The House Appropriations Committee is putting pressure on the General Services Administration (GSA) to get agencies migrated over to the Enterprise Infrastructure Solutions (EIS) Contract, including a provision to push agencies to adopt the contract, as well as other IT oversight items for GSA.
The draft budget bill, released Monday, June 10, includes an oversight provision that would require GSA to push agencies firmly towards EIS.
“To ensure a timely and efficient transition to EIS, the Committee directs GSA to instruct each agency to adopt an updated transition management plan and an integrated transition timeline, as recommended by GAO [the Government Accountability Office]. Further, the Committee directs GSA to provide a report, no later than 60 days following enactment of this Act, detailing steps taken to ensure a timely and efficient transition to EIS,” the committee states in its report on the budget bill.
The bill also calls back to the previous transitions that did not go as smoothly, citing a GAO report from 2013.
“While the Committee understands the challenges Federal agencies face transitioning telecommunication services from one set of contracts to another, the Committee believes it is important for the GSA to effectively apply lessons learned from prior transitions,” the report notes.
In addition to EIS, the committee’s draft bill also brings some oversight items for GSA’s CIO office. The committee would push GSA to speed adoption of the Continuous Diagnostics and Mitigation program at the agency and pushes GSA’s procurement side to ensure Internet of Things devices are properly secured.
The committee notes their pleasure with the FedRAMP program, and encourages GSA to “continue such an investment in this area.” The draft bill also allots five million for GSA to carry out its responsibilities on the OPEN Government Data Act.
On the Technology Modernization Fund (TMF), the committee declines to explain why they only offered $35 million in funding compared to the White House’s request of $150 million, but the report calls on the TMF Board to “prioritize and fund those projects that have the most significant impact on mission enhancement and that most effectively modernize citizen-facing services.”