Governor Kim Reynolds is responding to critics of her decision hire Amazon to manage all state computer systems and networks — and to outsource state government IT services.
Governor Reynolds announced Tuesday that Cognizant Government Solutions will provide IT services for state agencies and all state websites and executive branch data will be moved to Amazon’s cloud environment. Democrats say IT specialists in state government will lose valuable state benefits and Zach Lahn, the Republican nominee for governor, also criticized the moves due to Amazon’s and Cognizant’s record of hiring H-1B visa holders.
According to data evaluated by the National Foundation for American Policy that was published on Forbes.com, Amazon got approval to hire over 4644 H-1B visa holders in the last federal budget year, more than any other US company, and Cognizant ranked 8th. Lahn said on social media that if he’s elected governor, “a major criteria for competitiveness for any state contract will be what percentage of the workforce is made up of Iowans.”
Reynolds, in a statement released today, said Cognizant is fully committed to hiring an Iowa-based workforce for state government work and at no point during negotiations did Cognizant or the governor consider employing H-1B visa holders. Reynolds also said Cognizant has guaranteed to offer “equal or better employment” to the 200 state workers who are providing IT services today.
Yesterday, the governor said the contracts with Cognizant and Amazon would save the state over half a billion dollars in the next decade, but she did not announce how much the state would be paying the companies. Reynolds said IT services are “not a core function of state government” and she said Amazon will provide “an efficient, flexible and secure service” for state computer networks and data held in the executive branch.
