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IT contract to benefit two counties
Virginia
Business
January 2006 Virginia’s decision to award Northrop Grumman
Corp. a 10-year, $2 billion contract to modernize the
state’s information technology system will change
the fortunes of two very different Virginia counties
where the company plans to set up operations. They are
Chesterfield County, a Richmond suburb, and Russell County,
a rural area in Southwest Virginia still struggling to
find a new economic engine after the decline of its mining
industry.
Northrop Grumman will take over the computer maintenance
and application development services that have been performed
by state employees of the Virginia Information Technologies
Agency (VITA). More than 900 VITA workers have the option
to take a 4 percent pay increase and a signing bonus
in exchange for leaving the state to work for Northrop
Grumman. Northrop Grumman, meanwhile, will
make a $270 capital investment in aging IT systems.
Left under VITA, the
same effort would have cost taxpayers that amount plus
another $200 million over the contract period, according
to state estimates. “The cost of not updating and
improving our IT systems made this path obvious,” Gov.
Mark R. Warner said in announcing the arrangement.
In Russell County, Northrop Grumman will create a help
desk and backup data center facility and employ 433 IT
personnel. That news from came just after CGI-AMS, a
major IT consulting company based in Ottawa, announced
that it would be coming to the county with plans to build
a software development and systems integration facility
and hire 300 IT workers. Both companies will make their
homes in the Russell Regional Business Technology Park.
In Chesterfield County Northrop Grumman will be the first
tenant in Meadowville Technology Park. The company will
invest $34.6 million in a 167,000-square-foot operations
center. The move also will include significant pay and
benefits packages for 633 employees. Average salaries
for the workers will be $55,000 per year for technical
jobs and $77,000 per year for managerial positions.
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