Federal CIO Clare Martorana has “imbued” the idea of “iterative policy” within administration officials, Myklegard said in an interview Thursday with FedScoop at Scoop News Group’s AITalks. “We’re not going to get it right the first time.” 

As the inventories, which were established under a Trump-era executive order, enter the third year of collection, Myklegard said agencies have a better idea of what they’re buying, and communication — as well as the skills for collecting and sorting the data — are improving. 

On the same day OMB released its recent memo outlining a governance strategy for artificial intelligence in the federal government, it also released new, expansive draft guidance for agencies’ 2024 AI use case inventories. 

Those inventories have, in the past, suffered from inconsistencies and even errors. While they’re required to be published publicly and annually by certain agencies, the disclosures have varied widely in terms of things like the type of information contained, format, and collection method.

Now, the Biden administration is seeking to change that. Under the draft, information about each use case would be now collected via a form and agencies would be required to post a “machine-readable” comma-separated value (CSV) format inventory of the public uses to their website, in addition to other changes. The White House is currently soliciting feedback on that draft guidance, though a deadline for those comments isn’t clear.

In the meantime, agencies are getting to work on a host of other requirements OMB outlined in the new AI governance memo. According to Myklegard, the volume of comments was the highest the administration had seen on an OMB memo.

“We were really surprised. It’s the most comments we’ve received from any memo that we’ve put out,” Myklegard said during remarks on stage at AI Talks. He added that “between those we really feel like we were able to hear you.”

The memo received roughly 196 public comments, according to Regulations.gov. The same number for OMB’s previous guidance on the Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program (FedRAMP) process, for example, was 161.

Among the changes in the final version of that memo were several public disclosure requirements, including requiring civilian agencies and the Defense Department to report aggregate metrics about AI uses not published in an inventory, and requiring agencies to report information about the new determinations and waivers they can issue for uses that are assumed to be rights- and safety-impacting under the memo. 

Myklegard told FedScoop those changes are an example of the iterative process that OMB is trying to take. When OMB seeks public input on memos, which Myklegard said hasn’t happened often in the past, “we realize areas in our memos that we either missed and need to address, or need to clarify more, and that was just this case.”

Another addition to the memo was encouragement for agencies to name an “AI Talent Lead.” That individual will serve “for at least the duration of the AI Talent Task Force” and be responsible for tracking AI hiring in their agency, providing data to the Office of Personnel Management and OMB, and reporting to agency leadership, according to the memo.

In response to a question about how that role came about, Myklegard pointed to the White House chief of staff’s desire to look for talent internally and the U.S. Digital Service’s leadership on that effort.

“It just got to a point that we felt we needed to formalize and … give agencies the ability to put that position out,” Myklegard said. The administration hopes “there’s downstream effects” of things like shared position descriptions (PDs), he added.

He specifically pointed to the Department of Homeland Security’s hiring efforts as an example of what the administration would like to see governmentwide. CIO Eric Hysen has already hired multiple people with “good AI-specific skillsets” from the commercial sector, which is typically “unheard of” in government, he said.

In February, DHS launched a unique effort to hire 50 AI and machine learning experts and establish an AI Corps. The Biden administration has since said it plans to hire 100 AI professionals across the government by this summer. 

“We’re hoping that every agency can look to what Eric and his team did around hiring and adopt those same skills and best practices, because frankly, it’s really hard,” Myklegard said. 

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“We’re working really hard to make sure that we’re enhancing those use cases … with metadata so that we can search them and really interrogate them, rather than just collect them and broadcast them — really to get key learnings from those,” Federal CIO Clare Martorana told reporters at a Federal CIO Council symposium Tuesday. 

The White House has previously indicated the inventories will be more central to understanding how agencies are using the technology going forward. In fact, draft Office of Management and Budget guidance that corresponded to President Joe Biden’s AI executive order proposed expanding the inventories with information about safety- and rights-impacting AI, the risks of uses, and how those risks are being managed.

