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Reporter’s Notebook
“Reporter’s Notebook” is a weekly dispatch of news tidbits, strongly-sourced buzz, and other items of interest happening in the federal IT and acquisition communities.
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Lacking teeth, GSA creates alliances to spur transition to new telecommunications program
July 13, 2020 12:37 pm
If history is our best teacher, then the General Services Administration’s promise, even threat, of turning off telecommunications services of those agencies that don’t transition to the Enterprise Infrastructure Solutions (EIS) program by May 2023 may seem hollow.
With both of the previous two transitions, FTS 2001 and Networx, GSA made similar guarantees only to face the unspoken realization that the agency has all the responsibility but little authority to force agencies to change in a timely manner.
“It’s déjà vu all over again. It’s the same thing as we saw with Networx. GSA put a line in the sand, then another one and then said it would turn everyone off and agencies said no you’re not and you get into a standoff,” said one industry expert involved in federal telecommunications for much of the past 30 years, who requested anonymity because they didn’t get permission to speak to the press. “GSA has no teeth. They are trying their best, but there is no way to make these agency folks do stuff. What we ended up doing with FTS-2001 is GSA finally put stake in ground and were backed up by Congress and/or [the Office of Management and Budget]. They said no new extensions and here is the date certain that FTS 2001 will end. The day before the deadline, they instruct vendors to disconnect services. Vendors were no longer legally authorized to provide services and there were agencies that lost services.”
The expert and others say pressure from Capitol Hill and OMB may be the only way to make that deadline real.
“GSA has to have a carrot and stick approach to get agencies to move to EIS. The transition may be a bigger effort and may take longer than Networx did, but continuing to grow Networx is counter intuitive,” said Gary Wall, CEO of Coastal Communications Consulting Group and a former telecommunications branch chief for the Department of Health and Human Services. “One of the things that struck me is I’m concerned GSA will be overwhelmed with requests from agencies either for national security or emergency preparedness exceptions. GSA is in a tough position. They are trying to make the transition happen, but have no real authority to make agencies do what they need to do.”
The lack of authority is nothing new for GSA, which commonly is the implementation arm of OMB for technology and acquisition policies. This means there are other tools GSA has to pull out of its toolbox.
Transition close out plan
One of those tools is a recently posted EIS transition close out project plan, which detailed immediate actions GSA will take, deadlines associated with the effort and the process to limit use of legacy contracts.
“One of the major lessons learned in the transition to Networx is that increased visibility — especially at the executive level — is crucial to agencies’ progress. Without it, agencies’ transition teams don’t get the resources (human and financial) they need to gear up, sustain and complete their transition projects in a timely manner,” a GSA spokesperson said in response to questions from Federal News Network. “The closeout project focuses on candid and factual communications between executives at GSA and the agencies on whether agencies are making sufficient progress. The objective is not for GSA to unilaterally disconnect agencies’ services but to get them to transition themselves, with our support.”
The spokesperson said GSA continues to plan for a phased approach to move agencies off of the legacy contracts.
“GSA is taking its governmentwide role in transition seriously. If services are not transitioned successfully before the contracts expire, there will be no viable way to reinstate the services, which ultimately impacts agencies’ operations,” the spokesperson said. “The transition closeout plan is the implementation of the agreement between GSA and our customer agencies, which was established when the Infrastructure Advisory Group (IAG) requested GSA further extend the expiring contracts. GSA is taking a twofold approach to achieving 100% disconnection from legacy contracts. GSA will enforce the requirement to limit use of the extended contracts to those agencies who are meeting certain critical milestones (listed in the Transition Timeline) in order to be eligible to continue using the contracts. In addition, GSA will take steps to minimize the growth of services on the extended contracts by freezing contract modifications and orders for new services.”
But Wall and other experts say if OMB or Congress doesn’t step in when an agency demands more time to transition, history shows GSA doesn’t or can’t hold the line.
“I think it’s an OMB issue that they need to get involved with,” said the industry expert. “Congress isn’t interested because this is the most unsexy thing you could imagine so only the people with the money can fix this.”
Repeated requests to OMB asking about its oversight of the EIS program were not returned.
Three agencies struggling
Members of the House Oversight and Reform Subcommittee on Government Operations pressed GSA in March about EIS and other initiatives. But since then, there has been little public interest in the program. Though the subcommittee is expected to hold two IT-focused hearings in July where a question or two about EIS would go a long way to sending a message to all agencies.
In responses to questions for the record to subcommittee chairman Gerry Connolly (D-Va.) after the March hearing, Bill Zielinski, who was the assistant commissioner of the Office of Information Technology Category in the Federal Acquisition Service at GSA, said the EIS Transition Team is tracking and analyzing 90 lessons learned from the Networx program.
Zielinski, who left that role in June to the Dallas city CIO, told then-subcommittee ranking member Mark Meadows (R-N.C.), who is now the White House chief of staff, that the Postal Service, the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Department of Homeland Security are facing the most challenges in moving to the EIS program.
“For the USPS, staffing shortages combined with an extensive internal approval process delayed the submission of its statement of work to GSA for scope review. The USPS currently plans to award their two EIS task orders by September 30, 2020. Following its task order awards, the USPS will have to transition its large inventory of over 170,000 services off the extended contracts and onto EIS,” Zielinski wrote. “The SEC is addressing funding issues which are planned to be resolved this fiscal year. The SEC plans to award four of its six task orders by the end of fiscal year 2020.”
