Federal Tech Funding Dips Slightly In Obama’s Fiscal 2015 Request

Funding for civilian information technology projects and maintenance is essentially flat in President Obama’s proposed budget for the 2015 fiscal year, and the Defense Department's requested technology allowance is down slightly, federal Chief Information Officer Steven VanRoekel said.

The 2015 request for information technology spending is about $79.1 billion, including $43.7 billion for civilian IT and $35.4 billion for defense, VanRoekel said. That’s down from about $81.4 billion enacted in the 2014 fiscal year. The lower number is possible thanks to an increase in shared technology services across government and strategic sourcing for commodity IT such as computers and Internet service, VanRoekel said. The overall technology spending figure is in line with previous Obama Administration budgets, which have flatlined technology spending at around $80 billion. During the Bush Administration, government technology spending grew at about 7 percent annually.