CIOs push back against FITARA scores

Agency CIOs pushed back against the second Federal IT Acquisition Reform Act scorecard released by the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform.

"I personally don't think it's a great reflection of our progress on FITARA," Ann Dunkin the CIO at the Environmental Protection Agency said in a June 2 NextGov webinar. She added that it is hard to measure all agencies across the board. For example, data center consolation poses different challenges at her agency than it does at the Defense Department. She said eliminating data centers does not show any savings per se and "that's why these metrics look confusing and sometimes poor."

The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee released the second FITARA scorecard on May 18, showing improvement as far as overall grades go. Of the 24 CFO Act agencies subject to FITARA, seven agencies scored higher, one lower and 16 had no grade change between the first and second scorecards, according to the GAO. In November 2015, the first FITARA scorecard showed most of agencies as receiving D grades.

"I was a little disappointed with the score," said Carlene Ileto, executive director of the Enterprise Business Management Office at the Department of Homeland Security. "I really think this is an indirect reflection of what we are actually doing with FITARA… I don't believe it really identifies or shows, demonstrates what we have accomplished with FITARA."

Ileto asserted that the scorecard does not display the progress that they have made, saying DHS has saved $1.3 billion and yet still received an F for cost savings. She said DHS has "improved significantly" in the items related to incremental development with systems that are being moved to the cloud etc. "I really don't believe the scorecard that was put out portrays that progress."

The House IT Subcommittee Chairman Rep. Will Hurd (R-Texas.) noted during the May hearing that "we are not there yet, and we have a long way to go," but the latest round of grades show that agencies are "moving the needle in the right direction."