The Office of Management and Budget announced Oct. 22 that the administration would be redesigning the leadership of the U.S. Digital Service to be limited two-year career positions with the new titles of director and deputy director.
Matt Cutts and Eddie Hartwig — who currently serve as acting administrator and deputy administrator, respectively — were chosen to take up the new director and deputy director posts.
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“They bring a wealth of experience and leadership to their positions and will play a critical role in the government’s mission of modernizing citizen services. Matt, Eddie and the USDS team provide technology leadership to transform services to American citizens, like improving access to veterans benefits online at vets.gov. They will add tremendous value as we execute the vision of the President’s Management Agenda,” said Deputy Director for Management Margaret Weichert.
But, according to Hartwig, the new titles don’t really change much about the roles he and Cutts perform; rather, they represent the decision to make the USDS leadership career positions rather than politically appointed.
“In our world, I’m still the deputy administrator and Matt is still the administrator, but it may be related to the fact that they converted the positions from political positions into career, limited-term career positions, which is something that we were really interested in doing to sort of preserve the nonpolitical nature of USDS,” Hartwig told Federal Times.
“This is about ensuring that the leadership of USDS is nonpolitical, focused on public outcomes, focused on users. And so I think that this is a great show of support, that they believe in the mission, that they believe in the impact we provide and that they believe in Matt and I and our team ... so that they believe in the people."
Most leadership roles at OMB follow the director and deputy director nomenclature and, according to Hartwig, the new titles are likely designed to bring USDS more in line with that style.
Cutts and Hartwig were also already under two-year term limitations prior to the change, as the hiring authority for USDS only allows for a two-year contract with a single option to extend for another two years.
“The term-limited position is something that we were on before, and it’s something that we wanted to stay on as we move forward," said Hartwig, who finished his first two-year term last month.
“We’re not hiring people into career roles, so at the moment the four-year mark is actually a hard stop.”
According to Hartwig, the change in title “makes the team happy” because it supports the overall mission of USDS, and day-to-day operations at the agency will go on without change.
By the people. For the people. @mattcutts pic.twitter.com/d5DCEL42Mr
— U.S. Digital Service (@USDS) October 23, 2018
USDS was founded in 2014 under the Obama administration to help agencies tackle digital problems with an out-of-government mindset, and has since been responsible for improvements to vets.gov, the Department of Defense’s bug bounty efforts and got its start fixing the healthcare.gov site when it faced technical challenges in 2013.
Jessie Bur covers federal IT and management.
