Chairman Gerry Connolly's Opening Statement [PDF]

On Thursday, July 28, 2022 at 9:00 a.m. ET, Rep. Gerald E. Connolly, Chairman of the Subcommittee on Government Operations, will hold the Subcommittee’s biannual hearing to assess implementation of the Federal Information Technology Acquisition Reform Act (FITARA) and the Modernizing Government Technology (MGT) Act, following the Subcommittee’s release of its 14th iteration of the FITARA Scorecard.

The FITARA Scorecard grades federal agencies based on their performance of FITARA-related reform and improvement activities and serves as a tool for Congress, chief information officers, agency heads, and outside stakeholders to better understand how agencies across the government are managing and securing their information technology (IT).  The Scorecard is also a way for Congress to hold federal agencies accountable for implementing basic and fundamental IT practices that improve the operation of the federal government.

Since January, the Subcommittee has engaged stakeholders to explore potential updates to the methodologies behind the Scorecard with the goal of better aligning metrics with best IT practices.  Further, the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) changed the types of IT data that it collects and reports, prompting the need to rethink how the Subcommittee tracks agency progress.

This hearing will discuss the Scorecard’s success in ensuring federal CIOs are an essential component of agency C-suite conversations, the future of the Federal Data Center Optimization Initiative and potential movement into cloud computing, the future of federal agencies’ cybersecurity posture, and recommendations from the Chief Information Officers Council’s Scorecard.