The Government Accountability Office has urged agency chief information officers to frequently update their ratings for agency information technology investments on the web-based Federal IT Dashboard system.

GAO said Thursday it conducted a performance audit on 95 federal IT programs that were active from April 2015 to June 2016 at 17 agencies and compared CIO rating processes to guidance established by the Office of Management and Budget.

Auditors found 40 of CIO-issued ratings for assessed investments were not updated at the time of audit and that the rating processes of seven agencies did not factor active risks.

“GAO’s assessments generally showed more risk than the associated CIO ratings,” the agency noted.

“In particular, of the 95 investments assessed, GAO’s assessments matched the CIO ratings 22 times, showed more risk 60 times, and showed less risk 13 times.”

GAO added the agencies’ risk rating processes understate the level of risk, increasing the probability that key federal IT investments do not receive adequate oversight.

The government watchdog recommended that agency CIOs factor active risks into the ratings they post on dashboard.

Robert Cardillo, director of the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, has signed a record of decision that finalizes a site in St. Louis as NGA’s next headquarters site for western region operations headquarters.

The agency said Thursday Next NGA West will be located at the corner of north Jefferson and Cass avenues and was chosen after the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers released a final environmental impact statement in April that was followed by a one-month extended comment period.

“When determining where our next west headquarters would be located, I considered a number of factors, but most importantly, our mission,” said Cardillo.

He added the technological and professional environment that surrounds the future site of the west headquarters could support NGA’s mission to develop relevant geospatial intelligence technology for its clients.

NGA noted the selection process began in 2012 and involved planning studies and economic analysis that led the agency to decide on a new facility rather than a renovation of its current 3200 South 2nd Street and Arsenal Street site.

A survey from Iron Mountain says 46 percent of information management professionals in the federal government have cited management of all types of data as their top priority over the next three to five years.

Iron Mountain said Wednesday it commissioned market research firm Market Connections to poll 200 records and data management employees from civilian agencies, Defense Department and the Intelligence Community.

The study also found that 56 percent of the respondents said there would be a high demand for skills in access control and information security in the next three to five years, followed by analytics and data quality management.

Thirty-nine percent of respondents said innovative thinking is the soft skill that would be in greatest demand for information management and 52 percent said information security as one of the technical skills that would be in demand the most.

Respondents also cited compliance, data valuation assessment and IT and physical records management integration as the top project management-related skills that would have an impact on records management in the next two years, according to the survey.

The survey also found that risk management, records and information management practices and electronic records retention are the top areas for improvement when it comes to data management skills.

The Treasury Department has kicked off the search for a new associate chief information officer for infrastructure operations, with responsibility in information and technology management operations.

The role of ACIO/IO operates within the office of the deputy assistant secretary for information systems and chief information officer under the Treasury’s deputy chief information officer, USAJobs said Tuesday.

Duties include management of various information systems, networks and communications services across the department.

The ACIO/IO will also lead an operations staff that consists of 85 personnel who maintain and protect systems and services, manage hardware and software, deploy departmental and headquarters information technology infrastructure services, build policy compliance and establish stakeholder alliances.

The application period for the position will close June 27.