Meanwhile, he said FEMA may not award its EIS task order until early 2022, while GSA expects most of the other components to award sometimes between the first and third quarters of 2021.
“Executive leadership at GSA is actively engaging with the chief information officers of these components to emphasize the risks associated with a delayed transition and to discuss opportunities for making a more timely transition,” Zielinski wrote.
Letters, briefings galore
That approach of “active engagement” is the GSA’s best, and really only, tool to get agencies moving.
The GSA spokesperson said Administrator Emily Murphy briefed the President’s Management Council and sent individual letters to 38 deputy secretaries or their equivalents stressing the importance of attention to the transition schedule in November 2019.
In March 2020, Zielinski sent a letter to each agency transition sponsor and over 500 other agency contacts notifying them that in order to continue using the extended contracts, they must make progress on their transition.
Most recently, Allen Hill, acting deputy assistant commissioner for Category Management, sent individual progress notices to CIOs at 35 agencies.
GSA briefed the IAG multiple times in between July 2019 and March 2020 on the phased approach that became the foundation of the plan. GSA also offered the same briefing to 150 representatives from smaller agencies in February 2020.
In a recent interview with Federal News Network, Hill said EIS is gaining momentum every month.
Hill said GSA also has been asking agencies how the coronavirus pandemic has impacted EIS transition.
“So far only five agencies formally reported impacts to their transition,” Hill said. “For those agencies that make those task order awards and are impacted, we work with those agencies to mitigate any delays as a result of that activity. The pandemic response demonstrates how important it is to modernize the federal networks to be able to support a mobile workforce. It’s also helped them identify some gaps that they are now going back and addressing those gaps because of what happened.”
Coastal Communication’s Wall said agencies need to be more strategic in their transitions and look for opportunities to make significant progress.
“It’s not necessarily going after the low-hanging fruit. They have to work on hard projects like advanced data networks because you can’t wait until the last minute as they tend to take longer to transition,” he said. “The other thing they need to do is continually refine their transition inventories. It’s something that sounds like it’s easy, but it can’t be overstated the importance because that is what you measure your transition success on.”
There is a cost to keeping your inventories up to date, to tracking your progress and for all the things that go with the transition. Agency budgets and resources tend to be stretched thin as is, which is why OMB’s active involvement is the only way GSA’s promise to turn off services will work.
More lawmakers getting on IT modernization bandwagon as House prepares 10th FITARA scorecard
July 6, 2020 10:54 am
Version 10 of the Federal IT Acquisition Reform Act (FITARA) scorecard is due out in late July.
In fact, the House Oversight and Reform Subcommittee on Government Operations will hold two hearings on IT modernization this month, including one that is likely happening this week featuring two former government experts.
These two hearings will kick off what many believe is both a renewed interest in technology modernization by Congress and a referendum on FITARA’s impact five years later.
“We are seeing a lot more interest in IT modernization from the legislative branch, mainly as result of COVID-19,” said Tony Scott, the former Federal Chief Information Officer and current CEO of the Tony Scott Group. “People are realizing that digital government is pretty important and how we deliver citizen services needs a lot more upgrading and resourcing than anyone was focused on before. I suspect in the next year or two, the renewed focus not just on FITARA but on the Technology Modernization Fund and other ways to help agencies. I’ve gotten lot of calls about the TMF asking how we should we alter it, upgrade it and just make it better. There will be a lot more scrutiny as a result of the pandemic.”
Read more: IT Modernization News
These signs started a month ago when Sen. Maggie Hassan (D-N.H.) wrote to 10 agencies asking about their IT modernization strategies. Responses to those questions are due by Aug. 3.
Federal CIO Suzette Kent said in a June interview that the letters give the administration and agencies another opening with Congress to discuss how to sustain IT modernization.
“What the letters and the budget discussions will help us do is draw a more direct parallel between the business objective of the agency and how we fund those, and what the right vehicles are,” she said. “Particularly, the things that require multi-year commitment because some of the questions to the agencies focus on systems that were older or more comprehensive and those things don’t happen in a single year. That will let us have some healthy dialogue there as well as let agencies share their perspective around how they have prioritized what their modernization looks like, and that’s a dialogue that is very important agency by agency.”
A second sign of the interest around digital transformation came Friday when Sens. Rob Portman (R-Ohio) and Hassan introduced the Modernization Centers of Excellence Program Act. The bill, which Federal News Network obtained, codifies and details the responsibilities of the CoEs’ role. It encourages agencies to use commercial technologies, more specifically public cloud services to address systemic challenges around security, data management and customer services needs.
“Ensuring that our government has the capabilities and expertise to help navigate the impacts of the latest technology will be important in the coming years and decades,” Portman stated. “This bipartisan legislation will ensure our government agencies have the insight and resources they need to better understand the benefits and pitfalls of this technology.”
A third sign of the continue push for Congressional interest came June 29 when seven associations wrote to Senate leadership asking for members to include IT modernization funding in the next stimulus bill.
In the letter, the associations reiterated its request for Congress to include more modernization and cybersecurity funding to address long-standing challenges that were exacerbated by the pandemic.
Among the requests are for Congress to fund the TMF at a level that promotes cross-agency investments and relaxes the requirement for payback during the pandemic. The associations also says Congress should accelerate the creation of IT working capital funds, as authorized by FITARA, and provide direct funding through the stimulus act for technology and cyber challenges.