“Federal agencies have special responsibility to get AI governance right, and we believe this policy will continue our global leadership,” Martorana said of that guidance in a keynote address earlier in the day.

The draft guidance was released in November shortly after Biden’s AI order and would establish a framework for agencies to carry out the administration’s policies for the budding technology. It included, among other things, requirements for agencies to designate chief AI officers — which agencies have already been starting on — and expanding existing reporting on agency AI uses.

Martorana, while talking to reporters, said public comment was “critical” to the development process for the guidance, and noted that equity and transparency as common themes in comments they received from interested parties.

With respect to transparency, Martorana pointed to the administration’s desire to improve agencies’ AI use case inventories, which were required initially under a Trump-era executive order and later enshrined into statute.

As of September, the federal government reported over 700 public uses of AI, demonstrating broad interest and potential for the technology across the federal government. Those inventories, which are required annually, have also so far been inconsistent in terms of things like format and information included. 

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Federal CIO Clare Martorana on a recent episode of the Daily Scoop Podcast said the digital experience guidance “is really a framework that reflects the opportunity for a 10-year revenue stream.”

“When you’re pitching solutions to agencies, the solutions need to align with the requirements that we’ve outlined, you know, and we certainly cannot do this alone,” Martorana said. “We need the best of government working together to deliver these improved digital experiences to the public. And boy, there’s a lot of work. And there’s a lot of work for everyone in this guidance.”

OMB issued the guidance in late September, setting new standards and actions for agencies as they look to enhance and modernize the way they interact with the American public through digital services and websites, in line with requirements from the 21st Century Integrated Digital Experience Act. The guidance was delivered nearly five years after that law was passed by Congress and signed by President Donald Trump in 2018, but it also builds off of action items in the President’s Management Agenda and customer service executive order from December 2021.

The federal CIO doubled down on her comments during remarks at ACT-IAC’s Imagine Nation ELC conference in Hershey, Pa., last week, saying the policy “is a 10-year revenue roadmap for you. We are buying what is in this memorandum.”

“We are not going to buy artisanally crafted, bespoke websites anymore. We are going to only purchase what is in this guidance,” Martorana said. “So please read it, please participate. It is essential; we can’t do this without you.”

And if commercial vendors respond aggressively enough in getting onboard with the digital experience guidance and supporting agencies on that journey, it’s possible that what’s supposed to be a 10-year plan could be accomplished in a much shorter timeframe, she said.

“If you all decide that this is the direction we’re going in, we can go and get this done in a shorter amount of time,” Martorana said during her remarks. “I keep saying this is a 10-year roadmap. … If you all decided we were doing this in five years, we could do this in five years.”

And for that reason, it’s important that industry “challenge us if we are not directionally correct on any of these things,” she said.

Of course, it also requires agencies to find the funding to support the actions laid out in the unfunded mandate. And for that, Martorana pointed to the Technology Modernization Fund as a vehicle to kickstart their transformation.

Several months back, the administration and TMF program office created an “allocation” under the fund for customer experience-focused projects that can be designated with priority implementation. This is meant to “streamline the opportunity for agencies to interact with us, run ideas by us and get the help that they need and then potentially get a funding award to be able to move out on some of this,” she said on the podcast.

But even outside of the TMF, OMB wants to work with agencies to better understand what they need from a funding and support perspective to accomplish what’s laid out in the new guidance.

“So we’ve been working since the inception, since the beginning of this administration on customer experience, digital experience and working really collaboratively with our budget partners and working collaboratively with our agency partners to understand where they are in the journey, what type of investments that they need,” Martorana said. “Some people need investments in workforce, some in training, some in technology, some in cybersecurity. So we’ve really worked with them at the agencies to make sure we understand where they are, and then are trying to meet them where they are and help continue to drive this forward.”

Martorana was recently named a winner of the 2023 FedScoop 50 awards.

