FITARA Scorecard: Fewer Agencies Get Failing Scores on IT Reform
2jenn/Shutterstock.com
By
Frank Konkel
Still, no agency received an A grade.
For the most part, federal agencies improved upon the poor grades they earned in the first Federal Information Technology Acquisition Reform Act implementation scorecard released in November.
A second version of the scorecards will be released today by the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee's IT subcommittee during a hearing held to discuss the administration’s FITARA implementation efforts.
The subcommittee grades agencies based on four areas: data center consolidation, IT portfolio review, incremental development and risk assessment transparency.
This time around, only the General Services Administration fared worse than it did in November, moving from a B to a C by virtue of a decreased data center consolidation rating.
Overall, no agency received an A. The Commerce Department had the highest score, earning a B. NASA earned the only F grade. Twelve agencies earned Cs, and 10 earned Ds in the updated scorecard. That’s an improvement compared to November’s scorecard, which reported five C grades, 14 D grades and three F grades.
» Get the best federal technology news and ideas delivered right to your inbox. Sign up here.
Chief information officers from NASA and the departments of Labor, Commerce and Energy will testify, as well as the Government Accountability Office’s director of IT management issues, Dave Powner.
“I’m pleased to see a marked improvement in the latest scorecard with higher marks now outnumbering lower ones,” said Rep. Gerry Connolly, D-Va. in his prepared statement ahead of the committee hearing. Connolly is one of the authors of the original legislation.
Connolly has said repeatedly he doesn’t want failing scores to be seen as a “scarlet letter on the backs of agencies,” a sentiment shared by subcommittee Chairman Rep. Will Hurd, R-Texas.
However, Connolly says he does want answers from NASA on its repeated Fs. For example, NASA flunked the part of the scorecard dealing with assessing the risk of its IT portfolio. The agency said it plans to $731 million on major IT investments this year but doesn’t list any of them as high-risk.
“I hope to hear more today from NASA about its experience trying to implement FITARA,” Connolly said.
Nextgov will update this story following the hearing.