Input: GSA IT budget will grow through 2010

The General Services Administration’s information technology budget and contract spending will continue to increase through fiscal 2010, according an Input market forecast.

In fiscal 2005, GSA’s total IT budget reached $531 million, with contract spending at $448 million, said Payton Smith, Input’s director of public-sector market analysis, at a luncheon today in Washington, D.C.

Smith said the budget increases in the next five years will reflect a moderate annual growth rate of about 4 percent through fiscal 2010. The budget will reach $627 million, with contract spending at $545 million by that year, he said.

Scott Orbach, president of EZGSA in Bethesda, Md., called the forecast credible but said he disagreed with some of it.

“As IT gets cheaper and cheaper, it’s almost hard to see how they would spend more,” Orbach said about GSA’s IT budget expansion.

As the needed IT equipment becomes commodities, prices will fall, causing the cost per user to fall, Orbach said. His company is experiencing this trend in its IT declining budget.

However, Orbach agreed with Smith’s assessment of an increase in GSA’s contract spending through fiscal 2010. He said it seems consistent with overall growth and the current economy.