Funding Flows to Technology and Cybersecurity in the New DoD Budget

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If it doesn’t succeed the first time, trying again is one way the Department of Defense is considering efforts to use new mechanisms to fund technology. The Fiscal Year 2023 Omnibus Appropriations Bill funds 10 programs to purchase software that fall under the Software and Digital Technology Pilot Program.

Last year, the Department of Defense requested funding for the program, but Congress did not include it in the final budget. Offers.

The question is how the Department of Defense pays for software. The pilot program gives departments a “colorless” bucket of money. That means he can spend two years on IT development. Traditionally, software funding had to follow a template designed for arms procurement. This template divides funding into research, development, testing and evaluation (RDT&E) and procurement, operations and maintenance (O&M) allocations, with cost-based triggers applied for each acquisition. category. That process proved cumbersome for software purchases that required faster turnaround times.

Among these programs funded under Pilot are Risk Management Intelligence, Space Command and Control, National Background Check Services, Acquisition Visibility, and National Industrial Security Systems.

After the Pentagon spent two years trying to get the program off the ground, Congress went ahead with it, but indicated the program needed to see results before it expanded. A joint explanatory statement for the omnibus bill describes a limited view of the pilot program.

“Reports received to date indicate that departments have yet to implement methods to obtain adequate data to enable objective analysis of how a single budget activity improves software pilot program performance. It shows that the

The statement cautions the DoD not to add new programs to the pilot until they have been proven effective. If data from early pilot programs show cost savings and shorter timelines, more projects could be funded under this system.

Legislators joined another program that was just getting off the ground, but the DoD provided more support. They funded the Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certification (CMMC) to help small business owners seek to meet compliance standards. Under defense-wide procurement, an additional $20 million will be used to strengthen small businesses and academia’s compliance with his CMMC.

Government officials have been concerned that compliance with the CMMC could be difficult for small businesses already challenged by competing for federal funding with larger competitors.

The Department of Defense has announced interim acquisition rules implementing CMMC in 2020, with plans to eventually certify thousands of contractors across the defense industrial base. CMMC accreditation body established the first third-party assessment body (C3PAO) in 2021. However, contractors are concerned that the program will overcomplicate the process, and it is not clear how the C3PAO should prepare for the evaluation and what arrangements should be made. with contractors who need their services.

The Cyber ​​Accreditation Body is currently drafting to provide guidance on how the C3PAO program will work. The “CMMC Evaluation Process” document is not yet in final form and is not expected to be completed until next year.

Funding for the CMMC program accompanies an overall increase in the Defensewide Science and Technology Manufacturing Program. The manufacturing program called for $256.1 million, but now it’s $747.4 million.

Expanding cybersecurity will reach out to numerous DoD programs, allowing for new commands and extensions to old ones.

Joint Cyber ​​Mission Force boosts $178 million in new budget. The funding comes after his Dec. 19 announcement that the Cyber ​​Nation Mission Force has officially launched as a unified subordinate command of the Pentagon.

The CNMF supports cyber command on national priorities such as election security, ransomware, cyber espionage, and operations to respond to other crises and contingencies.

The various service branches all have new quotas for cyber mission forces looking to strengthen their cyber security stance. The Army received his $178 million request to fund a joint cyber mission force. The Marine Corps got $94 million and the Air Force got $191.7 million after he requested $186.7 million for the Joint Cyber ​​Mission Force program. Funding was also used for joint programs such as CYBERCOM and Cyber ​​Operations Technology Support.