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That’s the driver behind new draft guidance OMB issued Friday meant to modernize FedRAMP by setting a plan in place to scale the program, bolster security reviews of commercial cloud providers and accelerate federal adoption of those commercial cloud platforms.

“[T]he FedRAMP framework was built for a smaller job at a simpler time, and today’s cloud challenges are different. In the last decade, the security environment has become more complex, and the diversity of cloud services has grown dramatically. There are now many thousands of cloud-based services that Federal agencies could use to serve the American people, including tools for enterprise collaboration, product development, and improving an enterprise’s own cybersecurity,” reads a blog post from OMB on the draft guidance.

As it stands today, FedRAMP — operated by a program office housed in the General Services Administration — has authorized 318 cloud services for use by federal agencies. But, “the tools that agencies need to deliver on their missions are not always included there,” the blog post reads.

Upon its final issuance, the new guidance will replace the original FedRAMP guidance published in 2011, when federal agencies began ramping up the use of cloud. That comes with “an updated vision, scope, and governance structure for the FedRAMP program that is responsive to developments in Federal cybersecurity and substantial changes to the commercial cloud marketplace that have occurred since the program was established,” reads the draft.

Specifically, the new policy defines what cloud products are subject to FedRAMP requirements, lays out requirements for agencies to use authorized services, outlines the roles and responsibilities of the FedRAMP board and program office, and instills a more transparent and consistent process for security reviews.

As part of the refreshed vision, OMB lays out four strategic goals a modernized FedRAMP should accomplish:

• Lead an information security program grounded in technical expertise and risk management;
• Rapidly increase the size of the FedRAMP marketplace by offering multiple authorization structures;
• Streamlining processes through automation; and
• Leverage shared infrastructure between the federal government and the private sector.

The new policy acknowledges the explosion in usage of software-as-a-service cloud applications across the federal government, whereas the original FedRAMP policy was largely tailored to infrastructure-as-a-service.

It also prioritizes moving agencies and vendors away from government-specific clouds to instead promote the use of providers’ existing commercial clouds, calling on the GSA to develop a plan in the next year to transition agencies away from using government-only clouds.

Deputy Federal CIO Drew Myklegard last month teased the new guidance in a discussion with FedScoop at its annual FedTalks conference, saying: “We’ve seen an exponential growth every couple of years of these SaaS providers and the tools. But what we haven’t seen is similar exponential growth in their adoption, at least like ATO-ed [authority to operate], secured and monitored by the CIOs out there of those types of products.”

The security landscape has also changed, and that requires “the Federal Government to be an early adopter of innovative new approaches to cloud security offered and used by private sector platforms” to keep a step ahead of adversaries, the draft guidance says.

Updated guidance comes after the passage of the FedRAMP Authorization Act in 2022 and the subsequent establishment of the Federal Secure Cloud Advisory Committee. That committee has been meeting regularly in recent months.

OMB engaged the committee and a variety of other stakeholders to inform the new guidance.

“In order to design policy that works, it’s critical that we engage stakeholders,” Federal CIO Clare Martorana said in a statement. “We are taking a human-centered policy design approach and soliciting input to learn about how government and industry experience the FedRAMP process and how we could evolve the program to increase its use and drive greater impact.”

Myklegard similarly said in September that OMB has “talked to a lot of agencies and their experiences with FedRAMP, and they talked about a lot of the problems. We listened to probably 30 different agencies and got a lot of great feedback. It’s going to inform the policy.”

Rep. Gerry Connolly, D-Va., the author of the FedRAMP Authorization Act, applauded OMB for its “collaborative efforts with the stakeholder community,” saying he looks forward to the agency’s “continued stewardship of this important law,” he said in a statement.

