Watchdog says OMB must prioritize federal IT spending framework, or scrap it

A federal watchdog is urging the Office of Management and Budget to prioritize the governmentwide adoption of a federal IT spending framework, or end the efforts, after finding the multi-year initiative has stalled. 

In a report made public Monday, the Government Accountability Office recommended that the OMB director direct the federal chief information officer to either terminate the agency’s push for governmentwide adoption of the Technology Business Management framework or deem it an administration priority. 

Should it be made a priority, the GAO also suggested OMB quickly implement the watchdog’s previous recommendations and take “immediate action” to integrate the framework across government fully.

The Technology Business Management framework, also called TBM, is a taxonomy aimed at helping federal agencies and IT leaders track and manage spending on technology products and services. The TBM Council, a nonprofit organization, created this framework. 

The TBM framework can be used by leaders to “understand trade-offs between specific IT investment decisions” and “use these insights to accelerate” tech-related initiatives, the GAO report explained. It can also be used to detect spending on “shadow IT,” referring to technology purchased without knowledge of an agency’s CIO. 

In 2017, OMB announced plans to improve insights into IT spending by pushing for a governmentwide adoption of TBM. In the 2017 guidance, OMB detailed plans to require agencies to use the TBM framework in annual budget requests to increase transparency, the GAO said. 

The OMB designated itself and the General Services Administration as the agencies overseeing the initiative. 

The TBM taxonomy is broken down into four “layers,” in which organizations allocate and describe their IT costs layer by layer, according to the report. 

Layer one comprises cost pools, or IT spending as it relates to expenditures for financial reporting. Layer two consists of towers, which describe the IT resources used by the agency in product development and support. Layer three is a description of IT spending in terms of the technology solutions, like computing devices and software, and layer four is a description of IT spending related to “how the products and services support the organization’s business units, customers, and business partners.”

The implementation of TBM across the government was expected to be a phased, multi-year process with the OMB adding requirements over time until TBM is entirely integrated into more than two dozen agencies. 

The GAO analyzed 26 agencies, finding all of them implemented the required elements so far, while organizations varied on the non-required aspects. 

In a 2022 GAO investigation, the watchdog found OMB had not expanded the requirements as expected, writing, “We reported that OMB and GSA had taken steps to lead government-wide TBM adoption, but progress and results were limited.” 

As part of that investigation, the GAO issued six recommendations to OMB and one to GSA.

“However, limited progress has been made on implementing these recommendations, with only one recommendation fully implemented, one partially implemented, and five not yet implemented, as of March 2025,” the GAO wrote. 

“OMB intended for TBM to improve insights into IT spending and address longstanding challenges with transparency,” the GAO added. “However, as costs continue to mount, OMB’s lack of action and guidance over the last 8 years has led to substantial TBM delays.” 

The watchdog said OMB’s failure to expand requirements was “most concerning.”

It further found that only a few of the 26 agencies fully implemented the “TBM practices” recommended for full integration, which included a concrete plan with key time frames and the establishment of a cost allocation methodology. 

Six of the 26 agencies implemented both of these, four did not implement either of the practices and 16 reported mixed progress. 

“In the absence of OMB guidance, most agencies had not developed a plan for implementing TBM and had not fully established a reliable cost allocation methodology. Nevertheless, the agencies in our review continue to direct resources toward TBM,” the report stated. “Given the protracted time frames of the initiative and the resources that have been aimed at it, OMB must act now to determine the future of TBM in the federal government.”

The OMB did not provide comments to GAO on the report.