this week on "government matters." a lot of agencies are trying to get out of managing their own data centers. they're giving them off to the ibm's, the amazons, the microsofts. the president makes federal i.t. a top priority. i think modernization is really a matter of safeguarding the systems and it's really freaking out the federal government to be honest. to minimize that fear, the budget spends more on cyber security, research and development and personnel. it would also give federal workers their biggest raise in years. congress doesn't really have to approve a raise. all they have to do is not block the raise that president obama has proposed. this week, a deep dive into the budget proposal. "government matters" starts right now. from abc 7 and

newschannel8, this is "government matters." to our viewers around the world and here in our nation's capital, thank you for joining us. government is the engine that runs this city, that's why "government matters." every week, we bring you the top headlines in tech, security and management. morris is off this week. i'm your host mike carter-conneen. president obama has unveiled a record $4.1 trillion election year budget. it finances democratic priorities like education, healthcare and climate change. financed by new taxes on oil, the wealthy and big banks. diane cho kicks off our in-depth coverage of the budget proposal. >> reporter: on the day of the new hampshire primary, the administration released the president's proposed fiscal year 2017 budget. obviously, february in general is crowded this year. and so i'm not sure, given both the february statutory release date and frankly the fact that congress was so lat

that we were gonna be able to find a day that was sort of free from other distractions. >> reporter: according to sean donovan, the budget adheres to the bipartisan agreement signed into law last fall. as you may recall, that fully paid for agreement allowed us to avoid harmful sequestration cuts the second time that congress came together on a bipartisan basis to avoid sequestration and provided dollar for dollar funding increases for both defense and non-defense priorities for 2016 and 2017. >> reporter: but republicans have already blasted the proposal. house speaker paul ryan released a statement saying, "this isn't even a budget so much as it has a progressive manual for growing the federal government at the expense of hard working americans. we need to tackle our fiscal problems before they tackle us." he highlighted the proposed

tax on american oil. the white house says the money would help pay for investments in expanding transit and rail and in clean transportation. we anticipate that oil companies will pass some of that on to the consumers of various oil products. and that's important here in that this is not just about automobiles. it's about airplanes and rail and other forms of transit that consume oil. and oil, as i said earlier, is responsible for about 30% of carbon pollutions. >> reporter: the $4.1 trillion budget also increases spending on cyber security by more than 35% from 2016 to more than $19 billion. it would create a new federal chief information security officer and retire federal legacy i.t. systems that can't be secured. but even before the budget was released, the republican chairman of both the house and senate budget committees issued a statement saying that they won't even hold a hearing to review

the senate budget chairman says, "it appears the president's final budget will continue to focus on new spending proposals instead of confronting our government's massive overspending and debt." i think republicans cancelling the hearing is a clear indication that republicans don't want to talk about the budget. maybe we'll get them to change their mind. >> reporter: for "government matters," i'm diane cho. the president's budget proposal for 2017 would dramatically reshape the federal i.t. landscape. it would invest more in cyber security, research and development as well as personnel. and it would replace legacy i.t. we have a lot of ground to cover. for analysis, i'm joined now by molly walker, executive editor for fierce markets. and greg otto, technology editor for fed scoop. thank you both for being here. molly, let's start with a little bit of the state of the state for federal i.t. legacy systems, as they're often called, are a huge drain

on outdated i.t.? and how would this proposal by the president tilt the scale? by some estimates the government spends about $60 billion annually on legacy i.t. legacy i.t. still looms pretty large in this budget request. the president is asking for $52 billion in civilian i.t. 70% of that is still gonna go toward legacy. but the big differentiator in this budget is it sets up an i.t. modernization fund to be run by the general services administration. and that would kind of give agencies an avenue to get out of this legacy spending rut. the president also wants to spend more on federal i.t. his proposal calls for nearly $90 billion. a 1.3% increase over his 2016 request. how would that be spent? i think that you're going to see it spent in a lot of different ways, like molly was

chunk of it go into the legacy i.t. you'll also see an increase in what the government calls provision services which is more cloud based applications. and you're going to see the cloud become a part of the application layer and also part of the infrastructure layer. a lot of agencies have been trying to get out of managing their own data centers. they're giving them off to the ibm's, the amazons, the microsofts of the world. the general services administration plays a central role in this discussion. it's the agency purchasing a lot of this technology. molly, gsa opened the doors of its acquisition gateway to the public this week. do you think the timing was simply a coincidence? i think it was, actually a little bit of a coincidence in this situation. you know, they mentioned the acquisition gateway a little bit in their budget

