A bill that would reauthorize the Technology Modernization Fund (TMF) through 2030 drew wide bipartisan support today at a House Oversight and Accountability Committee markup session, passing unanimously by a vote of 43-0.
The Modernizing Government Technology (MGT) Reform Act of 2023, sponsored by Reps. Nancy Mace, R-S.C., and Gerry Connolly, D-Va., aims to accomplish several purposes:
- Reauthorize TMF through 2030, from its current 2025 timeframe;
- Update rules under which Federal agencies repay awards from TMF, which are used to jumpstart agency IT modernization projects, including making clear that awards can be repaid through agency IT working capital funds;
- Require agencies receiving TMF awards to reimburse the fund for administrative costs;
- Keep TMF solvent through 2030 absent substantial new injections of funding from Congress; and
- Require the Federal CIO to survey agencies and then report to Congress on the top ten high-risk legacy IT systems that pose the greatest risk to government operations cybersecurity.
House Oversight Chairman James Comer, R-Ky., declared his support for the legislation at today’s hearing, saying that it would address TMF operations that have “strayed from the original congressional intent” by not consistently requiring agencies “to repay their awards at a level that would allow the program to be self- sustaining.”
“This legislation is timely and necessary,” Rep. Comer said. “It is important to act now because under the status quo, this administration will continue to spend down existing funds without the intention of ensuring the fund remains solvent into the future,” he said.
“In fact, this administration may be hoping that a future Congress will prohibit any oversight of this fund and just fill it in for appropriations,” the chairman continued. “I’m not seeing an immediate future where this nation can afford to spend any funds we absolutely do not need to. That is why it’s imperative that we ensure this necessary funding to remain solvent with the funds that currently has.”
TMF, which is administered by the General Services Administration (GSA), was created in 2017 under the Modernizing Government Technology Act to provide money to Federal civilian agencies to undertake tech modernization projects. The fund in recent months has been spending down some of the $1 billion cash infusion it received from Congress in 2021 under the American Rescue Plan Act.
It’s not exactly clear how much money TMF has left in its coffers right now, but that figure is estimated to be in the hundreds of millions of dollars. Since its inception, the fund has received about $1.45 billion in funding from Congress and awarded in excess of $750 million to agencies.
“The MGT Reform Act will extend the authorization for the TMF through 2030 and sustain this critical IT investment tool for Federal agencies,” Rep. Connolly said at today’s hearing. He added that the bill “provides an annual authorization of $50 million for the TMF which I hope our appropriators will meet or even exceed” because “the IT needs of the Federal government are enormous.”
“The TMF was created to establish a sustainable revolving fund to address the costly challenge of modernizing legacy IT systems,” said Rep. Mace today. She added that since then GSA has not required full repayment of all fund awards, referring to the agency’s move during the coronavirus pandemic to allow a variety of repayment rates for awards.
“This put a strain on the fund’s resources and has hindered its ability to keep and help agencies upgrade their legacy IT systems,” Rep. Mace said, adding, “God knows the Federal government has a lot of work to do in that regard.”
“Reforming this program through this legislation is essential to ensuring the solvency of our agencies at home and a technological edge on our adversaries abroad,” she said.
