IT Modernization Plans and Programs Bridge Administrations
Technology modernization is an ongoing, long-term process that can’t be measured in a single budget appropriation cycle, and most administrations realize that.
“The Trump administration actually took what had been left by the Obama team and built on that, quietly and without fanfare,” says David Berteau, president and CEO of the Professional Services Council. “Continuity of what’s underway makes sense, unless you have a good reason to change.”
A new President’s Management Agenda, which outlines an administration’s modernization plans, should appear early in a Biden administration. Since President George W. Bush issued the first official PMA in 2001, each president has created one within the first year of taking office.
“The President’s Management Agenda is a real tool to drive oversight and management of the budgets,” says Gordon Bitko, senior vice president of policy for the Information Technology Industry Council. “But there’s got to be the connection from that back to the actual appropriators, because the priorities of appropriators and the priorities of the PMA aren’t always the same.”
Bush’s PMA listed “expanded electronic government” as one of its goals, President Barack Obama focused on effectiveness and efficiency in delivering government services, and President Trump put IT modernization and data at the top of his list.
“While descriptors are different, the fundamental goals are all still similar. Each agenda built off the one before it,” writes Lauren Wright, a senior adviser at FMP Consulting who worked for the Office of Management and Budget during the Bush and Obama years and was an adviser to the Trump transition team. “The major differences are in how to achieve a more accountable, fiscally responsible, modernized federal government.”