{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["https://hurd.house.gov/media-center/in-the-news/3-takeaways-fitara-30-hearing", "3 Takeaways From The FITARA 3.0 Hearing", "2016-12-12", "2016", "2016-12", "Republican", "House", "TX", "Will Hurd", "H001073", "hurd.house.gov", null, null, "legacy", "It\u2019s easy to focus on agency grades and lawmakers\u2019 praise and/or outrage during the twice-a-year hearing as part of overseeing the Federal IT Acquisition Reform Act (FITARA). The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee held its biannual session Dec. 6, where we heard mostly good news with 12 agencies improving their grades and 11 agencies earning the same grade as last time.\nBut what\u2019s really great about these FITARA hearings is finding out what\u2019s happening in agencies underneath the grades.\nThe State and Homeland Security departments\u2019 chief information officers offered a better understanding of their progress in reforming IT in their respective agencies.\nHere are my three takeaways from the FITARA 3.0 hearing:\nDHS congruence\nLawmakers spent a large portion of the\u00a0hearing\u00a0rightly concerned about the reporting structure of agency chief information officers. The reason both DHS and State CIOs and CFOs testified before the committee was because neither agency\u2019s most senior IT executive reports directly to the deputy secretary or secretary.\nOne of the reasons the Clinger-Cohen Act \u2014 the predecessor to FITARA \u2014 fell short was many agencies never met the spirit or intent of the bill\u2019s requirement to elevate the CIO position so it was a true partner at the decision-making table.\nLawmakers honed in on this issue at the hearing and added a new grading section to the latest FITARA scorecard measuring agency CIO reporting structure. The reason for this focus is clear. As the Government Accountability Office\u2019s\u00a0David Powner, the director of IT management issues, explained the importance in simple terms: CIOs who report to their secretary or deputy secretary scored better than those who didn\u2019t.\nDHS CIO\u00a0Luke McCormack\u00a0didn\u2019t disagree with the committee or GAO\u2019s opinion on the importance of reporting structure, but he offered an interesting alternative.\n\u201cThe number one thing in my opinion that makes us a success is what I call goal congruence and a governance structure. Every CXO in DHS has the authority to sort of \u2018throw the flag\u2019 in and say \u2018I have a problem with that project.\u2019 When I say CXOs, I\u2019m taking about chief procurement officer, the chief human capital officer and certainly myself. All of us are sort of together as a board of directors have that authority,\u201d he said. \u201cIn regards to agile development, and this is where goal congruence comes into play, it works. It\u2019s a private sector best practice. If your go out and look at any advanced private sector company that uses IT as a strategic weapon, as I\u2019ll call it, they are all developing it in this kind of process. But you cannot do that if you don\u2019t have the right skills, which means you need your CHCOs to help you hire those folks. You cannot do that unless you have the right procurements in place.\u201d\nMcCormack said if all of those efforts across the CXOs aren\u2019t aligned, then nothing works, even if the CIO reports to the secretary or deputy secretary.\nHe said to make progress against any policy or law, the CXOs have to be in the same page from the beginning and stay together throughout the entire lifecycle of a program or project.\nTo ensure this goal congruence happens, DHS follows several steps, including putting the requirement to participate in the governance board in the CXOs\u2019 performance plans.\nMcCormack said every project gate review must be approved by all CXOs before it can move forward.\n\u201cWhile you can have the CIO report to the deputy secretary, which is important and could be powerful, but if they are not associated to the individual that you are reporting to, you are still in a negotiation. You are constantly negotiating,\u201d he said. \u201cIf that individual is on board and says, \u2018We are going to move,\u2019 then you will move.\u201d\nMcCormack said this process works. He said the board has paused more than one IT project that was struggling for a variety of reasons.