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GAO: Aging Federal IT Systems Need Attention

Recent GAO report reveals aging IT infrastructure

The Government Accountability Office (GAO) recently analyzed information technology (IT) spending at government agencies and discovered a noteworthy trend — agencies are increasingly spending IT funds to maintain legacy systems and are spending less on modernization of those IT systems.

According to a recent [link url=”http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-16-696T” title=”GAO report,”] federal government agencies spent more than two-thirds of their IT budgets in fiscal year 2015 on operations and maintenance (O&M).

That left just 25 percent of IT budgets to be spent on development, modernization, and enhancement activities. In fact, from fiscal years 2010 to 2017, there has been a $7.3 billion decline in development, modernization, and enhancement spending.

Old technology still in place

According to the GAO, about 5,233 of 7,000 government IT investments are being utilized to fund O&M activities. Dig a little deeper and it’s easy to see why so much is being spent on maintenance. Some federal IT systems are becoming obsolete, as many use outdated software and/or computer hardware parts that have been unsupported for years. Research showed that parts of some federal several systems at least 50 years old.

Examples of outdated IT systems and/or components include the use of 8-inch floppy disks in a legacy system at the Department of Defense (DoD), the use of assembly language code — a code from the 1950s — at the Department of the Treasury, and a system written in Common Business Oriented Language (COBOL) — a programming language developed in the 1950s and 1960s — at the Department of Veterans Affairs.

2017 budget call for $89 billion in IT spending

The fiscal year 2017 budget from the White House includes more than $89 billion for IT spending. The GAO recommended, as a crucial first step, that agencies work to identify and prioritize legacy IT that is in need of modernization and/or replacement.

Without a clear transition to focus on development, modernization, and enhancement instead of on maintenance of legacy systems, much of this budget will again be spent on O&M activities.

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