TMF announces 5 new digital services and cybersecurity investments

The General Services Administration’s Technology Modernization Fund announced five new investments on Thursday, the latest since it announced two awards in April.

The National Transportation Safety Board, Bureau of Land Management and Department of Veterans Affairs will be using the new funding on digital services, while the awards to the Department of Labor and Environmental Protection Agency focus on cybersecurity.

The National Transportation Safety Board will use its $16.2 million investment to make improvements to its digital content delivery and make it easier for people to find information about investigations and safety recommendations. 

The Bureau of Land Management, meanwhile, will digitize land records and improve its General Land Office website’s functionality with a $9.2 investment. Veterans Affairs will be using its $7.4 million investment on the digitization of forms at scale.

The Labor Department, which already has three other TMF investments, will use the $15.2 million in the most recent batch of funding for zero-trust architecture. The EPA will also put its $2.5 million toward the cybersecurity of its analytical radiation data system. 

“The TMF investments we’re announcing today demonstrate that when we make smart, sound technical investments, we can maximize the impact of taxpayer dollars and propel agencies to work more efficiently and improve service delivery for the millions of Americans counting on them,” federal chief information officer and TMF board chair Clare Martorana said in a statement.

TMF executive director Raylene Yung emphasized that “digital-first investments… increase public trust and make it easier for people to get the services they need,” in a statement. 

The awards come soon after the five-year mark for the creation of the revolving fund, meant to give agencies no-year money to spend on tech. The fund has currently handed out over $750 million across 45 investments in 27 agencies. 

“This is just the beginning,” Yung and Martorana wrote in a blog post commemorating that anniversary in March. “It’s safe to say that the TMF works and it works well.”

The pair touted the benefits of incremental funding over time and ability of the TMF board to prioritize investments using its bird’s-eye view across government. 

The administration has asked for $200 million for the fund in the fiscal 2024 budget, although the House Appropriations Committee zeroed out any additional money for TMF in the funding bill released in June. 

It’s not the first time that lawmakers have hesitated putting more money into the fund, although they did opt to put $1 billion into TMF as part of the American Rescue Plan Act that was signed into law in early 2021.