House appropriators for the second year in a row are declining to propose new funding for the General Services Administration’s (GSA) Technology Modernization Fund (TMF) – leaving the question of new funding up to either Senate appropriators and/or a novel plan that the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) released in June.
OMB’s plan would allow GSA to claw back money from other agencies in order to put more funding into TMF’s coffers.
The TMF was created in 2017 under the Modernizing Government Technology (MGT) Act to provide money to Federal civilian agencies to undertake tech modernization projects. TMF received a one-time $1 billion cash infusion in 2021, but since then has spent down much of its funding and survived on leaner appropriations.
The annual Financial Services and General Government (FSGG) appropriations bill has been the historical home for new TMF funding proposals, and the fiscal year 2026 version of that bill released by the House Appropriations Committee has no funding line for TMF – in a repeat of last year’s House bill which zeroed out appropriations for TMF for FY 2025.
The Senate version of the FY 2025 FSGG appropriations bill included $25 million of new funding for TMF.
The Senate has yet to unveil its FY 2026 FSGG bill.
Outside the regular annual appropriations process, TMF could end up receiving new money – as much as $100 million per year – under the proposal released by OMB last month and explained by GSA in a budget document also released in June.
“The FY 2026 budget does not include new discretionary appropriated funding for the TMF,” GSA said. “Instead, President’s FY 2026 budget request includes a governmentwide general provision that will allow GSA, with approval of OMB, to collect unobligated balances of expired discretionary funds from other agencies and bring that funding into the TMF.”
GSA also said the proposal would simultaneously alleviate “the burden on the Financial Services and General Government Appropriations Subcommittee” in Congress that considers annual appropriations for TMF.
OMB issued a lengthy appendix to President Donald Trump’s proposed FY 2026 budget that details that provision.
According to the appendix, the provision would allow the head of each agency to “transfer or reimburse” money to the TMF “provided that the total cumulative amount of funds transferred or reimbursed each fiscal year may not exceed $100,000,000.”
The appendix explains that the MGT Act, which created the TMF, authorizes the GSA administrator to transfer appropriations and collections in the TMF to other agencies “as recommended by the TMF Board.” The TMF Board is chaired by Federal Chief Information Officer Greg Barbaccia.