White House asks for record $75.7B for civilian agency IT

The departments of Justice, Veterans Affairs and Treasury are among the biggest winners when it comes to increasing their technology budgets for fiscal 2027.

These and a handful of other civilian agencies are driving the Trump administration’s record $75.7 billion IT request for next year.

VA’s IT request is $12.2 billion, or a 62% increase over its 2026 request, while Treasury is asking for $6.2 billion (48% increase) and Justice comes in with a $4.3 billion (40.5% increase) request.

Out of the top 23 CFO Act non-Defense agencies, 12 would receive an increase as President Donald Trump’s request for civilian agency IT spending is $7.7 billion more for 2027 than what agencies are expected to spend in 2026.

One of the biggest drivers for VA is an $800 million increase for a total of $4.2 billion for its Electronic Health Records Modernization initiative.

“VA’s EHRM modernization program is moving the Department from a decades-old legacy system to a modern system that is interoperable with Department of [Defense] and other federal partners, as well as participating community care providers, allowing veterans to receive care at any provider knowing that their clinicians would be able to easily access their full medical history,” the budget states. “The EHRM program, when fully implemented, would improve the transition from servicemember to veteran and would enable closer VA-DoD collaboration, which is a priority for the administration.  The department has made accelerated VA EHRM rollout — which had stalled under the Biden administration — a top priority effort.”

Additionally, the VA’s request includes additional funding for cybersecurity, for its financial and acquisition system modernization efforts and to improve the digital platforms that provide a host of medical services ranging from mental health to community care to housing.

“The budget would provide $1.3 billion to target high-impact healthcare delivery and access capabilities, such as improving scheduling and referral processes that strengthen continuity of care for veterans, expanding community care billing capabilities to improve payment speed and accuracy and implementing interoperable health records,” the document stated. “$10 million to transfer projects and staff from the recently disestablished Office of Enterprise Integration.”

Treasury CIO asking for increase

Over at Treasury, the chief information officer is asking for $57 million, which is a $21 million increase over 2026, for its IT modernization and working capital fund.

The IRS also is asking for an increase in its business systems modernization fund. It is asking for $728 million for 2027, up from $672 million this year.

At the same time, Treasury is reducing its ask for its Cybersecurity Enhancement Account (CEA) to $57 million from $126 million this year.

The CEA “allows Treasury to more proactively and strategically protect Treasury systems against cybersecurity threats. The account supports enterprise-wide services and capabilities as well as targeted bureau-specific cyber investments.”

The Justice Department’s big ask is for a $111 million increase for its Justice Information Sharing Technology account. It would use the $138 million for an assortment of IT initiatives, including cybersecurity, IT architecture and transformation and innovation engineering.

“IT transformation is an ongoing commitment of the OCIO to evolve the DOJ’s IT environment by driving toward shared commodity infrastructure services and simplified design and implementation of tools to advance the mission while reducing risk and driving efficiency. These efforts allow the DOJ to shift from custom government-owned solutions to advanced industry-leading offerings at competitive pricing,” the budget stated. “The OCIO recognizes modernization and innovation as an ongoing activity, requiring IT strategies and operating models to adapt as technology changes in order to harness new and innovative technologies that meet DOJ mission requirements. By creating partnerships with DOJ components, federal agencies, and industry leaders for the exploration of new technologies, the OCIO leads the ideation, design, planning, and execution of enterprise IT innovations to enhance DOJ user experience and enable operations while ensuring alignment with DOJ architectures and strategic priorities. The OCIO also uses technology readiness assessments to evaluate the maturity of technologies and readiness for incorporation into a system, as less-than-ready technologies can be the source of program risks, delays, and cost increases.”

Not every agency came out on top in its IT budget request

NASA, for example, would see a 23% decrease to $1.3 billion, while the Office of Personnel Management would see a 58% decrease to $194 million.

One reason for NASA’s decrease could be due to the $100 million it plans on carrying over from 2026 to 2027 in its IT working capital fund.

“The fund currently finances four program activities. The first is the Solutions for Enterprisewide Procurement Program (SEWP), which finances, on an agencywide basis, scientific and engineering workstation procurement. The second program is the Information Technology Infrastructure Integration Program (IP4), which consolidates and centralizes management of NASA information technology services in the areas of customer service and ordering, web services and technologies, enterprise business and management applications, integrated network/communications services, end user services and data center services. The third program, NASA’s Shared Services Center, performs transactional financial management, human resources, information technology and procurement services for NASA Headquarters and Centers. The last program, the National Center for Critical Information Processing and Storage, provides Federal customers collocation services with complete redundancy in the electrical distribution system from the national grid to the rack level,” the budget stated.

OMB seeking new TMF authorities

Outside of agency specific IT spending, the administration also is reducing it’s request for governmentwide modernization funds.

The White House is not asking for any new money for the Technology Modernization Fund. Congress appropriated $5 million for the TMF this year.

At the same time, the General Services Administration, which manages the TMF, estimates it will have $242 million in unobligated funding for fiscal 2026 and upwards of $119.5 million for 2027.

“The President’s 2027 budget request, which assumes reauthorization, includes the governmentwide general provision that would allow GSA, with the approval of OMB, to collect up to $100 million in funding that would otherwise be unavailable for obligation from other agencies and bring that funding into the TMF. This provision is essential to providing the TMF with the necessary funds to help the federal government address critical technology challenges by modernizing high-priority systems, improving AI adoption, and supporting cross-government collaboration and scalable services,” GSA’s budget justification stated. “This provision is modeled after the Sec. 721 and Sec. 752 authority provided in the 2026 Consolidated Appropriations Act, (Pub. L. 119-75) with the exception that both currently available funding and unobligated balances of expired discretionary funds from other agencies could be transferred into the TMF, akin to the operating model of a non-recurring expense fund (NEF). This would allow agencies to transfer resources to the TMF using funds that are otherwise no longer available to them for obligation.”

The IT Oversight and Reform Fund, which OMB runs as another governmentwide fund, is requesting $8 million for 2027, same as it received in 2026.

OMB also is planning for the U.S. DOGE Service to have $35 million in funding from reimbursable activities from helping agencies modernize technology.

GSA’s Federal Citizen Services Fund is a third governmentwide technology modernization account. It is the only one of the three to request an increase, though a slight one to $71 million from $70 million this year.

GSA expects to have about $32.6 million in unobligated funding from 2026 to carry into next year for a total of $103.7 million in funding for the FCSF.

“GSA is requesting $71 million in direct appropriations and removal of the cap on the total amount of funding (which includes appropriations, carryover, and other reimbursable activities) available for expenditure in the given fiscal year. The $1 million net increase of the direct appropriations reflects funding set aside for emerging priorities of the administration, transition of a few programs from GSA’s Office of Governmentwide Policy (OGP) to the Technology Transformation Service and reduced operation costs of existing FCSF-funded products and programs,” GSA stated. “The total business volume of FCSF-funded programs is steadily increasing as demand increases for TTS services, such as GSA’s emerging USAi.gov artificial intelligence offering. An FCSF cap limits the potential capacity for providing those in demand services. Having both the FCSF direct appropriations and reimbursable authorities, without constraining potential business volumes, will enable GSA to serve agency customers with more agility, reduce administrative inefficiencies, and improve governmentwide digital services for the American public.”

GSA wants to transition the oversight and management of the Federal IT Dashboard and the Governmentwide IT Accessibility Program Management Office to TTS from OGP.

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