OMB releases 22 e-gov initiatives

The Office of Management and Budget today released its e-government plan for funding 22 initiatives to unify and simplify federal systems in the next 18 to 24 months.The President’s Management Council approved 23 projects earlier this month, but OMB director Mitchell E. Daniels Jr. ultimately approved 22.“Some of them unify redundant approaches, and some of them simplify the way we serve customers,” said Mark Forman, associate OMB director for IT and e-government. They fall into four categories: government to citizen, government to government, government to business, and internal effectiveness and efficiency. Some focus on computer security, disaster response and intergovernmental communications for public safety. The initial 300 projects were selected this summer by the Quicksilver team, a group of 70 leaders from 30 agencies appointed by the E-government Task Force, or Interagency Task Force as it is also called.The task force, led by Forman, began searching for e-gov projects Aug. 9. By Sept. 5, there were 300 candidates. The Quicksilver team, the task force, the President’s Management Council and Daniels culled that number to the final 22.Projects in the category of government to citizen include the General Services Administration’s USA Service, Treasury Department’s EZ Tax Filing, Education Department’s Online Access for Loans, Interior Department’s Recreation One Stop and Labor Department’s Eligibility Assistance Online.In the category of government to government are the Social Security Administration’s e-Vital, Health and Human Services’ e-Grants, the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s Disaster Assistance and Crisis Response, Interior’s Geospatial Information One Stop and the Justice Department’s Wireless Networks.In the category of government to business are GSA’s Federal Asset Sales, the Transportation Department’s Online Rule-making Management, Treasury’s Simplified and Unified Tax and Wage Reporting, HHS’ Consolidated Health Informatics, the Small Business Administration’s Business Compliance One Stop and the Commerce Department’s International Trade Process Streaming.Chosen for internal effectiveness and efficiency are the Office of Personnel Management’s e-Training, Recruitment One Stop and Enterprise Human Resource Integration including e-travel; GSA’s Integrated Acquisition; and the National Archives and Records Administration’s e-records management.