The District’s new technology chief is restructuring the city government’s high-priced data and telecommunications system, laying off contractors and senior managers to try to get costs under control.

Upon joining the government in May, Chief Technology Officer Vivek Kundra immediately focused on DC-NET as a “financial problem,” he said Monday. The District-owned voice, data and video system should be self-sustaining, he said, financed by the agencies that use it.