Special Report: The Evolution of the FITARA Scorecard

More than 21 years after it came and went, the potential Y2K problem—when the formatting of calendar dates threatened chaos when the clock struck midnight on the new year—reads like an amusing historical episode.

But preventing apocalyptic consequences was a massive lift that began years in advance of the new millennium. In fact, a House oversight subcommittee issued report cards grading government progress on alleviating the Y2K problem. The second report card released in September 1997 saw only one agency score an A, while the rest received Ds and Fs. 

Congress returned to the scorecard mechanism in 2015 when it sought a way to provide oversight for implementation of a bill to address inadequacies in federal IT. The Federal Information Technology Acquisition Reform Act, or FITARA, empowered federal agency chief information officers with greater authorities and established what’s now known as the Data Center Optimization Initiative, among other provisions. 

Rep. Gerry Connolly, D-Va., the co-author of the legislation, had seen previous IT legislation known as the Clinger-Cohen Act flounder after key lawmakers involved in that effort left Congress. He didn’t want that history repeated when it came to FITARA.

Download this special report for an in-depth look at how the FITARA scorecard has changed over the years and how it may evolve in the future.