TMF Board issues $45M in first awards to Energy, Agriculture, HUD
The Technology Modernization Fund Board has announced the first three awardees of the new fund.
The departments of Energy, Housing and Urban Development, and Agriculture will each receive funding for IT modernization projects — a total of $45 million among them.
“Today’s funding awards are important to the Administration’s commitment to modernizing the Federal Government,” Suzette Kent, federal CIO and chairwoman of the TMF Board, said in a statement. “These proposals show the need to update our federal infrastructure and create new operating models that align with aggressive technology transformation.”
The Department of Energy will receive $15 million to accelerate its enterprise cloud email migration; HUD will use its $20 million for a “mainframe application migration” project; and USDA now has an extra $10 million to put behind its Farmers.gov portal.
“The Board believes these projects deliver citizen benefits, meet the specific technology transformation goals defined in the MGT Act, have agency leadership support, and contains effective cost savings strategy that are at the heart of the TMF model,” Kent added.
The TMF was created by the Modernizing Government Technology Act, which President Trump signed into law in December 2017. The White House Office of Management and Budget then convened a seven-member board to oversee the $100 million fund and pick awardees in March. In April, Kent alluded to four agency finalists while on the Government Matters Sunday morning show — apparently just three made the final cut. The General Services Administration has also made it clear it is looking for more applicants.
“The Technology Modernization Fund provides Federal agencies with a novel, new approach to investing in modern technology solutions that will bring about the updated, enhanced and secure platforms necessary to better serve our citizens,” Emily W. Murphy, administrator of the U.S. General Services Administration, said in a statement. “Today’s announcement marks an important milestone for the future of IT modernization across the Federal Government.”
