit chips, will use fingerprints as biometric identifiers, said Mike Brooks, director of GSA's Center for Smart Cards Solutions. Treasury has not determined what kinds of database it will use to store the card information, Brooks added.
The department will analyze the results of the pilot and then decided whether to issue cards to all employees.
NEXT STORY: Justice makes case for new architecture