The UT system is spending $90 million on information technology each year, which is $10 million to $20 million more than similar institutions in the U.S., officials said.
Scott Studham, chief information officer at UT, said UT spends 5.4 percent of its gross revenue on IT costs. Other institutions spend 4.3 percent of their gross revenue.
“We are duplicating a lot of services,” he said. “People are doing the same thing.”
Mr. Studham, who spoke to the UT board research committee this morning, said the system has to improve IT efficiency.
He plans to begin issuing a report card to campuses that identify duplication of services. Campuses and departments will be forced to stop duplications over the next few years.
“We have 100 different e-mail servers,” he said.
There are more than 750 people employees in IT throughout the system.
UT board members were angry about the IT spending.
“We don’t care whose fault it is. We want it fixed,” said UT board Vice Chairman Jim Murphy.
In other business, Mr. Studham said information security is an issue for the system.
“Security is not adequate for what we need,” he said.
He said employees are working to secure more than 30,000 devices.
Joan Garrett has been a staff writer for the Times Free Press since August 2007. Before becoming a general assignment writer for the paper, she wrote about business, higher education and the court systems. She grew up the oldest of five sisters near Birmingham, Ala., and graduated with a master's and bachelor's degrees in journalism from the University of Alabama. Before landing her first full-time job as a reporter at the Times Free Press, she ...
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