The House Appropriations Committee has cleared a bill that intends to add $150 million for fiscal year 2019 to a government fund that serves to provide working capital for agency information technology modernization efforts, Federal Times reported Thursday.The Technology Modernization Fund was authorized under the Modernizing Government Technology Act that Rep. Will Hurd, R-Texas, co-introduced in 2017 to support IT infrastructure updates across the federal government.
Federal Times notes the latest bill covers the shortfall in the proposed $250 million annual budget for TMF after only $100 million was obligated for the fund in fiscal 2018.
The departments of Housing and Urban Development, Energy and Agriculture received the initial batch of TMF funding earlier this month.
In a similar effort, the White House, USDA, the General Services Administration and industry partnered to establish an IT modernization center of excellence that seeks to help agencies upgrade or replace legacy systems.
