Modernizing the FCC Enterprise

According to the Government Accountability Office, Federal agencies are currently spending over 70% of their Information Technology budgets on maintaining legacy systems.

Government-wide, these maintenance costs amount to over $54 billion a year spent on existing legacy systems, and delays needed transitions to newer technologies. Moreover, this cost only captures those legacy processes automated by IT; several paper-based, manual processes exist and result in additional hidden, human-intensive costs that could benefit from modern IT automation.

In the spirit of openness, I’d like to share our seven tracks as we embark on our journey to modernize the FCC enterprise. These tracks and supporting goals represent our focused efforts to bring the FCC into the 21st century and ensure the Commission has some of best IT in government supporting its mission.

Like an iceberg where a majority of the ice is hidden underwater, modernizing manual, human-intensive processes at the FCC will reduce legacy “sunk costs” at the Commission. The result will be a more agile, responsive, IT-enabled FCC enterprise able to work faster and float “above water”. Our workforce will be more effective, efficient in their time and energy, and better able to deliver the highest quality public service to the US public and FCC partners.

• Improve Secure Employee Telework & Mobility
• Secure Internal & External Collaborations
• Strengthen FCC’s IT Security Posture
• Transform Access to FCC Enterprise Data
• Modernize Legacy Systems & Tracking
• Improve FCC.gov & Complaint Reform
• Increase Transparency & System Usability

[Bray is the FCC’s Chief Information Officer]