A stimulus project to replace an aging Social Security Administration data center is more than six months behind schedule due to a disagreement over where to locate the upgraded computer facility. ...
The government planned to purchase land for the facility in March, according to the initial project plans. But SSA and GSA officials postponed the site selection, amid questions from House Ways and Means Committee members and Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, about the cost efficiency of using stimulus money for new property rather than taking advantage of available space on SSA's campus in Woodlawn, Md. ...SSA pushed back site selection to September so GSA could thoroughly study the Woodlawn vicinity as a possible location, according to a revised Recovery Act plan Social Security issued in June. GSA now anticipates buying the property in December, according to the document. Substantial construction should be complete by October 2013.
The updated plan states that, after a formal review, SSA and staff from the House Ways and Means Committee, which had requested the cost-benefit analysis, agreed GSA should continue searching for a site off-campus.
But on Wednesday, an aide for Grassley, the ranking member of the Finance Committee, said the senator still is concerned about the government spending money to buy land, when property on Social Security's campus could be reconfigured to function as a new data center instead.
Sep 10, 2010
Data Center Delays
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2 comments:
This is really typical of Senators like Grassley and their over-paid staff. This should be a technical decision, based on criteria appropriate to placing a highly sensitive data center in a safe, secure location. It's not about saving a penny here (or even a million there). Thanks to these sorts of intercessions from politicians, the bureaucracy gets a bad name for indecision. It ain't their fault.
I had thought it would be sited "off campus" as a security measure, so that if something happened to the Office of Central Operations the system would survive.
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