\nThe federal community also has seen\u00a0evidence of this concept\u00a0of goal congruence working. McCormack and fellow CXOs\u00a0\u2014\u00a0Soraya Correa, the chief procurement officer,\u00a0Angie Bailey, the CHCO, and\u00a0Chip Fulghum, the CFO and deputy undersecretary for management \u2014 routinely are out on the federal speaking circuit together\u00a0presenting examples\u00a0of how working off of the same sheet of paper is paying off.\nThis is not to say DHS has solved the CIO authorities issue. But it seems to make sense for lawmakers to hold other CXOs accountable for working with their respective CIOs to implement FITARA too.\nState is digging out\nIf\u00a0Frontis Wiggins, State\u2019s CIO, can meet his stretch goal of raising the agency\u2019s score to a \u201cB\u201d from a \u201cD-\u201d over the next six months, then he will truly be a turnaround specialist.\nAs Wiggins described the state of IT disrepair the agency was in when he arrived as its CIO five months ago, it was shocking.\n\u201cWhen you look at incremental development, for example, we did not have a mandatory use of incremental development as part of our project management plan. Since I came into this office five months ago, I\u2019ve made that mandatory,\u201d he said. \u201cWe did not have an office that focused on workforce. We did not have an IT strategic plan. We did not have a cybersecurity strategy. We did not have a cybersecurity tracker. All of those things have been put in place since I\u2019ve assumed the role. We have a lot of work to do to catch up.\u201d\nListening to Wiggins go through the litany of missing basic IT governance documents, it was no surprise State actually dropped to a \u201cD-\u201d from a \u201cD.\u201d It was a bit surprising that\u00a0Rep. Robin Kelley(D-Ill.), the ranking member of the IT subcommittee, didn\u2019t follow up on her question about challenges State faces with FITARA by asking why the department, which at one time was a leader especially around cybersecurity, was in such bad shape.\nThe good news here is Wiggins seems to have a plan and is beginning to make progress. He said State is updating these documents and implementing new tools to address some of its shortcomings.\nFirst off, Wiggins said he\u2019s designating five employees to work only on FITARA implementation.\n\u201cTo support the full implementation of FITARA at the department, we are in the process of bringing on five employees who will focus on integrating each component of our IT Strategic Plan with our capital planning, budget and planning, and acquisitions initiatives and objectives \u2014 as part of the Department\u2019s Electronic Government governance framework. These new staff members will join the Enterprise Program Management Office that supports my office, members of the Department\u2019s governance boards (including the Bureau of Budget and Planning and the Office of Acquisitions Management), and other associated offices and groups,\u201d Wiggins said in an email to Federal News Radio after the hearing. \u201cThe five new staff members will work to ensure the department is focused on implementing FITARA by ensuring its legislation is a priority in both high-level discussions, and in daily operations. This scope of support includes working to eliminate duplicative IT projects and initiatives, and ensure that we are selecting and delivering best-in-class IT solutions to support the department\u2019s needs.\u201d\nAdditionally, Wiggins said the relationship with the department\u2019s CXO community he\u2019s developed over his career will help transform how State uses IT.\nOne path toward that transformation is a new Budget System Modernization (BSM) project, which will integrate State\u2019s internal budget allocation and execution functions into a more modern, cohesive system by supporting financial planning for IT projects.\n\u201cBSM will replace outdated legacy budget systems with greatly improved capabilities. Among these improvements will be greater transparency at a more granular level into planned and budgeted spending, including for IT. It will also consolidate information across systems so that staff can use a single budget system to report on various types of spending,\u201d said\u00a0Doug Pitkin, State\u2019s director of the Bureau of Budget and Planning, in an email to Federal News Radio after the hearing.\nPitkin said State expects to implement phase one of the tool for financial planning in fiscal 2017.\nThe fact that Pitkin and Wiggins are working closely on the IT budget aspect of FITARA is a sign of necessary change at State, where the CIO only really controls about 50 percent of all IT spending.\nDid CBO really kill the MGT Act?\nReps.