“Today, OMB took the first step toward updating its decade-old guidance for the FedRAMP Program. This action implements key provisions of my FedRAMP Authorization Act, including the establishment of the FedRAMP Board, the promotion of automation and engagement with industry to drive down the cost and burden of FedRAMP authorization, and the reinforcement of the presumption of adequacy. Recognizing reciprocity is smart for vendors and smart for agencies. If you are approved at one window of government, that approval should carry with you to others,” he said.

The draft guidance is open for public comment through Nov. 27.

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The guidance, called “Delivering a Digital-First Public Experience” (M-23-22) and signed by OMB Director Shalanda Young, sets new standards and actions for agencies as they look to enhance and modernize the way they interact with the American public through digital services and websites — as required by the IDEA Act since 2018.

In a blog post announcing the policy guidance, Federal CIO Clare Martorana rattles off staggering stats about just how bad the federal government is at serving constituents in the digital age.

“Currently, only two percent of government forms are digitized, 45 percent of websites have not been designed to work on mobile devices, and 60 percent of websites are not fully usable by those who use assistive technologies. When people search online for information and services from our government, they get too many results with confusing answers and it’s not clear what they should do next. This is unacceptable. We can and must do better,” she wrote, adding that Americans want to interact with their government the same way they do with innovative commercial companies to order food or bank, “but we don’t consistently make it easy for you.”

The extensive guidance sets a range of requirements agency websites and digital services must adhere to, such as mobile-first design, accessibility standards, consistency of visual design and branding, streamlined and authoritative content written in plain language and optimized for search, and more. This section on web and digital requirements takes up more than two-thirds of the guidance.

In addition to that, the memo sets guidance for the digitization of forms and services, customer experience-driven digital service delivery and standardization from agency to agency.

The new policy, Martorana wrote, is meant to “ensure every interaction between our government and the public, whether it involves filing taxes, applying for a small business loan, or renewing a passport, delivers value, service, and efficiency. When we do that well, we build greater trust in government.”

Over the next 180 days, agencies will be required by this new policy to “address the requirements outlined in this memorandum to the fullest extent practicable when designing new or redesigning existing websites and digital services,” it says.

The guidance also sets in place a handful of other actions agencies must take in shorter time frames, such as identifying a digital experience delivery lead within the next 30 days and identifying any public-facing websites over the next 90 days.

The new guidance comes after in August, FedScoop reported that several current and former federal officials familiar with the matter said the “failure” of senior leaders to prioritize digital experience projects has caused severe delays to the implementation of the IDEA Act.

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Five current and former federal officials familiar with the matter said the “failure” of senior leaders to prioritize digital experience projects — central to the Biden administration’s federal technology agenda — have caused severe delays to implementation of the 21st Century Integrated Digital Experience Act (IDEA Act), which Congress passed in 2018. In particular, they told FedScoop that a lack of coordination and consensus between the three agencies has stymied progress.

Using technology to improve American citizens’ experience with government services has been a key strategic priority for President Biden, who signed an executive order on customer experience in December 2021. Later this summer, the administration is expected to provide further guidance to federal agencies on how to fully implement the IDEA Act’s digitization and customer experience sections.

Speaking with FedScoop, the officials expressed concern that USDS, led by Mina Hsiang, and GSA, led by Robin Carnahan, in the past year have focused on small, niche projects while deprioritizing big ticket items like redesigning government websites, setting tech policy standards and improving agency branding. One such niche project, cited by two officials, was a public benefits studio run by GSA’s Technology Transformation Services team, which is a pilot text notification system.

Some of the five current and former officials spoke on the condition of anonymity because they are not authorized to speak publicly.

One currently serving senior Biden administration official said the two agencies “keep saying they don’t have enough people, they don’t have enough resources.” They added: “[USDS and GSA] have been giving us the run around for two years now — it feels like flimsy excuses. We’re just screaming into the void while they’re off working on their own stuff.”

Another senior IT official added: “GSA and USDS don’t want to be known for fixing websites because Healthcare.gov was a failure. And they want to get away from a headline that they fixed more websites. So what they do is they have very good high level connections in the West Wing, and they have doled out their people to small pet projects, across policy councils.”

