Why Reps. Hurd, Hoyer are focused on government technology transformation – CIO Dive

Dive Brief:

Government agencies have a modernization problem. The federal IT budget is $80 billion, yet the government has to spend 75% of the funds just on operations and maintenance of legacy systems, according to report from the Government Accountability Office.

The problem becomes systemic in the government. Though an agency might want to bring in newer cloud-based technologies, CIOs and other IT leaders often find the network cannot support an increased load without an upgrade. Then, even if the agency is ready for new technology, the procurement process can drag on for months and sometimes even years.

That's one of the reasons why Hurd and Hoyer have championed the MGT, calling for a more efficient way to bring technology into the government and allowing agencies to innovate so they can better provider goods and services to citizens.

Though it passed in the House, the MGT stalled in the Senate because of an assessment by the Congressional Budget Office, which estimated the proposed legislation would cost $9 billion to implement. The bill, however was intended to be a cost-saving measure for the federal government, allowing agency technological transformation and help reduce cost of simply maintaining systems.

Hurd and Hoyer are not alone in their transformation efforts. The White House is also working to make government more focused on innovation. In a presidential memorandum, earlier this week President Donald Trump established the White House Office of American Innovation, to be headed by Jared Kushner, a senior advisor to the president and Trump's son-in-law.

The office will "bring together the best ideas from government, the private sector and other thought leaders" to help the U.S. solve "today's most intractable problems," according to the memorandum.The goals is for the office to implement tested private sector models to help spur government innovation and job creation. This means that Kushner, in an effort to help modernize government, will have to tackle the archeological layer of legacy technology that persists across agencies.

Top image credit: Naomi Eide

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Why Reps. Hurd, Hoyer are focused on government technology transformation - CIO Dive