GSA Blog

TTS made a lasting impact with civic tech in FY24

As FAS deputy commissioner and director of GSA’s Technology Transformation Services, I know how important it is to deliver simple, secure, and accessible digital services that improve customer experiences for agencies. Millions of Americans depend on these technologies to access basic government services like health insurance, social security and food assistance; obtain benefits; participate in elections; and do business with the government.

Since TTS’ creation in 2016, we’ve played a key role in modernizing government technology. Our employees chose civic tech for a reason: They come to work every day knowing that by improving the federal government’s digital presence, their work contributes to the public good.

TTS’ Focus

TTS currently administers nearly 30 products, platforms and programs, including shared services like Login.gov and the U.S. Web Design System, innovative crowdsourcing platforms like Challenge.gov, and fellowship programs like the U.S. Digital Corps and Presidential Innovation Fellows. These offerings directly impact how the public interacts with the federal government and the federal government’s ability to provide the American people with the benefits and services they need and deserve.

As we move into the new fiscal year, our teams are looking back at a year where we focused on service delivery, empowering agencies, directly improving government experiences, listening to our users and solving problems — all to make things work better for the people we serve.

Modeling good tech

In FY24, we continued our efforts to build powerful platforms, products and services that show the rest of government what good tech can look like:

• We scaled our services to meet the challenges of increased user traffic, ecosystem growth, stakeholder complexity, new agency needs, and government-wide priorities.
• We doubled down on our efforts to make sure that our products work for all Americans, since government works best when it works for everyone.
• We supported teams here in GSA and at agencies across the federal government as thought leaders on emerging technologies.

Top 10 shortlist

TTS accomplished a lot this year. A top 10 list can’t highlight all the important work we do, but it can show you just how much progress we’re making to move government technology forward.

1. Login.gov 2024 successes: the pilot of an enhanced identity verification service, expanded in-person identity verification options through a partnership with the U.S. Postal Service, and updated its pricing model to help agencies of all sizes more affordably use and expand its use. 
   With over 72 million active users in FY24, Login.gov added 167 new partner applications, including Department of Interior’s Volunteer.gov and Department of State’s online passport renewal. Major existing partners like the Social Security Administration and Department of Veterans Affairs announced expansions of their use of Login.gov. State and local government adoption increased as well. Login.gov rolled out a fourth language, Chinese (Simplified) - joining English, Spanish and French.
2. GSA’s digital consulting office 18F celebrated its 10th anniversary with helping six government agencies launch new software products. This included the IRS Direct File Pilot, launched in 12 states in partnership with the Internal Revenue Service and U.S. Digital Service, and the American Climate Corps website. The ACC website acts as a central resource for the public to find clean energy, conservation, and climate-resilience jobs; IT now lists nearly 2,000 positions across 36 states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico. The team also released the De-Risking Government Technology Guide 2.0, to help government technology projects avoid common implementation challenges.
3. The Benefits Studio launched Notify.gov, a new text messaging service that enables government agencies to send customized, bulk text messages to the public. So far, state, local and federal pilot partners have sent over 60,000 messages.
4. FedRAMP released a 2024-25 strategic roadmap, launched two pilot programs and redesigned the FedRAMP Marketplace.
5. USA.gov and USAGov en Español launched a new benefits experience on both sites as required by Executive Order 14058. The new experience includes landing pages for benefits information in English and Spanish, benefit-finder interactive tools, and category-based navigation that organizes benefits information by type. So far, USA.gov and USAGov en Español have had over 91 million visits. These sites help users locate and understand government benefits, programs and information. USAGov en Español also marked a major milestone, celebrating 20 years as the first official guide to government information in Spanish.
6. Vote.gov, a trusted source for accurate, official voting information from the U.S. government, redesigned its website. The new website includes expanded content and improved accessibility features, and is now available in 19 languages, making it accessible to 96% of the American public. In the past year, Vote.gov had 6.2 million total visitors.
   Vote.gov also released the accessible form filler tool in English and Spanish in partnership with the Election Assistance Commission to help people more easily fill out the National Mail Voter Registration Form.
7. GSA launched and completed its Equity Study on Remote Identity Proofing. The study achieved its goal of recruiting 4,000 participants from demographically diverse communities. Results will be released later in FY25.
8. With the help of American Rescue Plan funding, the 15-year-old Federal Audit Clearinghouse, an important oversight tool for $1.4 trillion in federal grants distributed to nonprofits and states, local and tribal governments, was moved from its legacy home in Census to GSA.
9. The U.S. Digital Corps and Presidential Innovation Fellows hired over 100 fellows to support more than 25 federal agencies. Of these, 72 of those were hired to support  the AI Talent Surge, exceeding the hiring commitments (60 fellows) we pledged to the White House. Both these programs continue to be ideal pathways for technologists to bring their tech skills to public service, supporting government agencies across the federal government. 
   USDC graduated its inaugural cohort of fellows, with a two-year retention rate of 97% in federal service, and with 95% of graduates are staying on in career civil service positions across 15 different agencies.
10. Digital.gov published 111 new topic pages, resources, policy pages and blogs. The content drew more than 107,000 pageviews per month on average, an increase of 24% since FY23.

TTS is working to grow its own ranks alongside the growing government demand for technology support. This year, we increased the TTS staff by 24%, onboarding almost 150 full-time employees, which brings our numbers to nearly 700. This added support will help us to meet our FY25 strategic goals to focus on product and service delivery, management and government, financial sustainability, and organizational health and culture.

You can learn more about TTS, the work we do, and how to get involved, on our new website, which we just launched in September.