Cybersecurity — and to a lesser extent information technology management — is said to be a nonpartisan issue. That often proves true, even in a bitterly divided Congress. At least, that is, until money enters the debate.
The administration’s plan to establish a $3.1 billion IT Modernization Fund that agencies could borrow from to pay for upgrades to aging, insecure systems wasn’t likely to make it far on its own. With a Republican-controlled, budget-conscious Congress and the federal government’s poor track record on large IT projects, a “slush” fund for IT modernization seemed to many like throwing good money after bad.
Rep. Will Hurd, R-Texas, proposed a competing bill — the MOVE IT Act — which put the onus on agencies to find the funds to update their lagging systems. The legislation wouldn’t require an additional outlay from Congress for an independent fund while still requiring agencies to improve their systems.
Hurd’s proposal for an agency-centric funding mechanism while simultaneously mandating modernization ensures agencies will be invested that much more in the process and gives chief information officers and IT managers legislative cover come budget time.
But at the same time, many agencies have outdated critical systems that need to be upgraded immediately — upgrades that will come with significantly higher price tags.
Including a central fund — as proposed by the administration and in Maryland Democrat Rep. Steny Hoyer’s IT Modernization Act — enables the government to focus on those major modernization projects and ensure they get the necessary resources to be done right.
The compromise: Merge both bills and cherry-pick the best parts of each. The result: the bipartisan Modernizing Government Technology Act.
It’s unclear just how big the central fund will be, though there’s little chance Congress will approve the full $3.1 billion originally proposed by the administration. But if it’s substantial enough to fund a few high-priority projects at once, the fund will be a boon for agencies struggling to strengthen their systems.
The compromise bill is a great example of both sides of the aisle coming together and producing something that could be better than the sum of its parts.