In many ways the discussion agencies, industry and Congress are having today is because of the success of FITARA. While far from perfect, the 2015 law and continued oversight by Reps. Gerry Connolly (D-Va.) and Will Hurd (R-Texas) spurred agency attention and progress.
“As we get to the 10th FITARA hearing, the question of whether the scorecard is obsolete and needs refining is real because we have to keep pressure on agencies to continue the implementation,” said Rich Beutel, founder of Cyrrus Analytics and a former House Oversight and Reform Committee lead staff member and principal behind FITARA. “It seems that the capital planning and investment control process (CPIC) and PortfolioStat isn’t happening any more, and that was a major way to move agencies along with respect to core principles of FITARA.”
Ideas to update the FITARA scorecard
Beutel and other former federal officials say the scorecard needs updating, especially as we approach the 10th version.
“The scorecard needs to be amended to make it more current. The consensus among many people is it’s really dated at this point,” Beutel said. “There was a long-time debate about adding a cyber-hygiene score to the scorecard that would focus on the Federal Information Security Management Act (FISMA) reporting and the like. I think cyber hygiene is still a metric that is out there. Another is the use of agile and moving spending from operations and maintenance to development, modernization and enhancement. It’s an important metric to focus on the commitment of agencies to implement FITARA.”
Read more: Reporter’s Notebook
Jonathan Alboum, the former CIO at the Agriculture Department and now a principal digital strategist for federal government at ServiceNow, said the scorecard struggles to make a fair comparison among all agencies.
“I suggest grouping the large, federated agencies, like DHS, HHS, USDA, Commerce, etc., together and grouping the agencies that are more centralized, like GSA, NSF, SSA, etc. This would compare apples-to-apples for a grading comparison,” he said. “An interesting data point would be the percentage of IT budget directly appropriated by the department CIO relative to the overall IT spend. The department CIO’s budget is often a small fraction of the overall IT spend, making oversight difficult. Adding this to the scorecard would make it clear where automated tools are needed to provide better insights into agency investments.”
He added that another change would be to highlight agencies that have adopted a platform strategy as a way to drive application rationalization, digital transformation and improved employee and customer experiences.
Senators gaining more awareness
Former Federal CIO Scott agreed that the scorecard needs to be expanded, particularly around digital or customer experience.
“A lot of agencies still have a long way to go in that regard. It’s not just at the top level domain, but all things below that. I think that would force a lot of action at right levels,” he said. “The other one that has to morph is the use of TMF and other funding sources. Have they set up a working capital fund?”
Read more: Congressional News
Scott said while House members, generally speaking, had had good awareness about the need for IT modernization, he’s optimistic that the Senate is starting to pay more attention.
“Really the problem has been the Senate Appropriations Committee which has been a road block to doing anything different,” he said. “They look at IT as one of the 28 million things that has to be funded and not as a driver of good government. I’m hoping with some broader interest in the Senate, even a change in party leadership, that they would provide more of the critical funding.”
Scott and other experts say more IT modernization focused legislation could be on the way, especially as the technology and online services fallout from the coronavirus pandemic continues to gain recognition.
If Portman, Hassan, Connolly and other lawmakers are truly all-in around IT modernization, then convincing their fellow legislators to support funding and new authorities in light of the pandemic emergency shouldn’t be a big lift. And if there is one thing Kent does before she leaves July 15, it’s making one last set of calls to lawmakers to convince them to get on the bandwagon.
Federal CIO Kent brought vision, energy, leaves legacy of accomplishments
June 29, 2020 3:54 pm
The surprising announcement on June 25 that Federal Chief Information Officer Suzette Kent is leaving after two-plus years on the job reverberated across the federal community.
Agency and contractor executives expressed gratitude for her service and impact on the community, and sadness because her departure is at least six months sooner than many expected.
Kent, who joined the Trump administration in January 2018, didn’t bring the usual credentials of previous federal CIOs. She hadn’t worked for government before—like a Karen Evans or a Mark Forman—and her background didn’t expressly show any expertise in the technology sector—like a Tony Scott. She came from a career in the private sector, working at Ernst & Young where she had been a principal in the financial services office and at JP Morgan Chase and Accenture in the financial services sector.
In her short time at the Office of Management and Budget, experts from across the community say Kent’s impact is significant, long-lasting and notable.
“Suzette has been an amazing partner on the sharing quality services cross-agency priority goal, the Technology Modernization fund, IT modernization, the centers of excellence, the Enterprise Infrastructure Solutions (EIS) adoption, and a myriad of other programs and initiatives,” said Emily Murphy, the administrator and close partner on all of these initiatives at the General Services Administration, in a statement to Federal News Network. “On behalf of all of us at GSA, we will miss her technical expertise and her passion for progress.”
Federal News Network asked 10 people who worked closely with Kent over the last two years for their opinion on her impact on the federal IT community.
Suzette’s legacy on the federal IT community
John Zangardi, former Homeland Security Department CIO and current president of Redhorse Corp.: Suzette has an uncanny ability to think strategically and sensibly deliver executable plans that better position the federal government to modernize and digitally transform. She showed that a federal CIO can make a positive difference. She is a huge loss to the federal government and set the bar high for future federal CIOs.
