S. 1867 would amend the Federal Information Technology Acquisition Reform Act (FITARA) to permanently extend some expiring provisions. FITARA was enacted as part of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2015 and concerns how the U.S. government buys and manages computer technology. Specifically, the bill would extend the Federal Data Center Consolidation Initiative (FDCCI), PortfolioStat reviews, and the information technology (IT) dashboard.
The FDCCI aims to reduce costs and save energy, PortfolioStat reviews are face-to-face meeting between each agency’s IT officers and the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), and the IT dashboard provides online details of federal information technology spending. Information from OMB suggests that implementing those efforts costs a few million dollars annually for agencies to produce the necessary information; however, OMB expects that much of this work would continue regardless of the expiring authority to conduct them. Thus, CBO estimates there would be no significant additional cost or savings to continue those efforts under S. 1867.
Enacting the bill could affect direct spending by agencies not funded through annual appropriations; therefore, pay-as-you-go procedures apply. CBO estimates, however, that any net increase in spending by those agencies would not be significant. Enacting S. 1867 would not affect revenues.
CBO estimates that enacting S. 1867 would not increase direct spending or on-budget deficits in any of the four consecutive 10-year periods beginning in 2028.
S. 1867 contains no intergovernmental or private-sector mandates as defined in the Unfunded Mandates Reform.
On September 29, 2017, CBO transmitted a cost estimate for H.R. 3243, the FITARA Enhancement Act of 2017, as ordered reported by the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform on July 19, 2017. The two pieces of legislation are similar, and CBO’s estimates of the budgetary effects are the same.
