The White House says it plans to leave federal IT operations in better shape than when the Bush administration found them, and it wants to do everything possible to ease the transition to George W. Bush‘s successor, its top IT manager said Thursday.
As the Bush administration heads into its final stretch, it is working to reduce the number of IT projects that it has identified as at risk of running into problems, and it said Thursday that it has succeeded (download PDF) in cutting its list of problem IT projects from 601 to 489 across federal agencies. The remaining projects represent $15 billion in spending in next year’s federal budget.
The government has set a projected IT budget of about $71 billion for the 2009 fiscal year, which begins Oct. 1.
Karen Evans, the administrator of the Office of Electronic Government and Information Technology at the Office of Management and Budget, said Thursday that her goal is to leave documents that tell her successor exactly how federal IT programs are being managed by detailing investments and areas of concerns.
The next administration will have enough information “to continue that momentum going forward” with its own priorities, said Evans in a phone briefing with reporters.
Federal agencies are managed by their own CIOs and have some autonomy. But the White House has a big stick — namely, the budget — and it sets performance standards across the federal government. IT projects that end up on the high-risk list could be running over budget, are off schedule, may be duplicating other investments or may not be well-managed. The Bush administration’s IT priorities have included consolidation of business and data services such as payroll processing; improved data integration; expanded online services; and broader adoption of standards across all agencies.
When federal IT projects run aground, or security breaches occur, they can generate considerable fallout. The U.S. Census Bureau‘s plan to turn to automation to conduct the 2010 census is a recent example. Census officials have told Congress that their ambitious plans have fallen short, and they will again rely heavily on paper. This shift is adding as much as $3 billion to the $12.5 billion budget for the project.
