Estimate puts congressional spending on tech at $288 Million

Congress spent at least $288 million on technology services in 2014, according to an analysis by the OpenGov Foundation. The group billed the analysis as one of the best publicly available tallies of tech spending from Congress, despite many of the roadblocks in tallying up bills based on sometimes vague disbursement forms.

The group said many aspects of congressional communications and staffing need to be updated to make use of better technology. House spending totaled at least $182 million that year, while Senate spending was at about $106 million. Many of the top recipients of House spending are not well-known names, including telecom and computer equipment companies and constituent correspondence firms like CDW Government Inc., Novitex and iConstituent LLC. Verizon and AT&T, better-known wireless providers, also ranked high on the list of top recipients. Verizon received more than $8 million from the House, while AT&T received about $6.5 million.