Renee Wynn, recently retired NASA CIO: Suzette brought vision, energy and an amazing ability to build diverse teams to achieve results for the benefit of federal services. She will be remembered for the way she worked with people to advance the Federal IT Acquisition Reform Act (FITARA), how she solidified the importance of IT modernization through the TMF and corresponding act, sowed the roots of digital transformation and helped women “see” that it was possible for women to hold top executive level positions in IT.
Matt Cornelius, Alliance for Digital Innovation and former OMB senior technology and cybersecurity advisor: Well, the community is so much bigger than it was when she started. We have a White House that is all in on IT modernization, a Congress that’s incredibly interested in improving federal IT and cybersecurity. Folks outside of just CIO offices and vendors care about, and are personally invested in, accelerating digital transformation. The “federal IT community” is now all members of the government, the vendor community and, importantly, the non-traditional and emerging technology companies that are eager to do business with agencies. That’s largely due to Suzette’s compelling vision and energetic advocacy ensuring federal technology transforms the lives of citizens.
Dave Wennergren, executive director ACT-IAC and a former deputy CIO at the Defense Department and vice chairman of the CIO Council: Suzette has done an outstanding job leading the federal IT community. Her energy and vision have been contagious. Her work to advance the President’s Management Agenda has helped government agencies focus on the most pressing technology issues and make real progress.
She also was extremely generous with her time; always willing to go “above and beyond” to engage with industry in a very meaningful way, supporting the work of good government organizations and other non-profits and always being willing to talk a little longer with an interested government or industry employee on how they could make a difference. She focused on mission and outcomes; shaping the technology conversation to be less about IT for IT’s sake and more about results.
John Weiler, executive director and co-founder of the IT Acquisition Advisory Council (IT-AAC): Suzette spent much of her time messaging and speaking about ways forward, trying to get the dug-in culture to change. Her shortcomings were related to failing to correct flawed approaches to Technology Business Management and agile, allowing the old guard rice bowls to prevent the change that was directed in Congressional directives.
What are 1 or 2 of her most notable accomplishments and why?
Bill Zielinski, the city of Dallas CIO and former GSA assistant commissioner of the Information Technology Category: Certainly among her notable contributions over the last several years, Suzette has championed the role of chief data officers, been a tireless advocate for developing and reskilling the federal IT workforce and helped to push through several large federal IT policy updates (think here of the Identity, Credential and Access Management memo, or the Trusted Internet Connections (TIC) update, or the Cloud Smart policy, etc.). The work that she has led in these initiatives are foundational and will set the tone for years to come.
A little less publicly visible, she has done so much to organize and mobilize the Federal CIO Council as a cohesive, forward-leaning and action-oriented group. She has expanded the scope of activity of the council and enabled members to lead important initiatives.
Trey Hodgkins, president of Hodgkins Consulting and former senior vice president for policy at the IT Alliance for Public Sector: I think that last effort, focusing on updating government instruction and guidance related to IT is a really meaningful legacy that will guide the use of information technology long past her departure. The information that has been either updated or created for agencies sets the tone and direction of most of the efforts to digitize the federal government and modernize the use of IT and, if history is any indication, it will serve to direct agencies and departments well into the future.
Bill Marion, former Air Force deputy CIO and now managing director of growth and strategy in its defense and intelligence practice at Accenture: In the position, collaboration and communication of a vision is the most important aspect to accelerate cross-agency and department strategies. Suzette was the consummate example of this, as one trade rag said, ‘the CIO of CIOs’. Two key accomplishments were:
Cyber Reskilling Academy. While some may question the success, I believe it’s a foundational element of our most critical shortfall: equipping a digitally-minded workforce. I think this program has opened the eyes and hearts of many and I’m confident it will span follow-on activities.
Federal Data Strategy. I’m not sure many are aware but such a strategy is exquisitely hard to develop and coordinate. Moreover, it’s a core to the “data is a strategic federal asset” that we haven’t leveraged sufficiently. So again, this strategy will live beyond her tenure and empower future generations.
Mike Hettinger, principal at the Hettinger Strategy Group and former House committee staff member: When I think about her most notable accomplishments, I think about the update of the federal government’s cloud policy, moving from Cloud First to Cloud Smart, bringing forward a recognition that one size doesn’t necessarily fit all and that agencies should have the flexibility to choose the right cloud solution — public, private, hybrid or multi-cloud — to meet their individual needs. I also think about the federal data strategy and the recognition of the criticality of data in the decision-making process. It was her efforts that really drove the Federal Data Strategy forward. I’ll also think about her impact on customer experience, and the push that OMB made during her time to get agencies to better utilize digital tools to serve citizens. And lastly, her work on cybersecurity matters, including the update to the Trusted Internet Connections policy are to be commended.
Gordon Bitko, senior vice president of policy for Public Sector at IT Industry Council and former FBI CIO: One of the best examples of Suzette’s many notable accomplishments is the delivery of the Federal Data Strategy, and associated action plans, which highlights the strategic importance of data not just within but across agencies.
Zangardi: What is important is knowing that your CIO boss has your back and supports you. When I asked her for help with a tough problem, I knew I could count on her. She engaged and made a major contribution that reduced DHS data center cost and expedited our move to the cloud. I know that her support here isn’t widely known. But it left a lasting impression with me and the DHS management leadership at the time.
Cornelius: Having IT modernization as the number one priority in the President’s Management Agenda. If you view the PMA as the principle treatise on how the government operates and for whom it operates — the American people — this was a recognition by the administration that technology was the key connective thread between federal agencies and citizens. Modernizing and adopting commercial technology moved from a focus on improving operational efficiency and cost savings to creating and delivering a complete citizen digital experience. Now that this foundation and understanding has been built, it will continue on for decades to come.
