Tuesday, April 23, 2024
Tuesday, April 23, 2024
The House Appropriations Committee has denied a Pentagon request to shift $4.8 million to establish a cyber-specific workforce.
In a May 21 reprogramming request, then-acting Defense Department Comptroller Elaine McCusker had sought congressional permission to add $4.8 million "for the development and implementation of Cyber Excepted Service (CES) workforce programs and policies in order to ensure requirements are filled by an optimal mix of military service members, civilian employees and contract support."
The money would have provided for "the development of a new CES Strategy, [extended] current support personnel and [added] additional contract support personnel to increase the development of position classifications and training in order to assist Department of Defense Component efforts to expand the implementation of CES."
The $4.8 million was part of a larger $124.3 million cybersecurity request that included $117 million for the Navy's and Marine Corps' "Comply-to-Connect (C2C) Pathfinder," which lawmakers approved.
Any one of the four congressional defense committees can deny a reprogramming request. The comptroller's office this week released an updated version of the request that showed the congressionally approved and denied portions.
Lawmakers also approved the shifting of nearly $43.7 million to the Defense Information Systems Agency, $22.7 million of which would go to DISA's Information Systems Security Program, $1.75 million to the Net-Centric Enterprise Services (NCES) effort, $12.5 million to the Joint Tactical Information Distribution System (JTIDS) and $6.7 million to the National Security Agency's Information Systems Security Program.
Lawmakers also OK'd the shifting of $13 million to DISA for "administration and servicewide activities," including $12.5 million "for engineering support, architecture development and reporting of individual system compliance across non-classified and classified programs.
"This will enable an enterprise-level Automated Continuous Endpoint Management (ACEM) capability across the Department of Defense," the reprogramming request reads. "ACEM identifies each device on the network, thereby enabling the monitoring and management of those endpoint devices. Identification, monitoring and management of endpoint devices are critical steps to reducing cybersecurity risk to the network."