OMB: FITARA Guidance Coming This Week

Attention, agency chief information officers: Guidance for implementing the Federal IT Acquisition Reform Act (FITARA) is coming by the end of week of April 27, the Office of Management and Budget announced. Congress approved the sweeping federal IT reform legislation in December as part of an annual Defense policy bill. Since being named the federal CIO in February, Tony Scott, a former industry executive, said recently his time has been “consumed” with mapping out the guidelines.

The thrust of the new legislation gives agency CIOs greater power over their agency’s IT purse strings, mandating CIOs have final sign-off on their annual IT budgets and sole final authority to sign IT contract and reprogram IT funds. In addition, some of the key initiatives the Obama Administration has piloted over the past few years to better budget and spend on IT were also codified into law by FITARA. That includes the PortfolioStat process, in which agency CIOs sit down with OMB to go over the performance of their IT investments, and efforts to close and optimize energy-guzzling data centers.