Federal CIO: Budget request includes funds for IT oversight

A significant portion of the $50 million slated for coordinating e-government in the Obama administration's 2011 budget would go toward better oversight of information technology investments, the federal chief information officer said in a Tuesday interview with Nextgov.

The money would support a recently launched project evaluation system, called TechStat, which cancels, halts or overhauls underperforming IT projects.

"TechStat allows us to convene the CIO and business leaders in a particular agency and look at projects that are behind schedule and over budget and focus on problem solving," CIO Vivek Kundra told reporters during a conference call about the proposed $79 billion federal IT budget.

The administration would use the 2011 TechStat allocation to increase the number of projects evaluated and the frequency of reviews. "This is going to happen with not just me alone, I'm making sure that CIOs across the government" are conducting meetings, Kundra added. The Veterans Affairs Department last summer voluntarily suspended 45 IT projects, after performing its own periodic progress assessments. Nearly 15 projects have been terminated so far as a result of VA's auditing process.

Currently, Kundra averages about four review sessions a week. Memos from the meetings will be published online so citizens can monitor turnaround plans, he said.

During the conference call, Kundra said the $79 billion budget would focus on ensuring strong supervision of IT investments governmentwide, using technology to save money, bolstering cybersecurity and supporting open government initiatives.

The budget request includes $152 million to automate processing of VA benefits and claims and $185 million to upgrade the Internal Revenue Service's IT environment so taxpayers can access their own data easily. Kundra noted that TurboTax filing preparation software allows consumers to view their tax histories online, but they cannot go back even three years on the official IRS Web site. About $70 million slated for the National Institute of Standards and Technology would spur innovation indirectly by establishing standards for cloud computing, or on-demand, remote access to IT resources, and other tech novelties.