Houston recently hired consulting firm TPI to help the city explore aspects of its technology infrastructure it might consolidate or outsource, according to Don Flores, partner and director of State and Local Government Services for TPI.

"They are looking at how to reduce costs to match up those internal costs with the declining tax base," Flores said.

Data centers will be one obvious infrastructure component headed for change, said Flores.

"There are somewhere in the neighborhood of 16-plus data centers within the city of Houston that can be from the size of a conference room to a large 10,000-square-foot kind of arrangement," Flores said.

The vendor plans to show Houston three general scenario options. One would show IT staff how they might consolidate IT totally with in-house resources. Another focuses on outsourcing as the primary vehicle. The third would offer a hybrid approach of the other two options, according to Flores.

Given the highly publicized IT outsourcing problems in Indiana, Virginia and Texas, it will be interesting to see what, if any, components of its infrastructure Houston decides to outsource.