CIO News

The Agriculture Department’s Office of Chief Information Officer has implemented a hiring freeze and is offering early retirements to eligible IT specialists. The initiatives are part of a workforce “restructuring” effort to support USDA’s ongoing IT modernization transformation, the department said.

The House Oversight and Reform Subcommittee on government operations released the 10th Federal IT Acquisition Reform Act (FITARA) scorecard and no agency received a “F” or “D” grade for the first time.

House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) suggested giving the IRS $2 billion under the Technology Modernization Fund and then letting agencies use the savings from the tax agency for other projects.

Jeff Clines became South Dakota CIO during the the crucible of the COVID-19 pandemic outbreak. The cabinet position, full operational authority and the governor’s keen executive sponsorship played a large part in his decision. The state’s culture has led to success of the their reaction o the pandemic.

Montana CIO Tim Bottenfield took the job in 2019 and has orchestrated successful remote working environment for state employees during the pandemic. Montana will complete the retirement of its mainframe infrastructure over the next 12 months.

Thanks to technology preparedness and staffing, Montana’s CIO has been overseeing the state’s COVID-19 response from a cabin just outside Glacier National Park.

The chief data officer role compares to CIOs’ Y2K responsibilities, requiring significant relationship building across the enterprise when statutory authority may be lacking.

Sonny Bhagowalia, the deputy assistant commissioner and deputy CIO, will be take over for Landfried in the interim.

Federal News Network asked 10 members of the federal IT community to offer comments and insights about the impact Federal CIO Suzette Kent has had on the government over the last two-plus years.

Federal chief information officer Suzette Kent joined the administration in January 2018 and since then has accomplished several policy updates and created a path for agencies to continuously improve.

Chief data officers are one of the several new “chiefs” to arise in the government bureaucracy over the last decade. Relationship building with program agencies is their greatest challenge, and opportunity.

Right before the fifth anniversary of FITARA, VA gave its chief information officer the control over all IT spending across departments, leaving just four other CIOs without the same clout.

The department created the data management position within the office of the Chief Management Officer in 2018. But as part of the 2020 National Defense Authorization Act, Congress moved the CDO job to the CIO’s office.

The Army will bifurcate its headquarters IT leadership office in August, creating a separate CIO office to make IT policies and putting a three-star military officer in charge of implementing them.