“The message from leadership is we’re here for a short period of time, so let’s just do low-hanging fruits and easy, quick projects,” a USDS employee familiar with the matter told FedScoop. “If our priority was to do the most good for the most people we would be doing different big projects that would impact a lot more people.” 

An internal USDS “current projects” document obtained by FedScoop shows that the agency has for more than five months had at least eight employees focused on “IDEA Act Policy Consult,” reviewing drafts of a policy memo on the bill but with no actual implementation of the law. Furthermore, two federal IT officials highlighted emails that show that the GSA has ignored multiple requests from OMB to prioritize IDEA Act implementation work.

Commenting on IDEA Act implementation, a former senior IT official who worked at OMB and GSA said: “It’s clear USDS and GSA are working on small-ball projects, nothing transformational or significant, and OMB is enabling them because there’s so much in-fighting and personality-driven conflict that is stopping them from delivering on the critical work of customer experience overhauls and IDEA Act implementation.”

During an interview with FedScoop, Federal Chief Information Officer Clare Martorana, who is the administration’s top federal IT official and a former member of USDS, said that there is great opportunity to improve implementation of Biden’s tech agenda and stressed the need for leaders at USDS, GSA and OMB to work together more effectively.

“It’s my statutory obligation as Federal CIO to deliver on the 21st Century IDEA Act. To do it, we will need more alignment with our budget colleagues, tech delivery teams like the U.S. Digital Service and tech partners like the General Services Administration — the engine of tech investments, tech policy, tech delivery, and tech standards and services — to operate as one,” Martorana told FedScoop after a Labor Department Federal Tech Day conference in May. “When we work together — doing the most good for the most people in need — we can drive impact and scale innovation across Government.”

Spokespeople from OMB, GSA, and USDS responded to questions from FedScoop with the following joint statement: “Digital teams across government—including OMB and GSA—are working hand-in-hand to deliver simple, seamless, and secure digital government services that the American people deserve.”

They added: “In alignment with the 21st Century IDEA, the Administration has provided tools to make government websites more friendly and accessible—like refreshed resources on Digital.gov and new accessibility updates to the U.S. Web Design System. There will soon be new, clear guidance provided to agencies to drive continued implementation of the 21st Century IDEA, delivering on a goal the previous Administration left by the wayside. It’s never been more critical that agencies are working together to deliver effective digital government for the American people, and that’s exactly what this Administration is doing.”

The IDEA Act, which became law in 2018 under the leadership of Rep. Ro Khanna, D-Calif., requires agencies to upgrade their websites, replace paper-based forms with digital- and mobile-response options, and create plans to expand the use of electronic signatures. No significant progress on implementation of the act was made during the Trump administration.

The law overall strives for a more consistent, mobile-friendly user experience across federal digital services and websites. It requires agencies to take stock of their public-facing digital assets and streamline and modernize them for the 21st century. Such projects usually require federal agencies to work closely with USDS and GSA to obtain specialist expertise and additional resources.

According to the current and former officials who spoke with FedScoop, implementation of the law has been directly delayed by a lack of prioritization among USDS and GSA leaders. One current federal official pointed to the volume of demands placed on USDS and GSA by the White House as one possible reason for the agencies’ “lack of focus.”

The official said: “The White House says we need a new website for this new initiative that’s launching next Tuesday and they often times have to scramble to work on things that just get lobbed at them. So they get very distracted by these projects, like squirrel squirrel squirrel – to see things from their perspective, right?”

Two USDS employees told FedScoop some employees within federal tech delivery team are growing frustrated by the lack of vision and uncertain priorities, particularly regarding to large digital transformation projects and IDEA Act implementation.

“On the inside it seems like there’s more than enough resources and people on staff to execute and actually get some work done on big projects that impact millions of people. I just think that the work that could be done is not what’s being prioritized,” a USDS employee familiar with the matter told FedScoop.

