Education Department CIO Jason Gray told Sen. Maggie Hassan, D-N.H., that the agency does not have the necessary authorities from Congress to set up a working capital fund under the Modernizing Government Technology (MGT) Act, but said if it received that authority the department would use the money exclusively to finance IT modernization projects. […]

Agencies are mostly making progress on the White House’s IT modernization goals – with many goals completed, most remaining goals on track, and a few challenge areas – according to a President’s Management Agenda (PMA) update released September 19. […]

Rep. Will Hurd, R-Texas, a long-time champion of Federal IT legislation and oversight, announced August 1 that he will not be running for reelection in 2020, and instead will pursue opportunities in the private sector “at the nexus between technology and national security.” […]

Federal IT is on the right path and is making progress on modernization, but Congress will continue to push agencies to modernize faster and address slowdowns in processes, including FedRAMP, said Representative Gerry Connolly, D-Va. […]

While artificial intelligence (AI) technology offers significant opportunities to the Federal government to both reduce costs and improve performance, implementation of the technology will require proper policy, budget, and leadership support, according to a May 22 report from the Professional Services Council Foundation (PSCF). […]

With the new Artificial Intelligence (AI) executive order and Federal data strategy on the horizon, MeriTalk connected with Rob Davies, Executive Vice President of Operations, ViON, to discuss how agencies can prepare their infrastructure to handle demands from AI, IoT, advanced analytics, blockchain, and more. […]

President Trump’s FY2020 budget released today includes $150 million for the Technology Modernization Fund (TMF) and proposes necessary authorities for agencies to establish IT working capital funds under the Modernizing Government Technology (MGT) Act. […]

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. […]

At MeriTalk’s FITARA Awards ceremony on Wednesday night, Rep. Gerry Connolly, D-Va., chairman of the House Oversight and Reform Committee’s Government Operations Subcommittee, offered his views on what Congress needs to tackle next in Federal IT, and previewed three likely pieces of legislation. […]

The House Oversight and Reform Committee announced the leadership and membership of its subcommittees on Tuesday, with Rep. Gerry Connolly, D-Va., as chairman of the Subcommittee on Government Operations, which will handle Federal IT oversight duties. Rep. Mark Meadows, R-N.C., will service as the subcommittee’s ranking member. […]

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. […]

Ninety-seven percent of Federal finance and procurement professionals feel they aren’t fully prepared for the Modernizing Government Technology (MGT) Act and the new creative vehicles it provides agencies to fund IT modernization initiatives, according to a new study. […]

The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee’s information technology and government operations subcommittees held a joint hearing Wednesday to key in on the most salient, persistent, and omnipresent issue in Federal agency IT: cybersecurity. On hand to testify were Federal CIO Suzette Kent, and Comptroller General Gene Dodaro, seeking to illuminate congressional inquirers on Federal agency progress to mitigate the wide range of cyber risks. […]

After the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for FY 2019 cleared a major hurdle late yesterday with the release of a conference report that reconciles differences between House and Senate versions of the bills, techies across the Federal government are finding that IT modernization and innovation amendments for the Pentagon fared well in the legislation. […]

Irv Dennis, chief financial officer at the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), on Thursday described HUD’s plan to use the largest-awarded sum from the Technology Modernization Fund (TMF)–including timelines for rollout and repayment–in an appearance on Government Matters. […]

Proposals with great citizen impact, quick routes to success and repayment, and concise explanations of how to achieve their goals are likely to win the remaining dollars in the Technology Modernization Fund (TMF), according to representatives from the General Services Administration (GSA) speaking at a workshop held June 8. […]

The Technology Modernization Fund (TMF) Board on Thursday announced the first three Federal agencies that will receive the initial round of funding authorized by the Modernizing Government Technology (MGT) Act. […]

Kshemendra Paul, cloud action officer for the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) chief information officer, said Wednesday at MeriTalk’s 2018 Cloud Computing Brainstorm that while DHS has yet to establish the concrete business value of cloud migration, the financial benefits are just one piece of the puzzle in proving cloud’s worth to the agency. […]

We’re witnessing momentous developments in government technology. The Modernizing Government Technology (MGT) Act promises new incentives for agencies that can prove they’re maximizing government funds to bring about IT transformation. […]

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. […]

Several industry experts told MeriTalk in the run-up to the release of the latest FITARA (Federal Information Technology Acquisition Reform Act) Federal agency scorecards that expected funding flows from the Modernizing Government Technology Act (MGT Act) may go a long way toward helping agencies boost their scores. […]

It’s only traditional for heroes to ride off into the sunset–and, appropriate that the sun sets in the West. Dr. Barry West, senior advisor and senior accountable official for risk management at the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), announced plans to hang up his government IT spurs the end of this month. […]

It’s no secret that Chinese companies are major suppliers to U.S. technology companies that serve the Federal government, and a report issued last month says the Chinese government is leveraging that manufacturing capability to create significant security risks across the U.S. Federal enterprise. […]

Eyes tend to glaze over at an Appropriations hearing. Seems Congress just pushed through the 2018 Omnibus spending bill, and the House is already back talking budgets for FY19. […]

Action plans to accelerate Federal agency migrations to cloud platforms and services as outlined in the White House IT Modernization Report have been in effect for nearly three months now. For instance, the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) was directed to conduct a data call within 30 days of the report’s release, requesting agencies to identify systems that might be ready for cloud migration, but have not because of some perceived or encountered difficulties. […]

Opening day for the Nationals might be a week away, but four Beltway insiders have already knocked one out of the park. The latest omnibus spending bill, which passed through the Senate early Friday morning, includes $100 million for the MGT Act’s centralized revolving capital fund. President Trump signed the MGT Act into law late last year as an amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act. […]

Federal IT comes with some baggage–much of its data is trapped in legacy technologies.  Agencies can’t realistically pick everything up and move to more modern infrastructure.  So how do they bridge the gap?  MeriTalk’s latest report found that improving data sharing between new and legacy systems is the number one solution to accelerating Federal IT modernization.  The “Modernizing the Monolith” study explores why legacy systems are so persistent and outlines a path to modernizing with them, instead of in spite of them. […]

Another important piece of the emerging Federal IT modernization ecosystem is in place now that the General Services Administration (GSA) has given four companies the greenlight to start work on the first of five IT Modernization Centers of Excellence (CoEs). […]