Evans: E-gov marches on

HERSHEY, Pa. — Federal management officials will focus on completing current e-gov initiatives and reducing redundant tech spending, the White House's e-government chief said.

"The [Bush] administration really does stand fully committed to the e-gov component of the president's management agenda," said Karen Evans, the Office of Management and Budget's new administrator of the Office of E-government and Information Technology. "We'll continue to make those progresses."

Evans, speaking this morning at the Industry Advisory Council's Executive Leadership Conference, said she expects agencies to press forward with the 24 e-government initiatives. "As we complete them, we will take them off the list, and they will move to the business lines," she said. "You'll hear the number declining, and that's a good thing."

Changes at OMB do not mean changes to the President's Management Agenda, she said.

"It just means there's another team in place and we're moving forward," Evans said. "The agenda is in place, and we're going to achieve the results laid out in the agenda."

She vowed to continue developing the federal enterprise architecture and implementing the E-Government Act of 2002. Her predecessor, Mark Forman, did "a tremendous amount of work" that she plans to continue with equal fervor, Evans said.

Referring to the management score card, Evans said she wants to see agencies move beyond a green score, which is given to agency projects that hit their goals in five areas: strategic workforce management; expanded use of e-government; increased competitive bidding of government services; improved financial performance; and linking performance to budget. Many agencies are working to improve from red or yellow scores, and they should continue to progress even after they hit green, Evans said.

"I'm just making the assumption that we'll be green," she said. "Green is what we should have been doing all along. It's the baseline."

Beyond green, she said, all agencies should have electronic dockets for rulemaking or using a fully integrated enterprise architecture, for example. "The sky's the limit," she said.

The key to meeting ambitious e-government goals is cooperation among agencies and OMB, Evans said. "It really truly is a partnership — leadership through partnership," she said.