\u00a0Will Hurd\u00a0(R-Texas) and\u00a0Gerry Connolly\u00a0(D-Va.) made clear their unhappiness with the Congressional Budget Office\u2019s scoring of the Modernizing Government Technology (MGT) Act at the FITARA hearing.\nThe CBO\u00a0said\u00a0the bill would cost $9 billion to implement \u2014 $3 billion for the Obama administration\u2019s IT Modernization Fund and $6 billion in agency funding that otherwise would\u2019ve been returned to the Treasury.\nHurd said the CBO double counted; its estimates were \u201cridiculous;\u201d and CBO made some assumptions on $6 billion that were incorrect.\nConnolly said, \u201cThe priesthood of the CBO \u2026 is one that mystifies all of us. The infallibility we invest the CBO with would make the Pope in Rome envious.\u201d\nHurd said the CBO score basically killed the bill for the 114th Congress.\n\u201cWe ran out of time,\u201d Hurd said in an interview with Federal News Radio after the hearing. \u201cWe will pick this back up back in 2017 to get this done. It\u2019s another tool that we can give our CIOs to have the flexibility to introduce new and cutting edge technology into their systems.\nBut really did the CBO score kill the MGT bill?\nIt seems unlikely that the Senate would\u2019ve had time to conduct a hearing or a markup of the House\u2019s version. The Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee already had\u00a0concerns\u00a0about the current version of the bill, particularly around creating new working capital funds in each agency. This means the upper chamber wouldn\u2019t have attached it to the Defense Authorization bill \u2014 a common vehicle for major IT and acquisition reforms \u2014 or voted on the House\u2019s language.\nStill, Hurd said he believes the Senate is ready to pass the bill.\n\u201cBut when you get an outrageous CBO score based on incorrect information, that causes everyone to pause. The way the Senate works and only three days left in the business year, we [were unable] to get it in under that timeline,\u201d Hurd said.\nAdditionally, some say the CBO\u2019s $9 billion price tag is the Oversight and Government Reform Committee\u2019s own fault in the way it wrote the bill.\nIn CBO\u2019s estimate, the authors highlighted Section 3 of the bill where it would give agencies the ability to reprogram funds from existing accounts. This is where the extra $6 billion comes from. CBO says if agencies were able to extend the life of the funding in existing accounts instead of it reverting back to Treasury, that act would increase the direct spending instead of the money being counted as savings.\n\u201cExtending the period of availability for funds that are already appropriated would be a reappropriation and considered to be direct spending. Because agencies would probably want to keep some of those balances for unexpected expenses, CBO estimates that half of that amount would be transferred and used by federal agencies for IT investments over the next two years, increasing direct spending by $3 billion over the next three years,\u201d CBO wrote.\nSome say the committee could\u2019ve written the bill in a way that would have let agencies save only money from future accounts instead of current accounts. Add to that the committee\u2019s decision not to say in the bill that the initial $3 billion for the IT Modernization Fund is a one-time hit. Because they leave it open ended, some say it could open the door for future appropriations to the fund.\nSo while the CBO\u2019s estimate is not helpful for the MGT Act, and could make it more difficult in the 115th Congress, it doesn\u2019t seem likely that a neutral or even positive estimate would\u2019ve made a difference in the final weeks of 2016. Hurd and Connolly are hopeful that an early re-introduction of the bill in 2017 helps pave the way for a quick passage. But with federal CIO Tony Scott\u00a0expected not to stick around past Jan. 20, getting critical White House support may be difficult and could hamper the bill\u2019s acceptance in Congress.", 1, "2026-03-30T12:14:52Z", "2026-03-30T12:14:52Z"]], "columns": ["url", "title", "date", "year", "month", "party", "chamber", "state", "member_name", "bioguide_id", "domain", "scraper", "source", "date_source", "text", "has_text", "collected_at", "updated_at"], "primary_keys": ["url"], "primary_key_values": ["https://hurd.house.gov/media-center/in-the-news/3-takeaways-fitara-30-hearing"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 0.8402750827372074, "source": "dwillis/congress-press", "source_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press", "license": "MIT", "license_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press/blob/main/LICENSE"}