used to be at delta it took ceo approval for any expenditure more than something like $10K.

I'm sure that level has been elevated...but in any budgetary proposal of significance its pretty safe to assume there were expenditure level options integrated for consideration.

Hopefully there were also explanatory risk analysis to the operation for each of those levels of economic investments. Understanding this business and managements fanatical reluctance to spend anything on stuff that doesn't directly put butts in seats, or bucks in their wallets.....could be the IT guy is only dealing with the reality of which option was selected for IT infrastructure investment.

OTOH....he could just be a Homer....