Despite employing 225 full-time workers, the District’s Office of the Chief Technology Officer has laid out more than $4 million so far this fiscal year outsourcing support for its wireless and broadband systems.

The office, known by its acronym OCTO, “has some of the work force required to perform long-term IT maintenance and services,” said Christina Fleps, the agency’s general counsel. But it generally looks to short-term outside help “to build infrastructure, programs and applications,” what Fleps called a “best practice.”