FY 2020 IT Priorities at Commerce Bureaus

Though the agency’s full budget was released later than others, the Department of Commerce (DOC) lists some promising IT projects for FY 2020. Spanning from big data projects and cyber initiatives to system modernization, each of the main bureaus under Commerce list individual, key IT priorities in FY 2020.

Beginning with a wide lens of DOC’s enterprise-wide initiatives, the FY 2020 budget allots $22M to the OCIO to establish an Information Technology System Modernization Working Capital Fund (WCF) per specifications of the Modernizing Government Technology (MGT) Act. The WCF seeks to directly fund Commerce’s new Business Applications Solutions (BAS) program. Phase I of BAS will implement enterprise administrative management systems such as financial management, acquisition and property. Moreover, BAS will support data warehouse and business intelligence reporting solutions for all of Commerce. Other projects slated for additional FY 2020 funding under the Departmental Management division of DOC include:

• $2.3M for telecommunications, equipment and services for site IT infrastructure

• $2.1M for the National Security Solutions and Services (NS3) program for secure and reliable operations

• $1.9M to fulfill requirements of the DHS Continuing Diagnostics and Mitigation (CDM) program and implement an agency dashboard to assess the security posture of Commerce

• $470K to provide e-Discovery and records management tools to assist with a centralized process for FOIA requests

• $443K for a new electronic financial disclosure filing system in compliance with OMB’s Cloud-First policy

BUREAU OF CENSUS

With the execution of the decennial census taking place in FY 2020, the Bureau of Census is ramping up its systems to carry out survey operations. Among some of the new IT features of the 2020 Census will be an internet self-response option, follow-up enumeration with mobile devices and a new dissemination system. The FY 2020 budget provides additional dollars to transition and deploy systems for the upcoming count:

• $7.4M ($57.5M total) for the Center for Enterprise Dissemination Services and Consumer Innovation (CEDSCI) to continue large-scale development of a new, modern, and citizen-centric data dissemination system to prepare for disseminating the unique and voluminous data products from the 2020 Census

• $3.2M ($80M total) for the Census Enterprise Data Collection and Processing (CEDCaP) program to resolve technical issues discovered during testing in preparation for the 2020 Census operations and deliver capabilities to support self-response and field data collection for the 2020 Census.

NATIONAL OCEANIC AND ATMOSPHERIC ADMINISTRATION

• $5M more to establish a NOAA enterprise-wide, Internal Risk Mitigation capability to deter, detect and mitigate action by employees, contractors or others. The funding will also protect NOAA’s efforts to move data into the cloud

• $4.9M in additional funds to support Impact-based Decision Support Services (IDSS) and information technology (IT) Security within the National Weather Service

• $4M increase for regional ocean data portals to provide ocean-related federal data and information to the public

• $2.4M increase to support critical upgrades to NOAA’s Commerce Business System (CBS) hardware and software which has reached end of life. Increased funding is to maintain CBS operability until BAS systems are implemented.

US PATENT TRADEMARK OFFICE

After peak investments for IT infrastructure and network improvements in FY 2018 and 2019, the USPTO is facing various deductions in its IT program for FY 2020. Moreover, while the agency will continue to retire legacy systems, modernization of USPTO’s primary systems such as Patent End-to-End 3 (PE2E-3) and Trademark Next Generation 3 (TMNG 3) have taken place. FY 2020 activities for these systems will include a focus on added capabilities. Decreases in FY 2020 funding include:

• $34.6M for IT infrastructure & IT support services

• $34.5M for patent information resources to maintain development and deployment of new IT capabilities and retiring specific legacy systems

• $13.9M for trademark information resources to manage stabilization/modernization plans for TMNG systems

• $4.97 in mission support information resources

NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF STANDARDS AND TECHNOLOGY

• $10M in additional funding to prioritize, establish and accelerate support for quantum related research and applications

• $8M increase to expand ongoing research efforts to promote adoption of AI in technologies in the marketplace ($24M total) and allow for AI data and standards development

NATIONAL TELECOMMUNICATIONS AND INFORMATION ADMINISTRATION

• $50M increase for the Spectrum IT Modernization effort to support automation in management of federal spectrum to spur commercial wireless innovation. The added funding will be used to:

  • Reengineer 128 business processes to accelerate spectrum frequency authorization

  • Develop a spectrum management enterprise architecture

  • Code advanced engineering algorithms and analytical tools

  • Increase the quality and transparency of data.

• $2M more will enable growing efforts to oversee, mitigate, and manage supply chain risks to the nation’s telecommunications infrastructure