Responding to the GAO report, the leadership of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee called for agencies to give their CIOs more responsibility to ensure effective management of technology and information, as well as legal compliance.
Committee chair Joseph Lieberman, I-Conn., and ranking member Susan Collins, R-Maine, noted that the government is projected to spend $79 billion in fiscal 2012 on IT, but that CIOs have relatively little input into IT budgets.
"Particularly troubling is that GAO found many federal CIOs have not been fully empowered to be successful," particularly in regard to setting budgets, Lieberman said, adding, Sen. "Collins and I will continue our oversight efforts to ensure CIOs are charged with the responsibilities they need to perform their jobs successfully."
OMB estimates that the federal government invested nearly $80 billion into IT in fiscal 2011 alone, but Collins lamented, "We cannot continue to have schedule slips, poor mission-related results, and millions of dollars in cost overruns."
She said CIOs should play a bigger decision-making role on IT investments and that she is "concerned that the vision of the Clinger-Cohen reforms has, in some cases, been subverted by bureaucratic maneuvering and turf battles."
