Government spending on information technology is set to grow by $2.3 billion in 2016 to $86.4 billion — a 2.7 percent increase — under the president's proposed budget released Monday.

More: Get the full story on the 2016 budget

Civilian agency IT spending makes up $49.1 billion of the request, with defense spending at $37.3 billion. Civilian IT spending is slated to increase by 2.5 percent, up $1.2 billion over 2015.

More: Three technologies to lead federal innovation in 2015

In the budget documents released Monday, the administration pointed to programs like PortfolioStat that have decreased wasteful spending on IT projects and efforts like the Digital Service to improve citizen experience with government online.

"Yet, despite this progress, public trust in government remains low and there is more work to be done," the budget states. "The administration is ramping up its efforts to restore this trust through investments that modernize and improve how the government serves citizens and through initiatives that maximize the impact of taxpayer dollars."

The president's 2016 budget includes $450 million in funding for cross-agency IT programs like PortfolioStat and Open Data initiatives, as well as expanding the U.S. Digital Service to agencies outside OMB.

Value in IT investments

The president's management agenda for 2016 puts a significant focus on reporting IT spending through the PortfolioStat program and includes funding to capitalize on the launch of public-facing dashboards this year.

Accompanying budget documents show an $11 million investment in PortfolioStat has resulted in $2.7 billion in savings over three years.

The administration will also be pushing other IT-specific savings, such as the Federal Data Center Consolidation Initiative and implementing agile development processes.

Open Government

The General Services Administration's Federal Citizen Services Fund would get $16 million to support E-Government programs around open data under the president's plan.

The funding would be set aside to help agencies get release more data to the public — including hitting Open Data CAP goals — while ensuring the "privacy, confidentiality and security of sensitive information."

"The administration has placed a high priority on transparency and, in particular, on opening government data as fuel for private sector innovation and public use," the documents state.

Expanding Digital Service

The U.S. Digital Service got a funding bump in the president's 2016 budget proposal to expand its work to more agencies.

The budget includes $105 million to create Digital Service branches at 25 major agencies to help them improve public-facing web services, as well as internal applications.

More: Budget includes funding for 25 more Digital Services

The original Digital Service team at OMB — led by Administrator Mikey Dickerson — would also get more funding under the president's plan. The OMB USDS would take on a new role as the lead digital service, helping to build out the new departments at other agencies.

Aaron Boyd is an awarding-winning journalist currently serving as editor of Federal Times — a Washington, D.C. institution covering federal workforce and contracting for more than 50 years — and Fifth Domain — a news and information hub focused on cybersecurity and cyberwar from a civilian, military and international perspective.

Share:
In Other News
Load More