Long-awaited investment in government technology is finally here in the United States and now we must act. President Joe Biden recently announced his administration’s $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan, and technologists rightly lauded his inclusion of $10 billion to modernize state systems and networks, improve cybersecurity, and fund the Technology Transformation Services. This acknowledges that governments are facing an unprecedented need to expand their digital and virtual services due to COVID-19.
The pandemic continues to create immediate demands for services, raises the government’s technology risk profile, and changes long-term expectations for how government interacts with and delivers services. To make the most of the momentum for change that’s now here, governments will have to look beyond 2021 and this crisis.
My hope is that this is the beginning of long-term sustained, strategic investment to establish resilient technology infrastructure and digital government.
Even prior to this crisis it was clear that governments faced high-stakes technology challenges. For example, with the onset of the long-anticipated “silver tsunami” retirements, IT departments face high levels of attrition, leaving them understaffed and with the loss of much institutional knowledge. Yet, the pressure to deliver quickly has led to an accumulation of technical debt, with the near term agenda being prioritized at the cost of sustainability. Legacy systems, running on hardware or software that is increasingly costly and difficult to support, pre ..
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