Quick Hits

*** The Defense Department says it won't be able to cut its fourth estate expenses by 25%, according to a report released Oct. 4.

The 2019 National Defense Authorization Act requires DOD's chief management officer to find at least 25 percent cost savings across civilian management, logistics management, services contracting, and real estate management to Congress by Jan. 1, 2020. But in its justification report, the CMO wrote that it would only be able to hit 5 percent without creating undo inefficiencies.

The CMO office said such "dramatic" cost-savings were prohibitive due, in part, to "limited authorities to quickly achieve reductions" and that "many meaningful changes require a system, process, or policy change before the reduction can take effect."

*** The Transportation Security Agency announced plans to look to the cloud for new IT services as well as a strategy to move to software-as-a-service as much as possible and retire legacy applications. TSA's cloud strategy, finalized in April, was just posted on FedBizOpps to support industry engagement.