TMF Tightens Scrutiny as Agencies Prove Modernization ROI

Agencies shouldn’t replace legacy systems or adopt new tools unless they can prove the technology reduces costs, streamlines workflows, improves citizen services or supports the workforce, according to General Services Administration’s Technology Modernization Fund (TMF) Executive Director Jessie Posilkin.

“Projects that describe a technology without any sort of outcome associated with it are frankly not worth the time,” Posilkin said.

Posilkin said TMF increasingly sees proposals that focus on IT or operational technology tools rather than outcomes, which she said could imply that agencies may not be ready to deliver mission impact or justify spending.

She added that TMF’s newest calls for proposals, including permitting and AI modernization, require agencies to articulate measurable improvements such as reduced adjudication timelines, improved staff workload, or faster end‑to‑end processing.

“We often see projects that have not built a baseline, that haven’t thought about what’s the real thing that’s going to be better as a result,” Posilkin said.

That gap directly affects cost efficiency: without baselines, agencies cannot quantify savings, cost avoidance or operational improvements, she added.

The Evidence TMF Trusts

Metrics that define success in TMF projects are more than just dashboards and reports that look impressive but fail to demonstrate real progress, Posilkin said. She added that TMF does not rely on those outputs, but that the board evaluates short delivery sprints, monthly reporting and quarterly demos that show real users interacting with real features in production.

“Agencies are actually reporting to us on a monthly basis, which is far more than you’ll ever report to Congress. They’re reporting to the board on a quarterly basis, and we’re looking for what value has been delivered in that time. What features are actually being used? What what time end-to-end time savings have you found?” she said.

She pointed to NOAA’s beta.weather.gov modernization as an example of meaningful evidence. The team, she said, demonstrated how API response times dropped from three or four seconds to under one second — a measurable improvement with direct user impact.

At the Department of Veterans Affairs, a forms‑digitization project shifted its technical approach midstream to incorporate AI coding tools, accelerating development and enabling pre‑population of form logic. TMF evaluated the project based on speed gains, user testing and production‑ready functionality — not on the novelty of the technology.

Cost Efficiency Requires Confronting Workflows

Posilkin said that fragmented data and siloed workflows are a major cost driver, as duplicative work can be streamlined to save money. Posilkin noted one unnamed agency where staff had to touch 15 systems to complete a single task — a burden that translates directly into time costs, training costs and operational inefficiency.

“Quantifying how many systems you are touching … that layer has to be hidden from the user because that is an untenable work environment,” Posilkin said.

Posilkin said that smaller budgets do make for difficult conversations for modernization projects. With budget cycles longer term than TMF funding and the TMF  authorization expiring on Sept. 30, she said TMF is looking at measurable outcomes in tighter cycles.

“We’re looking for short delivery sprints that agencies are actually reporting to us on a monthly basis, which is far more than you’ll ever report to Congress,” Posilkin added.

She said that it’s a fallacy back on the idea that agencies can simply spend more now to save more later, as is often cited in budget request.

“No matter how much savings you can suggest you might get later, no one is interested in spending money on that,” she said.

She said that that’s what makes TMF’s incremental funding model even more important. Agencies must show value early and often, not promise it years down the road.

A More Technically Capable TMF

Posilkin said that TMF has significantly expanded its internal technical expertise, allowing it to better evaluate risk, validate technical claims and collaborate with agencies.

“We have worked really hard to continue to build the technical capacity of the TMF team, so that we can be equal partners with our agency partners,” Posilkin said.

That capability, she added, strengthens TMF’s oversight role and ensures taxpayer dollars deliver measurable modernization outcomes — not just new systems.

“Just because you’ve deprecated a legacy system, if you have moved onto a new system that is equally mediocre, I don’t think anyone in the public has won,” Posilkin said.