A supporting role

The Transportation Department's new CIO Council will play a critical role in helping the chief information officer review and approve major information technology projects in the department, said George Molaski, the CIO at DOT.

Molaski's office does not have the individual resources to review every IT program at the agency and "would not want to build the bureaucracy that would be necessary to do that," he said. Instead, Molaski said he expects the members of the DOT CIO Council to be able to certify to him that projects have been adequately reviewed.

The DOT CIO Council will be useful for tracking IT systems at the Federal Aviation Administration, which operates somewhat independently from the rest of the agency and can procure systems faster and without any oversight. The CIO's review authority may require some compromise on that issue, Molaski said.