OMB wants to break down barriers for CIOs, White House official says

The Trump administration wants to make sure that chief information officers aren’t “just another back office function,” Eric Ueland — deputy director for management at the Office of Management and Budget — said last week at GovExec’s Government Efficiency Summit.

Technology is a top priority for OMB, he said, alongside reorganization, procurement reform and Made in America policies.

“OMB is going to break down barriers, ensure integration and drive for outcomes to lend value to agencies and departments and ultimately to taxpayers,” he said. “Otherwise, CIOs will end up as just another back office function where you think you go to find a replacement charger cord.”

On the sidelines of the event, he told reporters that under the direction of the federal CIO, Gregory Barbaccia, OMB is looking at how to organize CIOs and get rid of redundancies. 

Part of that involves setting clearer authorities within departments and across the government, he said, “so that when a department turns to the CIO, the CIO is actually able to deliver and the secretary or director knows that with confidence, this can actually get done.”

“Many federal CIOs are ill-organized and ill-deployed without a common view of their value proposition and the best way for them to work inside their departments and across the federal enterprise,” Ueland said on stage. “They barely even coordinate well with each other. They don't share common missions, best practices or even technology solutions. This has to stop.”

Ueland's remarks followed moves by the Trump administration to enable the politicization of CIO roles across agencies by making more of these roles open to political appointees.

A line from the Trump administration’s budget request meant to ensure that CIOs are looped into budget planning for agency technology also made it into a Republican funding bill that is currently under consideration in Congress. 

Tucked inside the Financial Services and General Government funding bill is a provision that “the head of each executive branch agency funded by this Act shall ensure that the [CIO] of the agency has the authority to participate in decisions regarding the budget planning process related to information technology.”

The bill, which the subcommittee approved Monday, also specifies that money appropriated for technology “shall be allocated within the agency … in such a manner as specified by, or approved by, the [CIO] of the agency in consultation with the Chief Financial Officer of the agency and budget chiefs.”

The 2014 Federal IT Acquisition Reform Act, or FITARA, also made clear that agency CIOs are in charge of IT investments.

Congress has a long way to go to pass a budget for fiscal 2026 before its end of September deadline — the complementary Senate subcommittee hasn’t yet even put out its text — but the provision offers a hint at what the White House and Republicans on Capitol Hill are envisioning for CIOs. 

As for what the White House wants CIOs to actually do, the Trump administration is focused on modernizing antiquated systems and deploying artificial intelligence, Ueland said. Within those priorities, officials want to modernize the government’s HR landscape, made up of “a “fragmented network of HR systems” that cost $2 billion annually, he added. 

Another priority is artificial intelligence, Ueland said. New AI policies are expected from the Trump administration this week.

Ueland also touted progress in the administration’s effort to reduce the thousands of federal websites. One thousand websites have been culled, bringing the total from 7,000 to 6,000. 

“This 15% reduction is just a first step,” he said. “We’ll continue to consolidate websites so when Americans use the web to find what they need, it’ll be easier, simpler and much more direct.”