Four of the officials familiar with the matter placed responsibility for the lack of traction in the Biden administration’s digital modernization efforts squarely on the top leaders within GSA, USDS, and OMB.

“The failure is on [OMB Deputy Director for Management] Jason Miller, [USDS Administrator] Mina Hsiang, [GSA Administrator] Robin Carnahan. It’s the truth. If they don’t align and start executing, then Congress should be calling them up and asking them hard questions,” a senior federal IT official told FedScoop.

“How come they’re not working on the things that actually would drive critical change for Americans’ digital experience with the government? It breaks my heart, I’m ready to cry almost,” that senior official added.

Some officials frustrated with the lack of movement on IDEA Act implementation and digital modernization efforts have proposed fresh guidance from OMB — such as the guidance the agency is expected to deliver later this summer — that would compel agencies to abide by the legislation, which lawmakers have been pushing for since 2021.

”We’ve been able to navigate for many years in government using soft power by just working collegially with our counterparts and just trying really hard to get along and get s*** done. Now, we realize we actually have to use statutory authority to compel people to do things. That’s OK, though,” a second federal IT official told FedScoop.

In a joint statement, OMB, GSA and USDS said: “Digital teams across government—including OMB and GSA—are working hand-in-hand to deliver simple, seamless, and secure digital government services that the American people deserve. Login.gov, the single sign-on for government services, has expanded to over 70 million user accounts and launched a partnership with 18,000 US Postal Service locations to ensure Americans have easy access to the services they need.”

They added: “The Administration has taken major steps to protect Americans online by modernizing government certification for cloud service providers through FedRAMP and enhancing the security of the software supply chain with agency guidance. Digital teams are modernizing agency services—creating a redesigned VA website and mobile app to help over 12 million veterans more easily access health care and benefits and working with the IRS to modernize their online capabilities to better support taxpayers.”

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The investments total about $50.5 million and range from a records digitization project to a cloud infrastructure upgrade. They represent the latest awards by the fund since February, when GSA announced support for cybersecurity projects at three federal agencies worth a total of $41 million.

As part of the current funding round, the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs has received $7.4 million to help streamline veterans’ access to health care, disability benefits and education by digitizing forms.

In addition, the Bureau of Land Management has been awarded $9.2 million to improve the search functionality of the General Land Office website, which is required for the management and commercial lease of public domain lands. The National Transportation Safety Board has also received $16.2 million to improve user experience by improving the accessibility of content on the NTSB.gov website.

GSA’s Technology Modernization Fund has also awarded $15.2 million to the Department of Labor to accelerate the implementation of a cloud-based security framework, and $2.5 million to manage and remediate cybersecurity vulnerabilities within the Environmental Protection Agency’s Analytical Radiation Data System.

In a written statement, Federal Chief Information Officer and TMF Board Chair Clare Martorana said: “The TMF investments we’re announcing today demonstrate that when we make smart, sound technical investments, we can maximize the impact of taxpayer dollars and propel agencies to work more efficiently and improve service delivery for the millions of Americans counting on them.” 

TMF Executive Director Raylene Yung said: “The Technology Modernization Fund is entering its sixth year investing in projects that are having real human impacts on the ways the federal government provides services to the American people.”

She added: “Digital-first investments like these to modernize operations and protect data increase public trust and make it easier for people to get the services they need.”

The Technology Modernization Fund manages 45 investments at 27 federal agencies totaling more than $750 million. It received a $1 billion infusion through the American Rescue Plan and $255 million through the annual budget process.

In December, the TMF allocated the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) $5.9 million to develop and launch a new IT platform, and also awarded $8.7 million to the Railroad Retirement Board (RRB) to support the modernization of retirement services for railroad employee.

