Finalists getting look for OMB post

Office of Management and Budget

The Bush administration is within weeks of naming a deputy director of management for the Office of Management and Budget, the OMB director said Friday.

"I have specific requirements and expectations for that individual, and I will take the time necessary to find the right person," OMB director Mitchell Daniels Jr. said. "I want someone with broad management experience in running an organization, someone who can deliver the president's management agenda."

Daniels said that a few finalists were under consideration and that he wants "somebody that makes people sit up and take notice."

This position is the nation's chief financial officer, chief information officer and chief operating officer to some degree, he said.

"Six different people in the last eight years have had this job," he said. "I'm afraid that's a recognition that it was not elevated to the extent it could have been."

While many of the other senior OMB posts have been filled, the lack of a deputy director of management has left some agency officials concerned. The deputy director of management sits as the head of the CIO Council, the Chief Financial Officers Council and the President's Management Council.

Dorobek is a freelance writer based in Arlington, Va.