During a hearing on Tuesday, members of Congress, including Rep. Will Hurd, R-Texas, shared their concerns about the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA’s) technology efforts with Secretary Robert Wilkie, including the electronic health record modernization (EHR-M) project, FITARA implementation, and telehealth efforts. […]

If you take a look at MeriTalk’s newly released FITARA Dashboard, be ready to find some clear success stories across the seven categories of the FITARA Scorecard – as well as areas where improvement still is needed. […]

MeriTalk recently connected with Ted Girard, Vice President Public Sector, Okta, on how agencies can get the most out of the Continuous Diagnostics and Mitigation (CDM) program to navigate on-premise, cloud, and mobile security. MeriTalk:  How does CDM align with the transition from legacy systems to the cloud? Ted Girard:  While the initial CDM phases […]

While the Federal IT community is eager to embrace the benefits of cloud services, agency leaders are working to balance the transition to cloud with Federal policies and maintaining continuous operations, deputy CIOs from the Air Force and the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) told the crowd at CES-Government on Friday in Las Vegas. […]

During remarks to reporters on Sunday, President Trump explained his comfort with having a number of acting agency secretaries in his cabinet, saying he is in “no hurry” to name new nominees to head agencies on a permanent and confirmable basis. […]

A report from the Department of Defense Inspector General found various software management problems across several service components which the IG said raise cybersecurity risks and create unnecessary costs, but DoD’s Office of the CIO declined to respond to the draft report. […]

In the afterglow of last week’s FITARA Scorecard 7.0 report from the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee–which catalogued both substantial improvements by some Federal agencies in numerous grading categories and efforts by others to shore up a sturdier floor under otherwise fairly poor grades–several Federal IT industry executives took a few minutes with MeriTalk to share their thoughts about how agencies might be able to boost their grades on the next scorecard, scheduled for May 2019. […]

A new study by Accenture finds that most Federal IT executives see themselves as supporting players, rather than prime movers, in technology modernization. […]

While yesterday’s hearing held by two House Oversight and Government Reform subcommittees was a mostly upbeat affair given the better grades earned by several Federal agencies on the committee’s latest FITARA scorecard, committee members also grilled witnesses about impediments that stand in the way of agencies implementing a key aspect of the MGT (Modernizing Government Technology) Act. […]

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. […]