What Government CIOs' New IT Budget Authority Could Mean For VARs

By Christine Kern, contributing writer

A recent article from Fed Tech Magazine offered some advice from General Services Administration (GSA) CIO Sonny Hashmi to fellow CIOs, who will be gaining control over department IT budgets for the first time as a result of recent legislation. Hashmi says that IT must remain flexible and innovative in order to be successful, and emphasizes the need to modernize legacy systems.

The tech sector has interpreted the passing of the Federal Information Technology Acquisition Reform Act (FITARA) as a positive sign of significant reform to come in 2015, according to The e-Commerce Times.  Lawmakers included FITARA in the 2015 National Defense Authority Act (NDAA) bill approved by Congress in December. The FITARA bill was included in the 2015 NDAA by Senators, according to the Federal Times.

FITARA gives a major boost to agency chief information officers when it comes to overseeing their agencies’ IT budgets, promising CIOs a “significant role” in programming, budgeting, and decision-making related to IT at their agencies. That power means that CIOs must sign off on any and all contracts for IT or IT services for the agency, and includes approving the IT portion of the annual budget requests agencies submit to Congress. The bill similarly bars agencies from reprogramming IT funds without CIO approval. CIOs will also play a more direct role in the hiring of any bureau-level CIOs.

The passage of FITARA definitely empowers agency CIOs, Kareem El-Alaily, managing director at Censeo Consulting told NextGov.com. “The real question to me is: What are they going to do with it? Are department-level CIOs truly prepared to use this power?”

Since FITARA also means that CIOs would be held accountable for better managing their IT portfolios, essentially codifying into law the Obama administration’s PortfolioStat process for identifying and correcting potentially troubled IT projects, it opens the door to IT management consultant offerings or even outsourcing of such services. The bill would also formalize the administration’s efforts to close and consolidate federal data centers.

The legislation also calls on the General Services Administration to expand strategic sourcing initiatives to include software and would clear the way for government-wide software license purchases.

Given the new authority for CIOs, be aware that decision makers and influencers in the IT purchasing process now could be different.