During the House Oversight and Government Reform Subcommittee on IT’s recent hearing about the state of federal IT, Representative Will Hurd (R-TX) focused on not losing momentum that built up over the last few years. He and OMB Deputy Director for Management Margaret Weichert, who testified at the hearing, both remain optimistic that Congress will fund the Technology Modernization Fund for fiscal 2018.
David Powner, the director of IT management issues at GAO, previewed a busy agenda for the year. He offered insights into at least three major efforts around IT modernization.
Hurd plans to pressure agencies to make better use of the Homeland Security Department’s security architecture reviews and risk and vulnerability assessments, or obtain similar services from contractors to discover and mitigate cyber vulnerabilities.
Agency senior leaders should expect the committee to continue to bring up CXOs to find out on how they are implementing the Federal IT Acquisition Reform Act. Hurd said he was specifically frustrated with the Defense Department’s lack of transparency over its IT budget in the 2019 funding request to Congress as well as its continued low grades on the FITARA scorecard.
