What did you do with the existing IT contracts?

We went through them all. There were some major companies we were dealing with. It was very obvious that we didn't get a great deal. So we went back to those companies and said if they wouldn't renegotiate with us, we'd let the contracts run out and we wouldn't do business with them again.

We had purchasing agreements to buy PCs from four or five different computer hardware vendors. We got the same price whether we bought one PC or 500. Any buys over 10 machines, we put out to bid and we saved millions on that. We decided to have a single, standard PC contract. We put that out for bid to select one PC manufacturer to do business with us for the next four years. Dell won it. We just awarded that contract in May, and we've already saved $400,000.

The other thing we did was standardize our configurations. We have a configuration that's kind of medium to low end, and if you want something above that, you have to give a justification. We did the same thing for servers. Dell won that contract, too.

Just with our contract renegotiations, we saved somewhere in excess of $10 million. That's in addition to the $14 million we saved in people and contractors.

What about the Indiana Telecommunications Network?

We inherited Intellinet (the state agency that oversaw the Indiana Telecommunications Network), which was in trouble. They set prices for T-1s and managed circuits. When we first got here, a T-1 was $1,100. We worked with the service providers and got that down to around $700. Then we went out for a new bid. AT&T won it. We just awarded them a four-year, $22 million contract. Now T-1s are $400. We saved the state $1.5 million to $2 million on the network, plus we're giving them redundancy that's built in.

Was it hard to make so many changes that quickly?

The only way to do it was to change the majority of the management team. Of the 30-some managers from the past administration, maybe four are still here. The rest are gone. It's not easy to recruit really good people to state government. We found a lot of good young people. We told them they'd get lots of experience, and that we'd help them be successful. As a result, we have a lot of really good young managers who are very intelligent and learning daily. Now they know how to negotiate with suppliers to get the best deal. They've brought a lot of enthusiasm and new ideas.

What was the reaction of the rank-and-file IT staff to the new management team?

Most of them welcomed the change and said why the heck didn't this happen sooner. One of the things we did was establish a strategic plan for the IT operations group. We refresh it every six months. Part of the idea with any strategic plan is to get your organization to understand where you are trying to go.

One of the key success factors for us is communications. With each of the agencies, we have [regular] meetings where we go through the status of everything and we document it. We're tracking everything. Every week, I get a status report of every project that's going on and when it will be done. Our goal is to be the best state-run IT organization in the United States.

What's next on your agenda?

We're consolidating data centers. We just finished Workforce Development, and we've got five more planned out over the next six months. We had seven data centers, and now we will have one with a remote disaster recovery site. We'll save around $1.5 million to $2 million more by consolidating all the data centers.