Prior investments include $1.8 million provided to the U.S. AbilityOne Commission to update a procurement management system, and a combined $20.8 million awarded in October to the Office of Personnel Management, the Department of Housing and Urban Development and the Army.

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Martorana said this problem could be solved in part through new guidance her office will provide federal agencies later this summer on how to implement the 21st Century IDEA Act’s digitization and customer experience sections. 

“I would just ask all of you to join me in being unwilling to accept the fact that only 2% of our forms in government are available for digital use,” Martorana said at the Labor Department’s Federal Tech Day conference on Thursday at the DOL building. 

“We spend $38 billion a year on paper. That doesn’t make sense to me, not in this day and age,” she added.  

Digital forms are forms that allow data to be captured and stored in a machine readable format by government agencies at a later date.

“For many government agencies, you fill out a form, and you can electronically submit that PDF but then it goes someplace and gets printed out for the person who’s actually doing the work to use and adjudicate the benefit,” said Martarona who expressed frustration at how outdated many government form submission systems are. 

She said that the 21st Century IDEA Act already has a line item in it to better incorporate government form and service digitization and her upcoming guidance would provide clarity on how to better implement this solution within agencies. 

The IDEA Act requires agencies to upgrade their websites, replace paper-based forms with digital- and mobile-response options, and create plans to expand use of electronic signatures.

The law overall strives for a more consistent, mobile-friendly user experience across federal digital services and websites. Essentially, it requires agencies to take stock of their public-facing digital assets and streamline and modernize them for the 21st century.

“We’re in the process right now of finalizing our draft guidance, having incorporated some technologies into the review process, along with all of our privacy colleagues are getting General Counsel colleagues. So we’re hoping this summer, we are pushing really hard to get this out.”

She added that with the IDEA Act, Congress did “an exceptional job of writing a framework that is modern,”  that gives Martorana and the federal government a lot of specificity.  

“What we needed to do is translate that so that agencies can comprehend it and architect it to make sure that they’re really understanding what the law is asking for,” Martarona added. 

The use of manual, paper-based processes costs the federal government over $38 billion annually due to information capture and processing bottlenecks, according to a U.S. Chamber of Commerce report released in 2022 based on data from the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs.

Digitizing forms would reduce the materials and staff hours required to process them, and agencies processed 9,858 unique forms and more than 106 billion in total between September 2021 and August 2022, the chamber’s Technology Engagement Center found.

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Despite the success the fund has seen in those first five years, outside of a $1 billion injection it received under the American Rescue Plan, it’s been a bumpy ride at times for the leaders of the TMF in seeking funding from appropriators on Capitol Hill.

In fact, in years past, some appropriators have tried to pass appropriations without any new funding for the TMF. And during the fiscal 2023 budget cycle, the Office of Management and Budget requested an additional $300 million for the TMF, but lawmakers only granted $50 million.

While it remains to be seen if appropriators will fund the TMF in fiscal 2024 at its full request of $200 million, Federal CIO Clare Martorana told FedScoop the fund has proven itself as an alternative model to drive modernization that delivers near-term impact in the federal government outside of the otherwise snaillike two-year budget cycle.

“There’s some data out in the marketplace done by large consulting companies that talk about the failure rate of IT projects. And it’s pretty significant — projects over $6 million with a significant failure rate. And that’s not acceptable to us. And as technologists, we know how to do this differently. And the way that you do it differently is the way that we’ve designed TMF,” Martorana explained during an interview on the Daily Scoop podcast.

Largely, what she means by that is having technologists and other key experts embedded throughout the TMF process to “interrogate” project plans and the agency leadership managing them, and requiring them to deliver incrementally.

“We have technologists in the [TMF program management office], we have technologists and very seasoned, competent board members who are interrogating the project, making sure that it has the great foundational best practices built into it, right? That the team is capable of doing the right procurement, that they have a lot of, you know, support from the agency leadership, mission leadership, the CFO team,” all of which are, “really critical,” Martorana said.

