The Trump administration is proposing major changes for how the Technology Modernization Fund gets its money in its 2026 budget request.
Congress set up the revolving fund in 2017 to finance multi-year tech projects outside of the often-fickle annual appropriations process. TMF thus far has awarded over $1.07 billion across 69 investments and 34 agencies.
The administration isn’t asking for any new funding for the TMF, according to budget documents for the General Services Administration — which houses the fund — but it wants lawmakers to pass a new tool for GSA to take money from other agencies to put into the TMF, up to $100 million annually.
“GSA and OMB are committed to exploring alternative funding mechanisms,” the budget document said. “This includes the new governmentwide general provision proposed in the President’s Budget to allow the TMF to sweep unobligated balances of expired discretionary funds.”
It added that “this proposal offers a dual benefit: it would increase the amount of funding available in the TMF to make continued investments while simultaneously alleviating the burden on the Financial Services and General Government Appropriations Subcommittee.”
Congress hasn’t consistently put new money into TMF. The American Rescue Plan Act included a $1 billion plus-up for the fund in 2021, although Congress has since taken back $113 million of that. As of late last year, the fund only had $170 million left to invest, although that number can fluctuate as agencies make repayments back into the TMF.
Top priorities for TMF moving forward, GSA said, are cybersecurity, interoperability and the modernization of legacy systems. Although the Biden administration relaxed repayment requirements for the fund for a time, agencies can now expect to owe full repayment apart from the “rare” exception, GSA’s budget justification said.
The latest budget documents also offered details into what the White House is requesting for other government funds.
The Information Technology Oversight and Reform funding requested under the Executive Office of the President— which provides money for both the Office of the Federal Chief Information Officer and what was formerly the U.S. Digital Service and is now the Department of Government Efficiency — is asking for $9 million for oversight, cyber and program management. ITOR would also have access to $17 million in unobligated balances from last year.
DOGE, though it is located within USDS, is seeking about $10 million in new funding in addition to an expected $35 million from agencies reimbursing it for services.
Within GSA, the administration is requesting $70 million in direct appropriations for the Federal Citizen Services Fund, as well as the authority to collect $16 million in agency contributions for governmentwide shared services.
The fund, managed by the Technology Transformation Services, is meant to help with governmentwide digital transformation. TTS itself, meanwhile, is funded by appropriations, reimbursements, agency contributions and GSA’s Acquisition Services Fund.
The new budget request also included an ask for Congress to remove the cap on the total amount of funding held by FCSF, and the budget previewed a move toward agency contributions and away from annual appropriations for the fund.
For now, several of the programs and projects funded by FCSF are going to be scaled back, the budget noted, including the U.S. Web Design System, Digital Analytics Program and others.
Since January, GSA has laid off many employees at TTS, including by shuttering an entire tech consultancy office, 18F, that had almost 100 employees. Overall, GSA’s workforce is down by 35%, the budget stated.
