Gov. Kim Reynolds announced Tuesday that she is outsourcing all of the state’s executive branch information technology (IT) work to an out-of-state corporation, eliminating the jobs of approximately 200 people who work for the Iowa Division of Information Technology. Cognizant Government Solutions, based in New Jersey, will provide the IT services, and the state’s data will be transferred from the servers and data centers Iowa currently uses to cloud storage provided by Amazon Web Services (AWS).
“This change is an investment in security, agility, and long‑term value for Iowans,” Reynolds said in a written statement. “By moving to the cloud, we can protect data more effectively, improve service reliability, and respond quickly as public needs evolve. This transition also allows us to adopt a more flexible business model — shifting from large, upfront capital expenditures to scalable services that help the state operate more sustainably for the future.”
The governor called the outsourcing of IT jobs the latest action in her efforts to restructure the state government in order to improve its efficiency and effectiveness. According to Reynolds, outsourcing the IT jobs and migrating the state’s data to AWS will save “more than $525 million over 10 years.”
The governor’s office did not release any analyses backing up that savings claim, or studies about how the change is expected to impact the daily routine of activity at state agencies. The governor’s office did not provide copies of the contracts or disclose how much the state will pay Cognizant or AWS.
“We’ve seen this movie before, Iowa,” Iowa Senate Minority Leader Janice Weiner said in an online video responding to Reynolds’ announcement. “And it doesn’t end well.”
Weiner, an Iowa City Democrat, compared the outsourcing of the IT jobs to previous decisions to privatize state services.
“Gov. Branstad privatized Medicaid by executive order,” Weiner said. “It was supposed to save the taxpayers money. That hasn’t worked out so well for Iowans. It’s reduced services and cost us more.”
Weiner also cited the Reynolds administration’s decision last year to privatize health services provided to prisoners by the Iowa Department of Corrections (IDOC).
“Guess what?” Weiner said. “They concluded it would cost us more, so they scrapped the project.”
The decision to outsource IDOC’s health services was reversed four months after it was announced. The project faced strong pushback from various groups, including many of the 300 healthcare worker whose jobs would have been eliminated. Sixty of those workers quit after the privatization plan was announced.
According to AFSCME Council 61, the union representing the IT workers whose jobs are being outsourced to Cognizant, it was not informed of the governor’s plan before it was announced.
“The workers who built, maintained and secured these systems deserved more than a press release considering the dramatic impact this will have on the lives of hardworking Iowans and their families,” AFSCME Council 61 President Todd Copley said in a statement.
AFSCME criticized the governor for not providing any evidence to support her claim that the state will save $595 million over 10 years by privatizing its IT services.
“Iowans deserve transparency about what costs will be incurred when critical government functions are transferred to multinational corporations,” according to AFSCME.
In its press release about outsourcing, the governor’s office said the 200 state IT workers losing their jobs “will receive individualized, competitive job offers from Cognizant Government Solutions later this month.” Even if the “competitive job offers” pay the same as their current jobs, the workers “will lose their IPERS benefits they’ve spent years accumulating,” Sen. Weiner pointed out in her video.
Rob Sand, the Democratic nominee for governor, said on social media, “It should always be a priority to save tax dollars, but Reynolds needs to show us the math. There must be accountability and transparency for the hundreds of workers out of a job, and Iowans deserve answers to questions on data security and what guarantees have been made to ensure jobs aren’t shipped overseas.”
Zach Lahn was tagged in an X post by a group that opposes hiring H1-B visas holders to replace American tech work. The group quoted a post by another account that claimed Cognizant was a major employer of H1-B visa holders, who the company uses to replace American workers.
“As Governor, state contracts will not go to H1B outsourcing firms,” Lahn replied. “To go further, a major criteria for competitiveness for any state contact will be what percentage of the workforce is made up of Iowans. Want to be competitive? Hire more Iowans.”
On Wednesday, Gov. Reynolds issued another press release about outsourcing the state’s IT jobs. The governor did not respond to concerns over eliminating 200 jobs, beyond repeating that Cognizant will issue employment offers to workers whose jobs are eliminated, or to the concerns over the lack of transparency surrounding her privatization plans. But she did address the issue of H1-B workers.
“The state of Iowa and Cognizant Government Solutions have been fully committed from the onset to employing an Iowa-based workforce throughout the duration of our engagement,” Reynolds said. “At no point during our negotiations was it even considered to employ H-1B visa holders.”
The governor’s first press release featured a quote from Saurabh Mehta, the head of Cognizant Government Solutions’ Business Unit, in which he said the company is “very excited to join hands with State of Iowa and Amazon Web Services on this technology modernization and transformation program,” but did disclose any information about how Cognizant will make its staffing decisions.
“Cognizant Government Solutions will begin providing these services for the state beginning August 3, 2026,” according to the governor’s Tuesday press release.
