HR5457-119

What This Bill Does

The Strengthening Agency Management and Oversight of Software Assets Act requires each covered agency Chief Information Officer, in consultation with the Chief Financial Officer, Chief Acquisition Officer, Chief Data Officer, and General Counsel, to complete a comprehensive software assessment within 18 months. The assessment must cover the agency's software inventory, software entitlements, contracts, largest entitlements by provider and category, software built or used by the agency, shared services, cloud fees and other extra costs, unused or duplicative software, interoperability, cost-volume-type categories, restrictive entitlement provisions, total lifecycle costs, and compliance with license-management policies. Agency heads may hire support contractors, but not contractors with organizational conflicts of interest.

Using that assessment, each agency CIO must create a modernization plan to consolidate software entitlements, reduce unnecessary cost, eliminate excess licenses, improve performance, automate license management, use discovery tools, train employees on software acquisition and development, negotiate restrictive contract terms, and restrict bureaus or components from acquiring or using software without CIO approval. OMB and GSA must coordinate common definitions, terms, and conditions for software asset management. GAO must report within three years on government-wide trends, interagency comparisons, OMB harmonization work, compliance with support-contractor restrictions, and agency plans. The bill authorizes no additional funds.

Who Benefits and How

Federal taxpayers, agency CIO offices, software asset management tool vendors, IT asset management consultants, enterprise software vendors, open-source software providers, OMB digital-management staff, GSA procurement officials, and GAO oversight teams benefit because agencies must identify unused licenses, duplicative entitlements, hidden cloud costs, restrictive terms, and consolidation opportunities before buying or renewing software.

Who Bears the Burden and How

Federal agency CIOs, agency IT departments, Chief Financial Officers, Chief Acquisition Officers, Chief Data Officers, agency General Counsel offices, bureau program offices, software procurement staff, support contractors, and small software vendors with agency-specific deals face inventory, reporting, training, contract-review, approval, consolidation, and budget constraints. Agencies must do the work with existing funds, and bureaus lose autonomy to buy or build software outside CIO-controlled procedures.

Key Provisions

• Requires each covered agency CIO to complete a comprehensive software assessment within 18 months.
• Requires assessment of entitlements, contracts, cloud fees, unused software, duplicative software, interoperability, restrictive terms, lifecycle costs, and license-policy compliance.
• Authorizes support contracts but bars contractors with organizational conflicts of interest.
• Requires agency modernization plans to consolidate entitlements, automate license management, train staff, reduce costs, and restrict component-level acquisitions without CIO approval.
• Directs OMB and GSA to harmonize common software-management definitions, terms, and conditions.
• Requires GAO to report within three years on agency software asset management trends and compliance.
• Bars additional appropriations for implementation.