State Department, Nuclear Regulatory Commission ranked the worst agencies on IT issues

The State Department and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) received the lowest grades as part of a biannual scorecard on federal agencies’ information technology management. 

Version 9.0 of the Federal Information Technology Acquisition Reform Act (FITARA) scorecard, released twice a year by the House Oversight and Reform Subcommittee on Government Operations, awarded D- grades to both the State Department and the NRC for IT modernization issues. 

The scorecard gave overall IT modernization grades to two dozen federal agencies, and also gave individual scores to agencies on their cybersecurity, software licensing, modernization of government technology, and transparency and risk management.

While the State Department and the NRC did not receive high marks, the scorecard overall showed improvement from past scorecards, which have been issued since 2015.

Three agencies — the Department of Education, the General Services Administration, and the U.S. Agency for International Development — received an A or A+ on their IT management efforts. 

While no agency received an overall failing grade on IT modernization efforts, the Departments of Commerce and of Health and Human Services both were given an F for their cybersecurity efforts. Cybersecurity was one of the worst-performing aspects of the scorecard, with 16 agencies receiving a C grade or lower, and only the National Science Foundation scoring an A. 

The Department of Homeland Security and NASA, which in the previous version of the FITARA scorecard released in June received the lowest scores, both improved their overall IT modernization, with NASA awarded a C+ and DHS a B. 

The subcommittee on government operations held a hearing on Wednesday afternoon to discuss the latest version of the scorecard, with subcommittee Chairman Gerry Connolly (D-Va.) praising agencies for their overall improvement since the scorecard was first issued in 2015, when most agencies were given D scores. 

“Across the government, agencies have improved federal information technology acquisition,” Connolly said, adding that “the benefits of effective IT in federal agencies are too great to ignore, and this subcommittee will not waiver in its oversight of IT acquisition and management principles.”

Rep. Mark Meadows (N.C.), the top Republican on the subcommittee, noted that “efficiency in government, as it relates to IT, is critical,” and vowed to “work with all the agencies” on continuing to improve IT modernization.