Page 11 - FCW, May 2017

$130 billion is spent annually by agencies on IDIQ contracts, according to GAO
Officials float ideas for tackling IT workforce shortage
At a congressional hearing in April, watchdogs, industry experts and long- time feds called for a “cyber nation- al guard,” centralized hiring, and an expansion of educational outreach programs to address the IT skills short- age and increase workforce diversity.
The Center for Cyber Safety and Education recently estimated there will be a global shortage of 1.8 million cybersecurity professionals by 2022, and cybersecurity workforce issues landed on the Government Account- ability Office’s 2017 high-risk list.
At a hearing of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee’s IT Subcommittee, Chairman Will Hurd (R-Texas) pushed the idea of a cyber national guard that would serve pub- lic and private entities as a possible remedy.
“The concept is actually quite sim-
ple,” he said. “This is really a way to... recruit and hire qualified individuals to the federal IT workforce and then retain their skills in the future on a rotational basis.”
He acknowledged that there would be challenges involved in creating the organization and determining how it would work. “Once [IT professionals] come and work for the government and they go out in the private sector, how do we get them back in on a rota- tional basis?” he asked. “What are the jobs that would be achieved through that rotational basis?”
Steve Cooper, who has served as CIO at the Commerce and Homeland Security departments and the Federal Aviation Administration, said the “cyber reserve corps” could be run jointly by DHS, the Office of Personnel Manage- ment and the Defense Department.
Building on the rotational model, Cooper said Congress should allow federal CIOs to pool their appropria- tions money and work together to solve IT recruitment problems and technology crises rather than compete with one another for the same limited pool of professionals.
And some agencies are at a disad- vantage. “DHS is more sexy, [and] DOD attracts a heck of a lot more people than the Department of Commerce,” he said.
Cooper suggested establishing a cen- tral recruiting team that could do all the hiring and focus on helping agen- cies get the skill sets they need. He said such a team could be managed by the General Services Administration, OPM, DHS, DOD or some combination of those agencies.
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