the budget. but actually, the doors have been open for the acquisition community for the contracting officers since october. october 1st, about 5,000 contracting officers across government got to start using it. so this was just the ability for the public to kind of get a glimpse into what the platform does. what about you, greg? what did you make of that timing? i don't think it's as much of a coincidence. i think that there have been plans to reform the way the government acquires federal i.t. and these discussionhave been going on for some time. so, i really think that the gsa, everybody is really on the same page about trying to get agencies to buy into more modern technology. amidst all the budget hoopla, president obama rolled out a pair of executive orders. let's start with the commission on enhancing national cyber security. greg, what's this all about? yeah, so this executive order, the

to have 12 experts form a panel. this panel is going to look at new and novel ways they can enhance cyber security in both the public sector and the private sector. so not only are you going to see a government i.t. angle, you're going to see some work being done that is going to go into public advocacy campaigns that the general public is going to be a part of. this commission is going to work throughout the year. they do not have -- the deadline that they have to work with is they will give a report to the president on december 1st. and then that report will go public 45 days afterwards. which is interesting because if that report goes public 45 days after december 1st, you're talking around the time that there is an inauguration next year. so, it's really interesting to see how that report will factor into what a new administration

the second executive order establishes a federal privacy council. what do we know about this, molly? well, both of these executive orders came out as part of the cyber security national action plan, which the administration dropped at the same time as their budget more or less. it was kind of a slew of executive orders, plans, budget. and it kind of makes sense that privacy would go hand in hand with the security efforts. you know, the federal government collects a trove of personally identifiable and sensitive information. not only about the public, but about their workers. so, what this executive order would do is it would establish a senior administration official for privacy at each agency. and then some agencies and departments already have a chief privacy officer. in that case, it would kind of change the requirements of the position. and then these officials would basically form the council that would work together to

recommendations for government wide privacy policies. they'd push this up and they would potentially turn that into government wide policy. >> morris: interesting. molly, greg, stick around. we'll discuss cyber funding and the creation of a federal chief information security officer

>> mike: i'm back with molly walker, executive editor for fierce markets and greg otto, technology editor for fed scoop. let's talk cyber. president obama's national action plan to bolster cyber security calls for a new position. in fact, it's already been posted online. greg, tell us about the federal chief information security officer. what do we know about this job and what it entails. so, the federal chief information security officer is going to be a new role that is going to

government in the next 60-90 days. in this role, this person isn't going to be the end all be all in the same way that tony scott sort of works for omb and manages and sends out directives on the way the government uses i.t. it's going to be a very collaborative role. they're going to work with dod, nsa, opm about setting new standards within cyber security and really making recommendations and setting forth best practices for how the federal government will use cyber security going forward. they will also sit on an information security sub committee on the cio council. they'll be working with agency heads nonstop. and they'll also be working on a task force that looks to bring more cyber security experts into the fold in federal

the federal government is having a tough time getting people to work in cyber security at various agencies. so they're going to work on an initiative that will bring in young, fresh thinking to modernize cyber security. >> mike: the budget proposal also calls for $19 billion in cyber spending. that would help dhs maintain einstein and pay for the continuing diagnostics and monitoring programs. that is a good chunk of change, molly. do these i.t. initiatives have bipartisan support from congress? i would say the cyber security initiatives under dhs do have bipartisan support across the aisle. i would say, however, with increased funding usually comes increased scrutiny. there was a pretty damning government accountability office report about einstein and saying that some of its capabilities were seriously lacking. and that came out about two weeks ago. so,

what the repercussions are of that and how that may effect congressional support. >> mike: with congress already considering an update to the cyber security information sharing act, what's the latest there, greg? how does that fit into this budget? well, i think what you're going to see in relation to the budget debate is i don't know if there's necessarily going to be updates, but you're going to see that plan sort of take action. i was at a ribbon cutting for the national cyber security center of excellence earlier this week. there was an interesting panel that was held there. the secretary of commerce talked with michael brown and the president of rsa. and the two private sector ceo's and presidents were talking about how the way that it's set up now, you have to share information on cyber threats

he was pretty active in saying that he would rather have the private sector work with the department of commerce instead of working with the department of homeland security on sharing these threats between business to business. he thought that the dhs part worked more with the intelligence community. and that's not something he was very comfortable with. he would rather have businesses work with the department of commerce. because there is this bottom line part of information sharing and cyber security that goes into protecting businesses. and the businesses would like to talk to the federal agency that's responsible for businesses instead of having to deal with intelligence community. >> mike: the past two years have arguably been the most revolutionary for federal i.t. in decades. and the budget really drives that home. it calls for more spending. it looks to expand u.s. digital services to 25 federal agencies. i'm wondering what you both take away from this effort to expand, to invest more.

