Federal Manager's Daily Report

Image: Lightboxx/Shutterstock.com

The intent of the Technology Modernization Fund is for agencies receiving funding through it to reimburse the fund for savings they achieve, but that generally hasn’t happened with the projects funded to date, GAO has said.

GAO reviewed seven of the 11 projects approved in 2018 and 2019 under the fund – which was created in 2017 to provide upfront money to make comprehensive changes rather than continuing to spend money keeping legacy systems running while agencies made incremental changes – and found that only two had reported generating cost savings, and that even those “were not documented.”

“For the remaining five projects, two no longer planned on savings, two planned on savings starting in 1 to 3 years, and one did not know when savings would begin,” GAO said in a report prepared for a House subcommittee hearing. GAO added that in most cases, the requesting agencies “did not fully incorporate best practices for a reliable cost estimate.”

The fund has received more than $1.1 billion in spending authority – the bulk of that through a pandemic relief law enacted last year -0 and the administration has requested another $300 million in its fiscal 2023 budget.

The fund most recently awarded $4.4 million to the Agriculture Department for cybersecurity improvements and $9.1 million to the National Archives and Records Administration to help address a backlog of requests from veterans for military records to prove their eligibility for benefits.

Said GAO, “With hundreds of millions of dollars remaining in the TMF, it is increasingly important that GSA implement GAO’s prior recommendation to improve the instructions for the TMF cost estimate template required of each proposal.”

TSP Projects Just 2-3% of Investors Will Use Mutual Fund Window

Lack of Offsite Work Capability Hampered IRS Early in Pandemic, IG Says

Share of Veterans in Federal Workforce Remaining Stable

MSPB Backs Employee Appeal Rights in Suspension

After Audit, OPM to Step Up Controls over Retirement Payments

TSP Finalizes Range of Policy Changes Largely as Planned

Planning Ahead – Getting Credit for Active Duty Service

Telework Restrictions Proposed; CBP Safety Protections Advance

2022 Federal Employees Handbook