U.S. agencies plan to close 373 data centers — including five in Colorado — by the end of 2012, terminating contracts and moving federal employees at the centers to new jobs.
The Obama administration is decommissioning the hardware and software at the centers and will terminate contracts with companies that operate the facilities for the government, Vivek Kundra, U.S. chief information officer, said in a call with reporters Wednesday.
The closures are part of a previously announced plan to shutter 800 of the government’s more than 2,000 data centers by 2015, which the White House estimates will save $3 billion. Agencies have closed 81 data centers since the initiative started in February 2010 and will next month release details of savings realized so far, Kundra said.
Cost savings will not result from laying off federal employees, as “part of what we’re doing is making sure that government employees are retooled,” Kundra said. Some contract employees may be dismissed because “where we see duplication and where we see no need for the contracts” being used to run and support the centers, “they shall be terminated.”
In Colorado, the Office of Management and Budget has already shut down Department of Justice and Department of the Interior data centers in Centennial and Fort Collins, respectively. Two others will close by the end of this year.
The data centers to close next year in the metro area are Department of the Interior and Department of Homeland Security centers in the Denver Federal Center, the Department of Agriculture center in Lakewood and a Small Business Administration center in downtown Denver. Another Agriculture Department data center will close in Fort Collins.
Denver Federal Center spokeswoman Sally Mayberry could not determine the number of employees who would be affected by the closures.
Denver Post staff writer Justin T. Hilley contributed to this report.
