USDA plans consolidation

Fiscal 2002 budget

The Bush administration's fiscal 2002 budget proposal says it is becoming too expensive to maintain the Agriculture Department's existing process of delivering benefits.

So the USDA is proposing to merge the information technology staffs of three of its bureaus—the Farm Service Agency, the Natural Resources Conservation Service and Rural Development—part an overall effort to create a common computing environment.

The effort comes after USDA attempted to create a support services bureau that would have combined the administration functions of the three agencies. Congress rejected that concept.

At the time, USDA said that the support services bureau would provide administrative support for IT, financial management, human resources, civil rights and management services to county-based offices. A chief information officer would have headed a common IT shop and a chief administrative officer would have led the administrative policy and support branch.

USDA spokesman Steve Dewhurst acknowledged that the effort is a scaled down version of that plan.

The 2002 budget request, released Monday, also seeks $59 million to complete the agency's Common Computing Environment project. The CCE plan would create an IT platform to support telecommunications, automation and administrative applications across the Farm Service Agency, the National Resources Conservation Service and Rural Development.

"The CCE will reduce the paperwork burden by allowing for electronic filing of information from farmers and other USDA customers," the budget says.

Under the Freedom to E-File Act, USDA must make forms accessible electronically by 2003.