Tuesday, Nov. 18, 2014 | 2 a.m.
Their contracts with the state of Nevada are worth millions.
Their offices are based in places like New Jersey, Texas, California and the Midwest.
They are hired to converge government with a world that moves much faster: technology.
Gov. Brian Sandoval and the state’s Board of Examiners last week approved up to $100 million in 20 information technology contracts. According to the board's official announcement, the contractors will "provide assistance in a variety of information technology consulting and technical specialist levels on an hourly basis to state agencies.”
The new contracts highlight a growing trend in state government: hiring the private sector to do public sector IT work.
It’s the way of the future, said Robert Atkinson, president of the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation, a nonpartisan research group in Washington, D.C.
Nationwide, state IT departments have a difficult time hiring. Public service doesn’t offer the Silicon Valley allure.
Government lacks the perks and creative potential of the high-flying tech sector. The staid office buildings come with cubicles, not campuses complete with video games and napping rooms, and the work is important but lacks the potential of launching the next Facebook.
State IT employees also have trouble keeping pace with technological change when they work with outdated software running on aging hardware.
“It’s not Google,” said Doug Robinson, executive director of the National Association of State Chief Information Officers.
State and local governments post recruitment notices but can't find qualified candidates, said state Sen. David Parks, a former director of budget and management for the city of Las Vegas.
And it is likely to become more difficult.
About 30 percent of the nation’s state government IT workforce is eligible to retire, Robinson said. It will be 50 percent in five years, he said.
“There is a definite drain of folks. Some call it the silver tsunami in state government,” he said.
Parks said low salaries in the public sector don't help.
The state's minimum IT salaries are 25 percent below the private sector, and the maximum salaries are 8 percent below, according to a 2012 state study.
The federal government and states have historically shipped out work for large-scale projects, such as health care reform or defense programs.
But the scope of work is now broader.
In Nevada, the state government's move from public to private IT workers has been at least 20 years in the making, said Linda DeLoach, a management analyst in the state purchasing division.
The National Association of State Chief Information Officers cites a 39 percent increase since 2010 in the number of U.S. states and territories outsourcing IT work. More than 80 percent of states are outsourcing “some or all of its tech services,” the group said in a report.
Beyond big tech projects, states are also hiring contractors to maintain their hardware and software, Robinson said.
They are scrapping internal email programs for Google mail and ditching servers for the cloud.
Nevada is seeking bids to replace its state-managed email and will be looking to update more of its IT infrastructure.
Pennsylvania recently outsourced its payroll system, and a county in Maine switched to a virtualized server and cut its budget by 40 percent.
How the Nevada contracts work
Just because Nevada's Board of Examiners approved $100 million in IT contracts doesn't mean it will spend all that money.
The new contracts allocate up to $5 million for each company but that money will only be paid if the state needs services from that company. The contracts were competitively bid and about 70 companies applied. Most of the vendors won’t reach the $5 million threshold, said Lesley Henrie, an assistant to the director of the Department of Administration.
Here's a list of the 20 companies approved last week by the Board of Examiners. Each contract is for up to $5 million.
1. 22nd Century Technologies Inc: $5 million
2. ACRO Service Corp.: $5 million
3. Analysts International Corp.: $5 million
4. CRI Advantage LLC: $5 million
5. Chandra Technologies Inc.: $5 million
6. Experis US Inc.: $5 million
7. Genuent USA LLC: $5 million
8. Guidesoft Inc. DBA Knowledge Services: $5 million
9. International Projects Consultancy Services Inc.: $5 million
10. KBTS Technologies Inc.: $5 million
11. Link Tech LLC: $5 million
12. Millenium Integrated Services 2000 Inc.: $5 million
13. Novalink Solutions LLC: $5 million
14. QA Technologies: $5 million
15. Rose International: $5 million
16. Science Applications International Corp.: $5 million
17. Solutionstream LLC: $5 million
18. Teksystems: $5 million
19. Visionary Integration Professionals LLC: $5 million
20. 13Tech Data Solutions Inc.: $5 million
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