The Wrap: MITRE’s IT Mod Push; IRS Stumped; Tech-Assisted Democracy

Welcome to The Wrap for Friday, March 31!

From the newsroom at MeriTalk, it’s the quickest read in Federal tech news. Here’s what you need to know today:

MITRE’s IT Mod Push

MITRE Corp.’s Center for Data-Driven Policy is urging Congress and the Biden administration to embark on a new campaign to speed the migration of Federal agencies away from legacy IT technologies, and to hold government’s feet to the fire on that effort by providing transparent ways to track progress. In a March 29?report, the policy center headed by former Government Accountability Office Director of IT Issues Dave Powner offered up key steps for Congress, the Biden administration, Federal agencies, and industry to take to speed the transition away from legacy IT. Catching our eye: Congress needs to pass a bill like the Legacy IT Reduction Act?offered last year?by Sens. Maggie Hassan, D-N.H., and John Cornyn, R-Texas; OMB needs to issue guidance to implement the law by ordering inventories of legacy systems along with modernization plans; agencies need to tackle those plans and publicly report on progress; and industry needs to help out. New twist: MITRE also suggested that agencies harness AI and machine learning to “extract business rules and data processing logic from legacy IT platforms like mainframes with assembly or COBOL languages” – and said agencies like DARPA and the National Science Foundation have had some success in similar attempts.

Tech-Assisted Democracy

That was a main thrust of the U.S.-sponsored second Summit for Democracy held in Washington, D.C. this week, with the White House highlighting?key steps?the Biden-Harris administration has taken to advance innovation in emerging technologies, and promoting a slew of new initiatives to continue to build on its work, such as the administration’s order earlier this week to ban operational use of spyware tech by Federal agencies. “President Biden often says we have to prove that democracy works in the 21st Century,” said White House Office of Science and Policy (OSTP) Director Arati Prabhakar. “Science, technology, and innovation are essential to this task – because that’s how we open doors to step beyond the limitations of today into a different tomorrow, into a better tomorrow.”

FAA Inks $2.4B Comms Deal

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), which is in the midst of a push to modernize?its technology after one of its critical alert systems?failed in January, took a big step forward in that broader effort through the award of a $2.4 billion contract to Verizon Public Sector for a 15-year contract to design, build, operate, and maintain the FAA’s next-generation communications platform. Under FAA’s Enterprise Network Services contract, Verizon will build the agency a dynamic, highly available, and secure enterprise network to support all of the agency’s mission critical applications across the National Airspace System (NAS). NAS provides air traffic management to more than 45,000 flights and 2.9 million airline passengers traveling across the 29 million square miles that make up the U.S. national airspace system.

IRS Stumped

As our business school friends often remind, if you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it. That seems to be the case at the IRS, with a new audit from the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration (TIGTA) of the IRS finding that the agency has not been keeping accurate estimates of taxes that have gone uncollected. According to TIGTA, the IRS Office of Research, Applied Analytics and Statistics (RAAS) has not developed a method to keep track of some of the tax gaps in uncollected debts. TIGTA made recommendations for fixes, and the IRS said it will work on them.

OCC FinTech Chief

Congrats to Prashant Bhardwaj, who is heading to the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) to lead its recently established Office of Financial Technology. Bhardwaj, as the deputy comptroller and chief financial technology officer, will lead a team that analyzes trends in financial technology and evaluates potential risks. He joins the newly established OCC tech office after a 30-year career in the financial services industry.

Once again, let’s “call IT a day,” but we'll bring you more on Monday. Until then please check the MeriTalk breaking news website?throughout the day?for the latest on government IT people, process, and policy.

And finally, please hit the news tip jar (with leads, breaking news, or simply your two cents) at?[email protected].