GAO to OMB: TBM Needs a Go/No-Go Decision Now
The Government Accountability Office’s July 2025 review of Technology Business Management (TBM) in federal agencies lands a clear message: after eight years, the Office of Management and Budget must either treat TBM as an Administration priority and finish the job or terminate the effort to stop the mounting costs without commensurate benefits. TBM, a standardized taxonomy meant to illuminate what the government spends on IT and why, was launched government-wide by OMB in 2017 with phased reporting requirements. GAO finds that progress has stalled, guidance is incomplete, and most agencies remain far from full implementation.
GAO recounts that in 2022 it issued seven recommendations to reinvigorate adoption, yet as of March 2025 only one has been fully implemented: GSA delivered benchmarking functionality on the IT Dashboard so agencies can compare TBM data to peers. OMB has partially addressed plans for the “solutions” layer of the taxonomy but left most remaining elements and key management actions unresolved. Five recommendations—including establishing a maturity assessment approach, requiring agencies to submit those assessments, aligning budget object codes to TBM, disclosing known data limitations, and analyzing cross-dataset inconsistencies—remain unimplemented, leaving agencies with uncertainty about expectations and timelines.
On the ground, agencies report mixed adoption. All 26 covered agencies have implemented the elements OMB required, but only Education and Veterans Affairs report going beyond to implement all currently non-required taxonomy elements. When GAO examined two leading practices—having a concrete, time-bound implementation plan and establishing a reliable cost-allocation methodology—just six agencies had fully implemented both. Eight agencies have solid allocation methods, and eight have real implementation plans; many others are only partial or not started. Commerce stands out for roadmaps across its bureaus and repeatable, automated allocation and validation; SBA has documented allocation rules with a validation checklist; DHS is part-way there; NSF lacked documented processes at the time of review. Agencies frequently cited the absence of OMB’s end-to-end guidance, federated operating models, and competing priorities as reasons for delay, but GAO notes that other federated organizations have shown agency-wide approaches are possible.
Costs are real and continue to accrue. Twenty agencies provided at least some cost information. Twelve reported total TBM implementation costs ranging from about $1.5 million to $28.9 million across fiscal years 2017–2023, covering labor, contractor support, tools/licenses, and training. VA reported the high end of that range; NASA, Commerce, Treasury, and others reported multi-million-dollar totals. Eight additional agencies offered partial figures, such as recurring contractor support or training, while several said TBM costs are embedded within broader budgeting activities and not tracked separately. Despite the spending, agencies did not identify realized cost savings; most pointed instead to benefits like transparency into IT spend, more disciplined budget formulation, better collaboration and automation, and improved data to inform decisions.
GAO’s conclusion is blunt: without decisive action from OMB, TBM will continue to drift. The recommendation is binary—either declare TBM a priority now and implement the outstanding 2022 recommendations while pressing agencies to finish the taxonomy and track costs and benefits, or call it off and direct agencies to stop incurring new TBM-related costs. OMB neither agreed nor disagreed with this recommendation. Among agency commenters, DOD and Energy concurred with the report, and VA emphasized that OMB’s mandate was the catalyst for TBM progress and detailed internal benefits it is realizing from TBM tooling and data improvements.
Credit: This summary is based on GAO-25-106488, “Technology Business Management: Critical Go or No Go Action Required on Federal Agency Adoption of IT Spending Framework,” U.S. Government Accountability Office; lead contact Carol C. Harris, Director, Information Technology Acquisition Management Issues.
Disclaimer: This post summarizes a U.S. GAO report and is provided for informational purposes only. It does not constitute legal, financial, or policy advice, and while care was taken to reflect the source accurately, readers should consult the original GAO publication for complete context and details.