Federal agencies can earn better grades on their next FITARA (Federal Information Technology Acquisition Reform Act) scorecard by taking action on three items that underpin the scoring–software inventories, CIO reporting lines, and setting up working capital funds for IT improvements as authorized by the MGT (Modernizing Government Technology) Act–members of Congress and an official with the Government Accountability Office said today. […]

In written testimony to the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee before the Federal Information Technology Acquisition Reform Act (FITARA) Scorecard hearing on Wednesday, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) highlighted areas where Federal agencies had not implemented recommendations from previous GAO reports. […]

Witnesses from the Government Accountability Office (GAO) and the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) will testify tomorrow at a hearing of two House Oversight and Government Reform subcommittees that will examine Federal agency efforts to implement the Federal Information Technology Acquisition Reform Act (FITARA), and the FITARA Scorecard 7.0 issued by the committee earlier today. […]

Alongside the release of the seventh edition of its FITARA scorecard, the House Oversight and Government Reform committee included an in-depth examination of the methodology behind the “B+” grade for the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), showing exactly how the department was able to boost its score. […]

The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee’s version 7.0 of its FITARA (Federal Information Technology Acquisition Reform Act) Scorecard issued today revealed broad trends of improvement and stabilization for Federal agencies compared to the previous scorecard issued in May. […]

The House Oversight and Government Reform (OGR) Committee released the seventh version of its FITARA (Federal Information Technology Acquisition Reform Act) scorecard, showing progress at many agencies over the six-month evaluation period, and no agencies that suffered grading drops from the prior period. […]

Rep. Robin Kelly, D-Ill., will introduce new legislation this week to “address cyber vulnerabilities created by the adoption of Internet-connected devices,” and specifically cyber threats of internet of things (IoT) devices owned and used by the Federal government. […]

The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee has scheduled a Dec. 12 hearing for two of its subcommittees to examine version 7.0 of the FITARA (Federal Information Technology Acquisition Reform Act) Scorecard report. […]

Rod Turk, the Commerce Department’s acting CIO who will be retiring next month, said in a wide-ranging discussion today that the Federal government is approaching the “tipping point” in its IT modernization efforts, and that requirements put in place in recent years to strengthen the hand of Federal CIOs in pushing modernization are resulting in less “rogue” tech projects at agencies. […]

The Government Accountability Office (GAO) issued a report today recommending that four Federal agencies–the Departments of Energy (DoE), Health and Human Services (HHS), Justice (DoJ), and Treasury–take more than three dozen actions to comply with Office of Management and Budget (OMB) requirements aimed at implementing the Federal Information Technology Acquisition Reform Act (FITARA). […]

Data from the Federal government’s IT Dashboard website appear to indicate that Federal CFO Act agencies have made some progress but are still more than 1,000 data centers short of their intended closure goals for 2020 under the Data Center Optimization Initiative (DCOI). […]

Three members of the Technology Modernization Fund (TMF) board and Federal Deputy CIO Margie Graves spoke today about fund’s ongoing efforts including the transferable effect of some of the board’s decision principles and how they tie into the larger IT modernization ecosystem. […]

A new report published today by the Government Accountability Office is calling attention to persistent agency difficulties in complying with the Federal Information Technology Acquisition Reform Act (FITARA), as well as difficulties with finding skilled acquisition professionals across the Federal government. […]

Federal CIO Suzette Kent said today that the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) is working with the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to update metrics for Federal Information Security Modernization Act (FISMA) reporting, and said that agencies are seeing progress in those metrics, which are being tracked in a newly added category in the Federal IT Acquisition Reform Act (FITARA) scorecard. […]

Carol Harris, director for information technology acquisition management issues at the Government Accountability Office (GAO), will take over the FITARA-related responsibilities of Dave Powner–GAO’s departing director of IT issues–while Nick Marinos, director of cybersecurity and information management at GAO, will pick up Powner’s responsibilities on Census issues, GAO confirmed to MeriTalk.   […]

In a report released Thursday, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) found that no Federal agency has created policies that fully address the CIO’s role within Federal laws and guidelines, due to gaps in guidance, funding and authority. […]

A report from the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration (TIGTA) finds that the IRS failed to follow FITARA guidelines when purchasing new IT equipment and reporting on the FITARA scorecard. […]

MeriTalk today announced the winners of its inaugural FITARA Awards program, recognizing six Federal agencies who have made tremendous strides in modernizing their IT environments and one congressional leader who has worked tirelessly to promote the reform of IT acquisitions and adoption of cyber best practices. […]

Federal CIO Suzette Kent said today at MeriTalk’s Cyber Security Brainstorm that the Federal government needs to possess a “never done” mindset when it comes to tackling persistent cyber threats and the related imperative to modernize Federal agency IT environments in order to address the threats. […]

After 16 years at the Government Accountability Office, Dave Powner, the high priest of government IT accountability is stepping away from the alter.  […]

Since it became law in 2014, FITARA’s dished out tough love for Federal CIOs–and the 6.0 report card wasn’t one you’d want to take home to your CIO parents. So MeriTalk is working with the FITARA Awards chairman, Congressman Gerry Connolly, D-Va., the author of the FITARA legislation, to recognize the agencies that topped the class on FITARA and provide a venue for discussing the merits and challenges with the grading process. […]

The General Services Administration (GSA) announced Tuesday that it struck a deal with Veritas to provide Federal agencies with software for data governance and cloud management. […]

Legislative direction moving Federal agencies toward incremental development in their software initiatives is beginning to take hold, and Agile development methodologies have been a key driver of that success, according to an agency CIO, a leader in government IT modernization, and an industry executive assisting agencies in Agile adoption. […]

DHS Continuous Diagnostics and Mitigation (CDM) is pivotal to improving government cybersecurity. While it’s critical, it has a lot of moving parts–and that can make it difficult to follow. MeriTalk sat down with Kevin Cox to get a handle on the state of CDM, as well as an understanding of where the program goes from here. And, it’s quite a story–so I hope you’re sitting comfortably, feel free to grab a cup of coffee. […]

Tony Scott was the Federal government’s third chief information officer, serving the nation in that role from 2015 through early 2017. During his time at the helm of government-wide IT, Scott led the development of 2016’s State of Federal IT Report, which left a lasting roadmap for modernization progress in the Federal government. […]

The Small Business Administration’s (SBA) Office of Inspector General (OIG) found that the agency needs to improve compliance three key pieces of Federal IT Legislation, according to OIG’s semiannual report, released May 25 and covering October 2017 through March 2018. […]

We sat down with Jeff Henry, president of ViON, in his office in Herndon, Va. The typical tech provider surroundings belied the epic changes at ViON, as it morphs from leading data center reseller to delivering government IT modernization as a service. […]

We are happy to present the inaugural edition of MeriTalk News Briefs, where we bring you all the day’s action that didn’t quite make the headlines. No need to shout about ‘em, but we do feel that they merit talk. […]

The Federal Information Technology Acquisition Reform Act (FITARA), passed by Congress in December 2014, represented the first major legislative overhaul of Federal IT in nearly 20 years. Beginning in November 2015, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) has released two scorecards a year grading agencies’ performance under the law. Suffice to say, agencies haven’t always been making the GAO’s Honor Roll, with plenty of Cs and Ds to go around. However, many agencies have made significant improvements over the last 3 years. […]

A new White House report says three quarters of Federal agencies are not managing their cybersecurity risk correctly and are consequently at “risk or high risk” of data theft or network intrusion due to poor cybersecurity programs. […]