Homeland Security IT spending could top $2 billion

Spending on information technology at the proposed Department of Homeland Security could exceed $2.1 billion in fiscal 2003, according to market research firm Input Inc.

That level of spending would make the department the fourth largest consumer of information technology among civilian agencies, said Payton Smith, manager of public sector analysis at the Chantilly, Va., company. Only the departments of Treasury and Transportation and NASA would spend more.

The analysis is based on the fiscal 2003 budget requests for the agencies that will be rolled into the new department, Smith said. The agencies include the Immigration and Naturalization Service, the Coast Guard, the Secret Service, the Customs Service, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service and the Transportation Security Administration.

"In that respect, it could be a conservative estimate, because it doesn't take into account spending in the program areas of the agencies. So actual IT spending could be higher," Smith said.

But the spending by the department isn't really new spending but a reorganization of spending. "So I'm not sure how much of an impact it will have on total IT spending," Smith said.