OMB plans to make IT contract data collection public, per federal CIO

The Office of Management and Budget plans to make public at least some of the technology contract data it’s collecting from agencies, per the government’s top IT official.

Under a March memo, certain chief information officers are required to update OMB each month on contracts they or their subordinates have approved. That same memo also mandates data collection about pricing and agency use of services from vendors themselves.

The memo received some positive reception as a possible method to better inform procurement decisions, but a common critique was that it provided no assurances the information would ever be transparently published.

Despite citing data standards consistent with the OPEN Government Data Act — a law that requires agencies to publish non-sensitive information in machine-readable and open formats by default — the memo did not state whether the information would be publicly disseminated.

When asked by FedScoop recently whether public sharing is part of the plan for that information, Greg Barbaccia said: “Absolutely. This is the citizens’ data.”

The format that might take is less clear, however. Barbaccia said it “remains to be seen what amount we could share responsibly” and he would “have to take that back and think about that a bit.” 

In addition to confirming public sharing, Barbaccia also indicated the reporting process could change over time.

The current monthly reporting requirements under the memo run only through September, but there are plans to extend the process. The six-month period was designed as a way to review the data from agencies and make changes as needed before implementing something indefinitely, Barbaccia said. 

“One of the things we want to figure out is, what’s the right reporting burden on the agencies, right?” he said. “We don’t want to do another level of bureaucracy.”

For example, Barbaccia said his office didn’t want to attach a number and say they wanted to see every contract over $100 million when small agencies might not be pulling a lot of those contracts. 

“You should definitely expect the reporting requirements to be extended, but we’re going to kind of zero it in to make it make the most sense,” he said.

According to Barbaccia, the OMB memo on IT contracting data stems from a process started by Department of Transportation CIO Pavan Pidugu during the agency’s consolidation of IT services. From that, they learned what worked and what didn’t, and the policy in the memo ultimately received input from agency CIOs before implementation.

OMB also plans to use artificial intelligence to review that data, Barbaccia said — though he did not share details about which specific models might be used.

“We run things through our normal business intelligence systems that we’ve had in place for years, but now we’re finally going to start deploying some trained models against the data to really draw these correlations,” he said. 

The data collection for IT contracts comes as an existing method of public IT contract information-sharing known as the Federal IT Dashboard is getting a revamp. 

In a recent post to the ITDashboard.gov website, Barbaccia said the current website does not deliver on the promise of providing the public with credible, accessible information on IT spending, performance and decision-making. As a result, he said the website would sunset, but a new process would take its place and the government “will do better.”

“Effective April 2026, agencies will pivot to a streamlined state that refocuses on statutorily required data. We’ll continue to make that data publicly available to you,” Barbaccia said in the post. “Stay tuned for further updates.”