Data Breakfast: How the DATA Act is Modernizing Management

The DATA Act directed every federal agency to begin reporting spending information as standardized, open data. May 2018 marks the fourth anniversary of the DATA Act’s enactment–and the completion of the first full year of reporting. With a year’s worth of data, new management tools are now available to agencies and Congress.

The government is taking full advantage of this opportunity to modernize management. In March, the administration announced that it would build on the DATA Act’s standardized structure to support even broader transparency into finance and performance. On April 5th, the Treasury Department formally launched its redesign of USAspending.gov, the government-wide spending data portal, and the Data Lab, which highlights new tools to better understand federal spending.

On May 24th, our Data Breakfast, presented by CGI Federal, introduced federal financial professionals to the new management tools now available to understand spending through live demonstrations. The event was an opportunity for attendees to understand the DATA Act’s new opportunities for managers–and glimpse what’s coming in the future.