Another great accomplishment, which is harder to describe because it is so sprawling, is that there wasn’t a priority Office of the Federal CIO took on during her tenure that didn’t show tremendous improvement. Whether it was the TMF, government adoption of cloud and commercial capabilities, federal cybersecurity, the Federal Data Strategy, shared services or enhancing the skills of the federal workforce — each and every critical program or project she oversaw moved in a dramatically positive direction during her time at OMB.
Weiler: Her successes include an update to cloud policy, with Cloud Smart, and drafting of several President Management Agenda focused policies and orders around cybersecurity. Unfortunately, her office spent more time talking than doing.
Wennergren: She refocused cloud efforts through her “moving from cloud first to cloud smart,” recognizing that cloud priorities must encompass so much more than just moving IT infrastructure to the cloud, and highlighting the importance of new security strategies to include zero trust and data-level security and focusing on the thousands of legacy systems still operating at agencies. Her engagement on emerging technology issues has resulted in a surge in robotic process automation (RPA) and interest in intelligent automation. Similarly she promoted the imperatives for data and digital (coincident with the passage of the two statutes) and worked hard to leverage the requirements of MGT and the TMF.
What about her 2-plus year tenure surprised you the most about her approach to managing federal IT?
Hodgkins: I think the most surprising thing about her tenure was that when she started, she was a relative unknown in the IT space, but she established herself quickly as a strong leader on IT policy and made substantial inroads and advancements across the technology spectrum. She became a visible and vocal proponent for government IT causes and efforts and has helped advance the use of IT in the federal government far beyond where things were when she began. Most recently, she guided the issuance of OMB Memorandum M-20-19 that spelled out for agencies what things they can do, what steps they should consider and what authorities they possessed to position the government as a resource for both agency employees and citizens. I’ve enjoyed working with her and her office and I think we will advance IT in the public sector in the context of her legacy for several years to come.
Marion: Her constant smile and energy, and I’m not surprised, but it’s great to see such a woman-in-tech role model shaping the many federal civilian careers to come.
Hettinger: Having worked with nearly all of the federal CIOs during my time in Washington, I found Suzette to be among the most approachable and transparent of all those CIOs. Her leadership and style will be missed.
Wynn: I am surprised at how much I miss seeing her and working with her! I believe others will feel the same because she made solving problems look easy and a lot of fun. She made each person feel special. Suzette Kent’s leadership is born from her true belief that each person has something great to give. Suzette has an inspiring presence and can distill complex problems into comprehensive solution plans — from individual efforts to legislative needs. She makes each person feel like they are the most important and this removes “no” and “can’t be done” from responses.
Cornelius: Her humility. Regardless of all the accolades and awards, she knew that the real successes in the broader federal IT and cybersecurity landscape came from the diligence, creativity and drive of the broader federal IT community. She knew there were so many wonderful people doing such important, transformational work, and she always wanted to identify and elevate those “success stories” (her favorite phrase). I can’t recall a speech she gave, or a team meeting we had when I was at OMB, when she wasn’t celebrating the hard work and accomplishments of others.
OMB, pandemic oversight committee yet to fully embrace Recovery Act lessons
June 22, 2020 9:44 am
The alarm over Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin’s comments two weeks ago that the administration’s initial decision not to make public those companies receiving money under the Paycheck Protection Program is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to recipient reporting under the $2 trillion stimulus bill.
The entire set of reporting requirements laid out by Congress in the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act are at risk because the Pandemic Response Accountability Committee (PRAC) has not yet decided whether it will require any more detailed information from states and businesses beyond what is already reported in the USASpending.gov database.
Multiple sources confirmed the Office of Management and Budget has made it clear in its CARES Act implementation memo and during meetings with state and local government officials and federal oversight officials that the administration will only require the current reporting requirements under the Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act (FFATA) that feeds data to USASpending.gov.
Industry sources say OMB stated and interpreted rationale is FFATA is sufficient to provide oversight over more than $2 trillion in emergency spending.
But one source, who requested anonymity in order to talk about this politically sensitive topic, said FFATA falls short, leaving agencies and the PRAC caught between OMB’s memo and Congress’ specific requirements.
Sources say FFATA doesn’t meet CARES Act requirements for two main reasons:
- Nothing in the existing FFATA reporting requirements provide for a project-by-project break down, the number of jobs created or retained and several other data elements required by law.
- The CARES Act requires quarterly reports to the funding agency and to the PRAC. FFATA is not set up for that type of reporting because it goes only to USASpending.gov portal requiring new application programming interfaces or similar software code to conduct the data pulls.
One federal oversight source, who also requested anonymity because they didn’t get permission to talk to the press, said OMB made it clear very quickly that they didn’t want to burden state and local governments with more reporting requirements.
“The OMB memo specifies all award data should be uploaded within two weeks of an award, but there is no data element for each award that indicates whether it’s COVID-19 or CARES Act related spending,” the source said. “The memo talks about the utilization of disaster emergency fund code (DEFC), which is on the financial side so they are dealing with the actual financial reporting, while on the award side they only will total obligations instead of actual expenditures against those obligations. There will be a need for some analytics from that live data to get what Congress is asking us to report on.”
