Earlier this month, President Obama and the Office of Management and Budget released the Administration’s proposed fiscal year 2011 spending plan and priorities. After reviewing the proposed budget and its allocations, Infosecurity discovered that IT spending would not be “frozen”, but it will receive substantially less increase in investment when compared with FY2010.
The overview documents released by the White House confirm what many of us already know: most government employees have better, more efficient IT resources at home than when they are on the job. OMB director Peter Orszag laid the groundwork for the proposed budget in the OMB blog, declaring that the administration would make “critical investments in the areas critical to building a strong economy in the 21st century.” And although President Obama’s proposed budget allocates $79.375bn for IT investment spending in FY2011, this is only a 1.19% increase in total IT investment spending when compared with FY2010.
In contrast, total IT investment spending increased more than 10% between FY2009 and 2010.
When asked why such a sharp decrease in new IT investment was planned for FY2011, and if this was affected by the President’s promise to curb increases in non-security related discretionary spending, the White House told Infosecurity that the proposed new investments in IT would not be subject to the freeze. “The increase is smaller because of the big spending drops, like the completion of the Census in 2010 and [the Commerce Department’s] planned spending on broadband from Recovery Act funds,” said Ken Baer, spokesperson for the OMB.
Baer notes that total IT spending is broken down across the entire government, so the total $79bn in funds is an aggregate value, which cannot be attributed to investment or cuts in any one particular department. As for spending on cybersecurity, Baer would not comment, as the amount spent in this area is classified by the US government.
The White House’s FY2011 budget would also go on to establish certain IT spending priorities going forward. The Administration is proposing data center and IT service consolidation, all with the aim of saving money and increasing security.
In addition, the FY2011 budget proposal indicates that the government will evaluate cloud computing solutions in the coming year with the goal of implementation, where applicable, across government services after 2010. “Cloud computing will be will be implemented in a secure manner,” says the budget’s prospectus document. However, no mention as to how security will be ensured – or how much these consolidation efforts will save – was provided. But, Infosecurity notes, this is only a preliminary proposal, subject to approval and revision by the US Congress in the coming weeks and months.