Politics and blame stand in the way of Federal IT modernization, according to comments made at the House Oversight Committee’s hearing on legacy IT systems. Congressmen said they were disappointed and baffled over the degree of outdated technology in Federal agencies, some in mission critical systems.
MeriTalk spells out the pros and cons of the Office of Management and Budget’s Data Center Optimization Initiative.
Dave Powner, director of IT issues at the Government Accountability Office, profiled the upcoming agency scorecard on FITARA and discussed the Federal government’s continuing difficulties with data center consolidation and legacy IT modernization.
The General Services Administration is pushing Congress to get behind a plan to establish a third service branch, known as the Technology Transformation Service, that would be centered around GSA’s 18F digital service organization and would actively help manage the $3.1 billion IT modernization fund proposed by the White House, MeriTalk has learned.
The Agriculture Department’s Flip Anderson is the only known agency-level FITARA director–an indicator of both the level of importance USDA has assigned to the new law and the resources necessary to manage the Federal Information Technology Acquisition Reform Act compliance correctly.
Federal agencies remain woefully behind on cybersecurity, according to the annual cybersecurity compliance report released Friday by the Office of Management and Budget. During the 2015 fiscal year, Federal agencies reported 77,183 cybersecurity incidents, a 10% increase over the incidents reported in 2014. Though the administration believes this increase may be attributed to improved detection […]
The White House on Wednesday called on all Federal agencies to establish so-called acquisition innovation labs to improve how the government purchases information technology products and services.
To drive down Federal spending and waste, the Office of Management and Budget has released its official Data Center Policy, designed to streamline the process of reducing the number of Federal data centers. By 2018, 52 percent of Federal data centers will close.
Alongside the release of the proposed 2017 budget, the White House released its annual Analytical Perspectives of that proposal. MeriTalk spotted five important trends in the IT world and describes how the Federal government plans to address them.
In a new report, the Government Accountability Office said some of the definitions provided to Federal agencies for reporting spending data under the Digital Accountability and Transparency Act of 2014 are inadequate, and “could lead to inconsistent reporting.”
A MeriTalk survey finds that Federal agencies are in need of an efficiency jump-start, and 78 percent of Feds believe DevOps will help agencies innovate faster responses and services. Legacy systems are slowing agencies down, and new apps just add to the inertia.
The Government Accountability Office, in a new report, said the Small Business Administration needs to do more to upgrade IT security. The SBA, which hands out billions in loan guarantees to small businesses, said it has fixed more than 30 recommendations.
Just a handful of agencies have accounted for the nearly $2 billion saved by closing Federal data centers through the first five years of the program, according to scorecards distributed by Congress, and that trend is likely to continue. The Treasury Department, Defense Department, Department of Homeland Security, and Commerce Department saved a combined $1.652 […]
The Office of Management and Budget announced a new policy last Friday that effectively bars Federal agencies and departments from buying the laptops or desktops of their choice. In an Oct. 16 memo to all federal agency and department heads, U.S. Chief IInformation Officer Tony Scott and Office of Federal Procurement Policy Administrator Anne Rung […]
The Office of Personnel Management got a wakeup call earlier this year when it discovered millions of files had been hacked, but its nightmare isn’t over yet. The FBI has opened a criminal investigation into the theft of 21.5 million security clearance files. OPM is still plugging the holes and millions of Federal workers, their […]
The Federal Information Technology Acquisition Reform Act (FITARA) aimed to empower agency CIOs and improve federal IT management. Now comes the hard part: putting those ideas into practice.
Average IT spending growth has been down 1.5 percent since 2010, and Obama’s request is coming in high in hopes of ensuring he gets at least as much in 2016. Look for Congress to appropriate less than the president’s request, but more than the ceiling allowed by the four-year-old budget law.
The White House opened its wallet, according to the president’s 2016 federal budget proposal, and IT is the beneficiary.