FITARA Scorecard grades are on the rise again; Agencies struggle to meet OMB cloud procurement guidelines

A dozen federal agencies received an A on the most recent FITARA Scorecard, with 18 agencies improving their grades since January. In a Friday roundtable hosted by Rep. Gerry Connolly, D-Va., ranking member of the House Oversight and Accountability Subcommittee on Cybersecurity, Information Technology, and Government Innovation, officials from USAID, NASA, the Department of Veterans Affairs, the Department of Energy and the Governmental Accountability Office shared the overwhelmingly positive FITARA grades for most of the 24 CFO Act agencies.

Meeting procurement requirements laid out in 2019 Office of Management and Budget guidance on cloud strategy has been a mixed bag for federal agencies, a new congressional watchdog report found. As of this July, all 24 Chief Financial Officers Act agencies completed an OMB requirement in its Cloud Smart strategy to ensure that CIOs oversee modernization efforts, according to the Government Accountability Office. And all but one agency — the Small Business Administration — addressed the OMB mandate to “iteratively improve agency policies and guidance.” But there is plenty of work to do on the remaining three OMB callouts, the GAO said in its June 2022-September 2024 performance audit.

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