The source said they were “surprised” by OMB’s memo and how it addressed recipient reporting because many in the oversight community thought the administration would build upon Recovery.gov lessons and take advantage of a centralized portal.
A request to OMB seeking clarification of the reporting requirements for recipients or future reporting requirements came back with only a brief statement.
An OMB spokesman told Federal News Network, “OMB is working with the PRAC and agency IGs to ensure proper reporting and transparency of CARES Act relief legislation.”
Is the reporting burden that great?
Sean Moulton, a senior policy analyst at the Project on Government Oversight (POGO) and a former analyst at OMBWatch where he developed the first transparency website for the Recovery Act called fedspending.org, said while it’s a good sign to see how fast the PRAC has moved to name an executive director and a deputy, the oversight board is struggling to get to where Congress told them they needed to be around recipient reporting.
“The biggest impediment is fact that OMB has come out and unexpectedly said we don’t think we need to collect any new information here. OMB said to make a few changes to existing spending tracking and that will be fine,” he said. “That goes directly against what Congress said it wanted. Congress wanted recipient reporting over $150,000. I don’t think a little reporting was too much to ask.”
Moulton said what Congress outlined in the CARES Act is anything but burdensome. He said it’s five or six data elements that can be done through a series of paragraphs and only for recipients receiving more than $150,000, meaning there would be no burden on most small firms.
“The two main excuses we keep hearing don’t makes sense. This level of data collection is not just useful for [an] organization like us or for Congress, but this is useful for agencies who will be overseeing these programs for years,” Moulton said. “They need to figure out how best to adjust their programs, how to improve loans, which ones were more effective to create jobs. You may wind up spending years throwing money at a problem and not getting the results you would if you had data to course correct.”
The agency oversight source said while there are ways to drill down into USASpending.gov to achieve some level of transparency, it will not compare to the recipient reporting during the Recovery Act.
“My wish is for the data to be centrally collected and we could use an API to pull the data we want,” the source said. “Instead, what we are being left with is trying to figure out individual funding streams, how to account for money and spending internally, and whether or not they are using a new catalog for domestic federal assistance number. All of us are having to do internal work, which is fine and it’s something we are used to doing, but it’s not helping with the overall transparency of the spending.”
POGO, which hasn’t talked to OMB about the reporting requirements, wants to create a CARES Act website of its own with data visualization and graphics.
Moulton said POGO received a couple of hundred thousands of dollars from the Arnold Foundation and is looking for additional funding to hire a contractor to help create the portal.
Lawmakers’ letter encourages standards
Mnuchin’s comments to Congress at a hearing earlier in June that the names of loan recipients and the amounts are “proprietary information,” may be the spark to move the administration off its current stance.
While he claimed the information is confidential, ethics advocates and some lawmakers see the move as an attempt to dodge accountability for how the money is spent.
Treasury and the Small Business Administration has since walked back that viewpoint, announcing late last week that it would make recipient reporting for any businesses receiving more than $150,000 in PPP more transparent.
Read more: Agency Oversight News
Before Mnuchin’s comments, lawmakers already were worried about the administration’s requirements for recipient reporting.
Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-N.C.), and four other lawmakers sent a letter to Michael Horowitz, the chairman of the Council of the Inspectors General on Integrity and Efficiency on May 29 supporting the use of existing standards and data resources.
In the letter the lawmakers asked CIGIE to make sure the PRAC considers using existing data standards and platforms as well as develop a “robust recipient reporting framework that incorporates all award types and enables easy utilization by large and small businesses without creating undue burden.”
Other sources in the federal oversight community said there is a lot of concern and anxiety about OMB’s stance since they say it undermines Congress’ intent and flies in the face of all the lessons learned by the Recovery Accountability and Transparency (RAT) Board to oversee the Recovery Act spending.
Those concerns came to light during a PRAC town hall and listening session on June 3.
Kinney Poynter, the executive director of the National Association of State Auditors, Comptrollers and Treasurers (NASACT), said there are two major concerns that the PRAC should address immediately.
“A comprehensive listing of all federal funds provided to the states should be prepared and distributed. This listing should be detailed to show the total dollars received by each state and further broken down by the amount received from each federal program by Catalog of Federal Domestic Assistance number,” she said. “Several key decisions need to be reached regarding the $150 billion of Coronavirus Relief Fund (CRF), including: Will these funds be subject to the single audit? If no, how will compliance requirements be independently tested? What are states’ responsibilities over the funds that are passed to local governments or other subrecipients? Are states responsible for repayment of these funds in cases where a subrecipient did not spend the funds appropriately? How will CRF funds be reported to the public facing website and to the PRAC?”
Poynter said the Recovery Act provided a good roadmap for the CARES Act.
“One of the key lessons learned from [Recovery Act] implementation was the need for the federal government to ‘speak with one voice.’ Different guidance from different federal agencies is not efficient and will decrease overall accountability over the funds,” Poynter said.
37 IGs highlight challenges
During the town hall, Horowitz said the PRAC fully understands its role in promoting oversight and transparency.
“Through the PRAC as well as through the audits, reviews and investigations conducted by individual IGs, we are working tirelessly to meet that effort,” he said. “In order for us to be successful, obviously, we need to hear from stakeholders. They can provide important insight into the areas we will be overseeing, and to get your expertise, your views and your thoughts about how the pandemic response is being undertaken and how the federal government is meeting the challenges that it has been called upon to meet in these challenging times.”
