While Federal government IT spending may hold steady in the White House’s budget proposal for fiscal year 2020, funding for modernization initiatives is expected to fall, according to a report from Bloomberg Government.
President Trump’s budget proposal for FY2020 includes $14.5 billion for development, modernization, and enhancement (DME), a drop from $15.6 billion allocated for DME in the final budget for FY2019.
While agencies will see a slight drop in modernization funding, operations and maintenance budgets are slated to increase from $52.2 billion, to $54.7 billion, making up 79 percent of the planned IT budget for FY20.
The White House budget proposal is just that – a proposal – but it informs appropriations legislation that will be coming in Congress. Discussing the potential of a Federal employee pay freeze in FY2020, also included in the White House budget proposal, Rep. Gerry Connolly, D-Va., told MeriTalk earlier this year that the White House proposal was “dead on arrival.” However, it does reflect the official requests from Federal agencies, and serves as a starting point for funding discussions.