Budget request addresses some open government costs

Federal CTO Chopra (left) and CIO Kundra promote pool to fund integration and improve outcomes. James Kegley

Achieving the Obama administration's vision of government transparency will not be cheap. But the White House has anticipated some of the costs in its fiscal 2011 budget.

The agenda, driven by a December 2009 open government directive , demands that agencies rapidly release downloadable statistics, award prizes to Americans for innovative solutions to government problems and reduce backlogs of requests for public information under the Freedom of Information Act.

The $79 billion fiscal 2011 budget request for information technology proposes launching so-called dashboards, or Web sites that track progress of certain activities. The sites are aimed at increasing transparency in "every operation of government," federal Chief Information Officer Vivek Kundra said on Tuesday during a conference call with reporters. New dashboards scheduled for fiscal 2011 will monitor human resources and procurement practices, for example.

The IT budget documents do not specify line-item funding levels for such initiatives and some allocations have not been finalized. But the 2011 request creates a $50 million account for the "integrated, efficient and effective uses" of IT, which would include architectural assistance to make agency IT systems across government talk to each other. And the proposal would add $3 million to a $17 million pool of money for "governmentwide innovations, initiatives and activities" on the condition that the increase fund test projects requiring collaboration among multiple agencies that are aimed at improving specific outcomes.

To collaborate better with the private sector, the budget proposes sites that challenge companies and individuals to post solutions to government predicaments. Also, an existing cloud computing store for agencies, Apps.gov , in fiscal 2011 will offer citizens applications for navigating the often bureaucratic federal procedures for obtaining services. The budget promotes a shift to cloud computing, or renting Web-based IT services and hardware, in part to make it easier for agencies to use collaboration software.

Not all requirements of the open government directive are expensive. For many agencies, uploading information to the government's central clearinghouse of statistics, Data.gov , simply means transmitting information they already have on some corner of their sites to the Office of Management and Budget, according to government transparency activists.

In addition, federal Chief Technology Officer Aneesh Chopra, who was instrumental in drafting the open government directive, has said repeatedly that innovations stemming from public and private collaboration will make the government run more efficiently and therefore save money. Furthermore, if disclosure becomes the default in agencies, that would cut administrative costs associated with processing FOIA requests. The White House also could save money with budget plans to adapt a recently purchased platform for tracking stimulus spending, called FederalReporting.gov, to USASpending.gov , which is supposed to provide a comprehensive accounting of federal awards but has been criticized for lacking information.

On Monday, the White House Web site noted that most agencies are using a free application from the General Services Administration to collect public input on mandated open government plans. The plans are intended to incorporate the tenets of transparency, collaboration and public participation into daily operations.

Some open government advocates liken the price of implementing the directive to the upfront cost of complying with any federal regulation -- from environmental laws to financial management rules. The investment is expected to pay off in the net benefit of a more efficient government, they say.