Then on June 17, CIGIE released a new report that includes input from 37 agency IGs about the top management challenges agencies face in overseeing the CARES Act spending. At a high level, the challenges included financial and grants management as well as IT and security concerns.
Read more: Management News
And recipient reporting came up several times during the individual responses from large and small agency IGs.
“Several OIGs identified concerns about receiving timely and accurate data. For example, the Department of Education OIG stated that the agency should look for ways to improve data quality and ensure that CARES Act grant recipients and subrecipients report data that is accurate and complete,” the report states.
POGO’s Moulton added what seems to be getting lost in this discussion is Congress expected some level of unprecedented transparency of spending and so far it’s unclear if that will happen at the federal level.
He said he’s been in touch with some of the congressional staff members who drafted the CARES Act oversight requirements and they mirrored them off the Recovery Act.
“I think there is a sense on both sides of the aisle that while the Recovery Act had its challenges, it was pretty good with transparency and accountability and they wanted to use that as starting point,” Moulton said. “They made some improvements in the language and felt they didn’t have to spell out everything they needed to get because it was modeled after the Recovery Act. They used the same structure and made changes based on better technology to get to a similar result. Unfortunately it looks like that’s not what’s playing out.”
Sources say at a recent National Governor’s Association call, at least one state is planning to meet the reporting requirements to the letter of the CARES Act law and two others are creating a data dictionary.
But one of the biggest challenges for all states, according to people who were on the call, was the lack of consistency in initial reporting guidance from agencies. Sources say recipients are forced to constantly review websites to find information across programs, agencies and sub-agencies.
“While we appreciate OMB’s continued support in reducing administrative burden, award recipients are ultimately accountable to the statutory requirements and memoranda do not take precedence over statute,” one attendee said. “The lack of clear guidance on reporting makes advance preparation for the reporting process difficult at the state level. States strive to comply with the requirements of the CARES Act and avoid any audit findings. We view ourselves as a partner with the federal government. Our success is their success.”
PRAC preaches patience
As for the PRAC, Robert Westbrooks, the executive director, acknowledged they are at the beginning stages of the data collecting and reporting effort.
“There are gaps today, but what the reporting structure is today is not the end of the story. That’s important to recognize. We are working on an ongoing basis to close these gaps, and what that looks like is yet to be seen,” he said. “In July, the PRAC will receive the first set of COVID-19 spending data, and at that point we will be able to see full extent of statutory reporting responsibilities not being met. We are working ongoing basis with National Association of State Auditors, Comptrollers, and Treasurers and its COVID-19 Accountability Working Group, and many others.”
The PRAC also plans upgrade its current website and its current set of analytical tools. The committee currently is reimbursing the Postal Service inspector general for technology services and support. Westbrooks said the PRAC plans take over the management of its technology and hire an executive to lead the IT effort.
On May 29, the PRAC released a solicitation under the Alliant 2 governmentwide acquisition contract for website, data and analytics management services. Westbrooks said the PRAC hopes to have the contract in place by mid-July to begin to manage and populate the current website with more and better data and tools.
Congress allocated $80 million for the PRAC for people, technology and other needs.
Kathy Tighe, a retired Education Department IG and who is a senior advisor to the PRAC, said the committee is working with the Treasury IG to set up a separate recipient reporting portal for the Coronavirus Relief Fund, similar to what the Recovery Act used. She said new guidance will be going to state, local and tribal governments and the Treasury IG is in direct conversations with the National Association of State Auditors, Comptrollers and Treasurers about what the portal would look like.
Westbrooks said he wants to make sure oversight groups, the public and others understand that the PRAC is just getting started and recipient reporting will evolve over time as the data comes in.
“One of purposes of the OMB PRAC coordination process is so we have a whole of government consistency. There has to be consistency,” he said. “We are working with Treasury too, but it’s that weekly OMB coordination process that is the vehicle to ensure consistency. We also work closely with IG members and with HHS, GSA and other agencies. We are early in the process. We don’t have it all figured out now. We are working through it to ensure consistency.”
Federal CIO Kent sees a bigger opening to push for IT modernization
June 15, 2020 11:43 am
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The door to solve some of the systemic issues plaguing federal IT modernization efforts opened slightly more over the last few months.
Many would agree that one of the few silver linings in the coronavirus pandemic has been the ability of agencies to upgrade network and security services in record time to accommodate the surge in remote working.
The second item to pry the door just a little bit wider came from Sen. Maggie Hassan (D-N.H.). The ranking member of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Subcommittee on Federal Spending Oversight and Emergency Management wrote to 10 agencies on June 3 asking specific questions about each of their IT modernization strategies, systems in most need of modernization and, maybe the best signal of all, what Congress can do to help.
“Sen. Hassan sent the letters because of the particular impact legacy IT systems have had on COVID-19 relief efforts. Sen. Hassan looks forward to hearing back from agencies about their plans to modernize their technology,” said a subcommittee staff member. “Next steps — including potential additional funding from Congress to address legacy IT systems — will depend on what the senator hears back from agencies. Following up on Sen. Hassan’s questions to [Russ] Vought [the nominee to be OMB director], Sen. Hassan and her office will continue to be in touch with the Office of Management and Budget about the role it can play in modernizing federal IT.”
