New FITARA Grades Show Agencies Failing to Transition Off Legacy Networking Services
Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-VA) attends a House Rules Committee hearing on the procedures for upcoming votes at the U.S. Capitol on June 28, 2021 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)
By
Mariam Baksh
But agencies got all As on data center optimization, suggesting it may be time to retire or update that metric.
Fifteen of 24 agencies graded in the 12th biannual scorecard measuring implementation of the Federal Information Technology Acquisition Reform Act received an F on shifting to contracts for modern telecommunications.
The General Services Administration has been pushing agencies to get off a contracting vehicle for telecom services called Networx and others that are set to expire and move toward the Enterprise Infrastructure Solutions contract.
Two FITARA score cards ago lawmakers of the House Oversight and Reform’s subcommittee on government operations added a new category to track the transition. In December, 2020, there were five Fs and eight As in the category. In the following scorecard released in July, there were only two Fs and 10 As. But grades plummeted in that category in the scorecard released in conjunction with a Thursday committee hearing.
The hearing will explore ways to update the scoring system which hasn’t always accurately reflected agencies' progress in making better use of technology, due to nuance in how the categories are defined.
In August, 2020, for example, the Government Accountability Office said a change in how the government is approaching data optimization could cause many of the government’s data centers to fly under the radar. Agencies went from 19 As in December, 2020, and 18 As in July, to getting all As in the category this go around.
In December, 2020, after agencies got all As in a category tracking software licenses, the category did not appear again in July.
“In the past, the FITARA scorecard has helped [Chief Information Officers] drive progress in key areas like data center consolidation, agile development and software licensing. It’s time to declare victory in several of these areas, remove some of them from the scorecard, and focus instead on revising the scorecard to be consistent with the President’s Management Agenda],” David Powner, director of strategic engagement and partnerships at MITRE and a former director of IT issues at GAO, has argued.
Powner and others set to testify during Thursday’s hearing have suggested the scorecard be updated to include categories like workforce development and the customer experience.