Veto shelves Archives' IT budget
NARA's modest request for information technology projects sailed through Congress, but it has been shelved temporarily by the president
Congress has agreed to the National Archives and Records Administration's
modest request for about $8 million to spend on information technology projects,
but President Clinton shelved the measure temporarily in year-end budget
squabbling with congressional Republicans.
The Archives' IT requests had moved smoothly through Congress. "We're
quite pleased with the bipartisan support," said John Constance, a NARA
legislative affairs specialist.
But the Halloween veto left archivists uncertain of their fiscal 2001
budget's fate.
Among the Archives' IT requests were:
* $1.3 million to continue work to improve its online information system.
Funding is to be used to improve delivery of Web content, including information
from NARA databases. It also will enable the electronic submission of government
documents to the Federal Register and the electronic submission of requests
from agencies and the public for NARA services.
* $4.5 million to upgrade NARA's telephone system and a wide-area network
that enables the agency to communicate via the Internet with other agencies
and the public.
* $1 million for veterans records preservation, including reformatting
some records.
* Nearly $1 million to hire records specialists to work on records storage
problems, including electronic records scheduling.
* $563,000 to continue multiyear development of an electronic records
archive intended to make possible long-term storage of electronic records
regardless of past and future formats.
NEXT STORY: Agencies get cyberattack guidance