The fact that another lawmaker besides a few of the usual suspects — Reps. Gerry Connolly (D-Va.), Will Hurd, (R-Texas) and maybe a few others — gives the Trump administration an opportunity it has rarely had in the Senate over the last four years. The likelihood of getting bicameral support for funding that lasts longer than one year and addresses many of the shortcomings of the IT modernization efforts over the last 15 years is at least a little stronger.
“This is exactly what Congress should be doing to encourage agencies to bring government services into the 21st Century. Congressional oversight will be a critical driver in agency modernization plans and execution,” said Matt Cornelius, the executive director of the Alliance for Digital Innovation, an industry association, and a former OMB senior technology and cybersecurity advisor, in an email to Federal News Network. “We need more of this. Congress should be asking every agency probing questions, every year and in every appropriations hearing, about their plan to retire their most cumbersome and insecure legacy systems and what concrete steps they will take to ensure their agency is leveraging commercial capabilities to deliver an enhanced customer experience to citizens.”
Agency plans to further the dialogue
The value of Hassan’s letters are not lost on the administration
Federal Chief Information Officer Suzette Kent said her office plans to work with agencies on their responses as well as with Hassan and others on Capitol Hill to address many of the long-standing IT modernization challenges.
“We’ve asked for application rationalization plans from agencies and many agencies have very good ones and other agencies still are developing pieces, and this will give some visibility to those,” Kent said in an interview. “In some cases, there were some things about modernization very generically and others had components that reflected on what happened in response to the crisis. Having to move quickly and do things differently has heightened the attention but also the importance to having modern technology that lets us be able to make those pivots, to move quickly and continue citizen services and mission continuity inside agencies.”
Kent said the application rationalization plans vary among agencies with some focused more broadly and others looking at particular high value systems or those with gaps or specific challenges.
“What the letters and the budget discussions will help us do is draw a more direct parallel between the business objective of the agency and how we fund those, and what the right vehicles are,” she said. “Particularly, the things that require multi-year commitment because some of the questions to the agencies focus on systems that were older or more comprehensive and those things don’t happen in a single year. That will let us have some healthy dialogue there as well as let agencies share their perspective around how they have prioritized what their modernization looks like, and that’s a dialogue that is very important agency by agency.”
Dave Powner, the former director of IT issues at the Government Accountability Office and now director of strategic engagement and partnerships for MITRE Corporation, said Hassan’s letters seem to focus on the 10 agencies that GAO highlighted its 2019 report on some of the oldest systems in government. This third report looked at 10 systems that were between 8 and 51 years old and critical to the respective agency’s mission.
Read more: Technology News
“I think clearly when you look at what needs to be done, there needs to be more transparency on what needs to be done to replace these legacy systems. I think Sen. Hassan’s questions are on the spot,” Powner said. “These priority legacy initiatives need long term plans with clear accountability. I know it sounds like basic stuff but if you look at plans that need to be in place and why it’s so difficult to modernize these systems, that’s what’s missing many times.”
New legislation on horizon?
Powner said the GAO report also highlighted five legacy success stories and the reasons why those agencies were successful.
“They all took between 3 and 5 years, and when you look at the complexity with some of these mission modernization, there is tension between interrupting operations and modernization so there needs to be a plan that spans that timeframe,” he said. “You need to look at this not as something that will happen in six months, but something that will be a long-term effort with transparency and accountability.”
Powner said the combination of OMB and Congress performing the oversight is what makes modernization work best.
“If we brought back the watch or high risk list, which was something from the Bush administration that listed the top 30 or 50 mission modernization initiatives, that would be a good way to focus both Congress and the administration,” he said. “The question remains who is responsible — both the CIO and the mission or strategic business partners? Why are these things so difficult? It takes a long term focus from the business and the IT organization. So if Congress could help keep the eye on the ball for a longer period of time, along with OMB, that may be the right type of formula for success.”
Hassan recognizes that challenge as she asked for details about each agency’s implementation of the Federal IT Acquisition Reform Act (FITARA) and the role of the CFO when it comes to IT acquisitions.
Read more: IT Modernization News
Dan Chenok, a former OMB official and now executive director of the IBM Center for the Business of Government, said, Hassan’s interest is a positive development because whether it’s hearings or legislation or letters, it tends to lead to major changes in how the government manages technology.
“Most likely what she is trying to tease out are the systemic issues that agencies face with IT modernization. She probably will do some sort of crosscut view of key elements of modernization, where agencies are, how are they doing with cloud or with the adoption of open technologies, open standards and open source, and how are they doing introducing emerging technologies like artificial intelligence or blockchain or robotics process automation relative to the system’s important drivers of performance,” Chenok said. “I would think the end goal is to drive agencies toward better analytics where some of the modernization best practices can emerge.”
Chenok said every five to 10 years lawmakers come up with new legislation to help drive federal IT modernization and this may be the beginning of that next cycle.
OMB’s Kent said Hassan’s letter gives OMB another reason, another opening if you will, to discuss how to sustain agency transformation.
“There are things that we continue the dialogue around, like supporting agency requests for working capital funds, or when the budgets come in with specific modernization goals around projects or shared services, and understanding that these are not one and done projects. There needs to be an ongoing commitment to make real change,” she said. “We want to make sure that we continue the dialogue with improving the consistency and the clarity of results delivered. Whether that’s a dashboards, scorecards, project transparency, the way we tell mission stories, Congress asks for numbers and demonstrations of how value is being delivered, and agencies want to share that in a meaningful way that not only shows progress, but means something to taxpayers and the constituents being served.”
