Smarter Gov Tech, Stronger MerITocracy
IT

Federal Inspectors General have the crucial task of agency oversight, often handling that job for large agencies while operating on relatively small budgets. To keep up with their responsibilities amid the COVID-19 pandemic, IG offices have had to leverage new technologies – and old technologies in new ways – over the past year-plus, IG officials explained today. […]

census

Five members of the House Oversight and Reform Committee are pressing the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) and the General Services Administration (GSA) to develop a plan for prioritizing tech projects that are ripe for tackling with the $1 billion provided to the Technology Modernization Fund (TMF) under the American Rescue Plan Act. […]

supply chain

A group of communications technology trade groups urged Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas and Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo in an April 12 letter to stick by what they called the Federal government’s “longstanding commitment” to use industry-led standards and best practices to deal with cybersecurity and supply chain security issues facing the information communications technology (ICT) sector. […]

broadband

Have you ever wondered just how fast your broadband service really is? The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) issued a press release today reiterating that it wants the public to find out the answer to that question by downloading its “FCC Speed App.” The app allows consumers to measure the speed of their mobile and in-home broadband networks, while also contributing data to the FCC’s Measuring Broadband America program. […]

federal workforce worker hired-min

The Office of Personnel Management (OPM) is launching the Federal Workforce Competency Initiative (FWCI) to identify key skills needed to successfully perform in a variety of Federal jobs and develop a competency database. […]

President Biden’s fiscal year 2022 request for discretionary funding sent to Congress on April 9 would line up the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), the National Science Foundation (NSF), and the National Institutes of Health (NIH) for substantial budget increases that include significant amounts for tech-related spending. […]

President Biden
Robotic Process Automation

The General Services Administration’s (GSA) Alliant 2 Governmentwide Acquisition Contract (GWAC) has had a lot of success in providing IT solutions to both Federal agencies and industry, and GSA experts said today they expect to see increased AI and automation tech going forward. […]

Data

Krista Kinnard, chief of emerging technologies at the Department of Labor (DoL), said this week that her agency recently received its second round of Technology Modernization Fund (TMF) funding, and described how DoL is using that money to build out its data management and data analytics capabilities. […]

AI Cyber World machine learning-min

Machine learning (ML), AI, and other advanced technology tools used for detecting fraud at the Department of Health and Human Services’ (HHS) Center for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) are likely to play an increasingly important role in the future of the agency, a CMS official said April 6 at General Dynamics Information Technology’s Emerge 2021 conference on digital modernization. […]

General Services Administration GSA

Amid the widespread misery and dislocation caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, one of the few bright spots has been on the Federal technology front, where the imperative to adopt a range of remote processes including widespread telework has helped push Federal agency operations farther into the future. […]

The Indian Health Service (IHS) is looking for industry help researching, creating, and publishing a new IHS IT Strategic Plan, according to an April 2 request for quotation (RFQ). IHS is looking to have the new IT strategic plan completed before the end of Fiscal Year 2021. […]

IRS

The Internal Revenue Service’s (IRS) Enterprise Digitalization and Case Management Office (EDCMO), as part of the Pilot IRS Program, has shared information on Fiscal Year (FY) 2021 procurement needs with industry partners and intends to issue solicitation for three technology solutions verticals. […]

CISA

The FBI and the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) are warning about advanced persistent threat (APT) actors exploiting a Fortinet vulnerability to gain access to government and other networks, according to an April 2 joint advisory. […]

Electronic Records

Members of the House Committee on Oversight and Reform wrote a letter to Office of Personnel Management (OPM) Acting Director Kathleen McGettigan asking for information on OPM’s policies and procedures for interacting with inspectors general (IG) and cooperating with IG investigations – and suggested they could introduce legislation to update IG authorities. […]

State Department
IRS

The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) is partnering with the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, the Department of Defense and other entities to recognize National Supply Chain Integrity Month and promote a call to action for strengthening global supply chains. […]

Cybersecurity
Cybersecurity

Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas on March 31 previewed six “sprints” planned by DHS and its Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) component throughout 2021 to bolster Federal cybersecurity across a range of areas including ransomware, industrial control system (ICS) security, and workforce development. […]

OPM Office of Personnel Management

The Office of Personnel Management (OPM) has extended Schedule A hiring authority for Federal agencies to hire personnel temporarily to deal with the COVID-19 pandemic, according to a March 29 OPM memo. […]

CISA

The Department of Justice’s (DOJ) Office of Justice Programs (OJP) assigned inaccurate monitoring priority levels for some Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP) grants from fiscal years 2017 through 2019, due in part to issues with the technical processes used to transfer data from the Grants Management System into the Grant Assessment Tool (GAT). […]

Data Center Brainstorm

As agencies have continued to close data centers by participating in the Office of Management and Budget’s (OMB) Data Center Optimization Initiative (DCOI), adapting to new technologies and cybersecurity must be front of mind for these closures, a Government Accountability Office expert said today. […]

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