And instead of issuing money to an agency team and waiting years to check in on progress, the TMF Board and PMO maintain close oversight of projects, requiring those teams to meet milestones before delivering money to them.

“We release money based on milestones and delivery and impact,” Martorana said. “And I think that this is actually a really great model to show our colleagues on the Hill, that we know how as technologists to deliver with excellence.”

By starting small and working incrementally, it gives agencies an opportunity to kickstart their most-pressing modernization initiatives, which they can then down the road work to complement and amplify during the larger appropriations process. Martorana referred to the TMF as “an opportunity to do some of that short-term, really catalytic investment — that it will take a little bit longer through the normal budget process, or possibly something’s [already] in flight in the normal budget process, and we have the ability to accelerate it.”

Speaking alongside Martorana, TMF Executive Director Raylene Yung told FedScoop she’s “excited for the role that the TMF can play in often kind of catalyzing a major investment or sort of setting up the first few years and first few phases of something that hopefully lasts longer and leads to much more long term impact.

Yung believes that over time, more best-in-class use cases will come out of the fund that will open appropriators’ eyes to the power of the model.

“Although many of our investments are still actively underway, in the next five years, we’ll certainly see a lot more impact and results being delivered, especially given that many of our investments, as we’ve mentioned, were first made in the last year, and we’ve really ramped up that rate of investment,” Yung said.

Meanwhile, there’s a huge demand for more, Yung said. “In total over the lifetime of the fund, we’ve received and reviewed more than 220 different proposals totaling over $3.5 billion in demand. And just since the passage of the [American Rescue Plan] alone, we’ve received more than 160 proposals totaling over $2.9 billion. So yeah, the volume and demand really have been tremendous.”

“We already know and have evidence to see that our investments are succeeding. Agency projects are delivering better outcomes for the American public in easier, faster, cheaper and more secure ways.”

The TMF can also serve as an opportunity to show leaders across the federal government and on Capitol Hill that the bureaucratic process is often not an optimal environment for the innovation and customer service delivery agencies most need, Martorana suggested.

“Our bureaucratic processes sometimes don’t support the agility that is needed for technology teams to potentially pivot to learn more when they’re doing research with their users, and taking a slightly different tact from their technical architecture,” she said. “So we really think that TMF is going to continue to have use cases that are really best in class and will help continue to show our colleagues on the Hill and frankly across government and our federal IT teams what good looks like and how we continue to deliver with excellence for the American public and be great stewards of the taxpayer dollar.”

Listen to the full interview with Martorana and Yung on the Daily Scoop podcast.

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The General Services Administration, which houses the TMF program office, announced Friday it awarded $23.3 million to the Social Security Administration to accelerate the implementation of multi-factor authentication.

The TMF team also awarded the Treasury $11.1 million to improve the reliability and security of its Treasury Foreign Intelligence Network system — a critical U.S. government system used to share classified information with other agencies and bureaus — as well as $6.2 million to the U.S. Agency for Global Media to speed the adoption of a zero-trust architecture.

It is the latest funding round to come from the GSA-managed fund since it announced a pair of investments focused on improving customer experience at U.S. Agency for International Development and the Railroad Retirement Board.

Prior investments include $1.8 million provided to the U.S. AbilityOne Commission to update a procurement management system, and a combined $20.8 million awarded in October to the Office of Personnel Management, the Department of Housing and Urban Development and the Army.

“Cybersecurity is the great enabler of IT modernization,” TMF Board Chair and Federal CIO Clare Martorana said in a statement. “When we help agencies launch technology that is secure by design, they’re able to drive transformation across products and services to improve the digital experience and maximize investments.”

TMF Executive Director Raylene Yung said: “With these new cybersecurity investments, TMF funding will increase the security of some of the nation’s most critical systems and sensitive data.”

Correction, 2/21/22: This article was updated to clarify details of the TMF’s latest investment projects.

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