Snapshot
Legacy systems O&M still dominates FY17 IT spending
- By Ben Berliner
- Jun 09, 2017
Shrinking the amount agencies spend operating and maintaining legacy systems is a longstanding priority, and a key argument for establishing an IT modernization fund. The latest data from the Federal IT Dashboard shows some progress, but makes clear that the vast majority of most agencies' IT spend still goes to O&M.
Agencies with largest percentage of IT spend devoted to O&M
O&M DME Provisioned Services
Agencies with largest percentage of IT spend devoted to DME
O&M DME Provisioned Services
The charts above are based on fiscal year 2017 data. The first shows the five cabinet agencies skewed most heavily toward O&M spending, while the second shows the five that have freed up the largest shares for "development, modernization, and enhancement spending."
The third category in each chart is the percentage of spending on "provisioned services," which the Office of Management and Budget defines as shared or cloud-based IT services that are "consumed by the agency on an as-needed basis." Governmentwide, the breakdown was 70.9 percent O&M, 20.9 percent DME and 8.2 percent provisioned.
About the Author
Ben Berliner is an editorial fellow at FCW. He is a 2017 graduate of Kenyon College, and has interned at the Center for Responsive Politics and at Sunlight Foundation.
He can be contacted at bberliner@fcw.com.
Click here for previous articles by Berliner.