CIO Council prepares for transition

After releasing its strategic plan, the federal CIO Council is gearing up

to present ideas to the incoming presidential administration on the benefits

of and barriers to information technology in government.

The council's strategic plan focuses on goals the group would like government

to achieve, such as joint roles for security and privacy and further development

of IT workforce issues.

Although the transition documents will incorporate these ideas, they

will deal more with the constraints that keep agencies from moving forward

with technology initiatives.

The review includes looking at which laws help or hamper the use of

new technology, said Jim Flyzik, vice chairman of the council and CIO at

the Treas-ury Department. It will also look at problems that may arise with

funding cross-government initiatives via a central IT innovation fund, he

said.

The Clinger-Cohen Act includes a provision for interagency funding of

proj-ects, but the provision has not been used by Congress or the Office

of Management and Budget, said Paul Brubaker, deputy CIO for the Defense

Department and co-chairman of the CIO Council's outreach committee. "My

hope is that we dust that off and use it," he said.

The council also plans to weigh in on the federal CIO debate, adding

its voice on whether a single person or office should be in charge of federal

IT policy. "We're not going to take a political position," Flyzik said.

"We're going to lay out the pros and cons and how the IT community sees

those issues."

A big part of developing the transition documents will be involving

all agencies and industry leaders to create true "IT community" documents,

he said.