The White House’s budget proposal calls for an infusion of $500 million into the government-wide Technology Modernization Fund on top of the $1 billion allotted by the pandemic relief law enacted earlier this year, as had been indicated by a preliminary budget document issued in April.
“The TMF would continue to serve as the predominant vehicle for delivering improvements to public-facing digital services, enhancements to cross-government collaboration, and modern technology designed with security and privacy in mind,” says a budget document. The fund is designed to provide enough resources for agencies to retire obsolete IT rather than smaller annual appropriations which commonly are sufficient only to keep those systems operating rather than replace them.
The OMB and GSA recently listed priorities for the fund including addressing urgent IT modernization needs, bolstering cybersecurity defenses, fostering cross-agency collaboration, improving the delivery of government services, and support services that can be scaled for impact across government.
The proposal also seeks nearly $10 billion within individual agency budgets for cybersecurity.
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