well, i would say what the usds has done, i think one of the lasting things the obama tech angle has is the fact that obama reached out over these past two years to silicon valley and went look, we need help. please come out to dc and help us figure out our i.t. problems. now within the budget you're going to see the usds. you'll see agencies adopt that model. there was some lines in the proposed budget that the usds is going to have hubs at 25 agencies across the government. so if the president can have the usds stood up in two years, you're going to see movement from silicon valley to come into government and really fix problems within these agencies and really get a modernized i.t. structure throughout the government. >> mike: molly, i'll give you the final word. any final thoughts? just to build onha

said, the push towards modernization is evident in the increased in investment and i.t. i differ from greg's point of view in i think that it's maybe driven more from a risk management perspective after the opm breach and all the cyber security issues that have come to light than an innovation one. although i think the federal government would love to engage silicon valley, i don't know if that's really the big push. i think the modernization is really a matter of safeguarding the systems that's really freaking out the federal government to be honest. >> mike: freaking them out. all right, molly walker with fierce markets and greg otto wi with fed school. thank you to you both. thank you. >> mike: we'll turn from security to management straight ahead on "government matters". first a three year pay freeze and raises at about 1%. what's the

>> mike: the budget also includes some measure of relief for federal workers. it includes a 1.6% pay raise and a call for six weeks of paid parental leave. for details, i'm joined now by the senior reporter for bloomberg dna. thanks for being here, louis. let's start with a history lesson here. federal worker wages have been pretty flat over the past several years. and 1.6% is, i guess, better than nothing. yeah, it's a little better than nothing. in fact, it's a little bit better than in recent years. last year, federal workers got a 1.3% average pay increase. the previous two years before that they got 1%. and before that they faced a three year pay freeze. so 1.6% is a lot better. >> mike: earlier i mentioned that the budget calls for a raise for them. some unions want more than 5%. where does congress fall in all of this? are lawmakers in this congress likely to approve any raise at

[000:21:58;00] really have to approve a raise. all they have to do is not block the raise that president obama has proposed. so, that's really what's happened in the last three years is that they haven't said we approve this, but they haven't done anything to block the raise. that's kind of the important issue. >> mike: let's talk about this issue of paid parental leave. if federal workers have a child and they want to spend time away from work, what are their options? well, they can take -- there's 12 weeks of unpaid leave that's available for all americans under the family and medical leave act. they can also use sick leave and annual leave. and they can, under president obama recently took some executive action. and under that, they can take six weeks of advance sick leave. that's an option, too. >> mike: how would this proposal change all that? well, the president's proposal would give federal workers six weeks of paid leave.

that would be a lot more straightforward. >> mike: you're also following rumblings of civil service reform and union bargaining over phased in retirement. what's likely to get accomplished during president obama's final year in office? well, in terms of civil service reform, probably not that much. members of congress are going to be running for re-election and they're gonna be kind of preoccupied and probably spend less time in dc than usual. however, i think that president obama might do some more housekeeping things. such as recently, he signed an executive order that gave federal agencies more latitude to pay senior executives more. also called on federal agencies to increase rotations for federal senior executives. >> mike: do you see any more of these final year accomplishments? are they all going to be executive actions? or is there any common ground with lawmakers on the hill on dealing with some of these issues. right. well, i guess there are some areas of common ground.

one thing that may have a chance is a senator chester called the paid administrative leave act. or just the administrative leave act, sorry. it would change the rules for administrative leave and make it harder for federal agencies to use. it would put restrictions on the use of it. >> mike: you'll have to keep us posted. thanks so much for your time. thank you. >> mike: we'll turn from

management to final >> mike: the president's budget also includes funding to fight the zika virus. right now, there are more than 50 cases in the united states and more are expected. but health officials consider a massive u.s. outbreak unlikely.

>> reporter: there are growing concerns as the zika epidemic continues to spread around the [000:26:59;00] this is a really unprecedented phenomenon with each passing day, the evidence that zika is causely related to micro cephaly gets stronger. congress is considering president obama's request for emergency funds to fight the disease. we think that will cover for the next 1-2 years. but there's a lot that we don't know. >> reporter: saying they are most concerned about the residents in more tropical parts of the u.s. like puerto rico and the u.s. virgin islan islands. we may well see tens or hundreds of thousands of zika infections in puerto rico. >> reporter: the directors said researchers are already working on a vaccine. we will likely go into phase one clinical trial with this vaccine some time in late

summer. and i hope after several months we'll know if it's safe. >> mike: and that was steve nans washington. thank you for watching. i'm mike carter-conneen.

we know your week is filled with other matters, save this half hour for us. real-time closed captioning provided by u.s. captioning company [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] ♪ sharyl: hello, i'm sharyl attkisson. welcome to "full measure." this week, the french national assembly votes on extending a state of emergency in effect november's islamic extremist attacks. security is still high in paris with armed gunmen on the streets