How major IT projects made out, by agency

USDA would get $46 million for increased testing and surveillance and development of an animal identification system to protect the food supply from mad cow disease. The system will include radio frequency ID tags for animals and databases for animal and facilities identification.Service Center Modernization, an effort to update infrastructure and consolidate field offices of the Farm Service Agency, Rural Development and the Natural Resources Conservation Service—including adding a geographic application for natural resources mapping—would receive $136.7 million.The Patent and Trademark Office would receive $1.5 billion in 2005, including funds for improvements in patent processing systems. The administration proposes increasing patent fees to generate $219 million to speed technology development and reduce the patent backlog.The Networking and Information Technology Research and Development Initiative of the National Institute of Standards and Technology would receive $33 million. The budget also proposes a $180 million increase in funding for the Census Bureau to prepare for the 2010 census.The budget proposes $190.5 million for Common Servicing for Borrowers, an effort to consolidate several systems related to student aid loans into one.The Central Processing System for applications from students seeking federal financial aid using the Free Application for Federal Student Aid form would receive $44.6 million. The Advanced Scientific Computing Research Project is set to receive $204 million, up from $202 million in 2004. The budget includes an increase for the Energy Information Administration from $78 million to $84 million. Much of that money would be used to build and maintain systems for processing energy consumption and production data. Several major EPA programs face reductions for 2005, but the administration seeks to maintain key environmental IT projects.The administration proposes a $606 million reduction overall, but the budget calls for $25 million for funding state and tribal IT systems that link to EPA systems. It also pledges continued development of the National Environmental Information Exchange Network portal and the Toxic Release Inventory’s network, two programs designed to receive digital environmental reports from EPA stakeholders. The budget requests $17.8 million—down from $28.4 million this year—for GSA Preferred, the Federal Technology Service’s new commercial procurement system. FTS commissioner Sandra Bates said FTS will start implementing the system by the spring.The agency asked for $16.7 million for the enterprise customer information management system for FTS. The project would provide the infrastructure to support working groups across regions and program offices to improve customer service, acquisition time and collaboration.The Public Buildings Service requested $12.8 million—up from $5.3 million this year—for its System for Tracking and Administering Real Property. Employees use STAR to input and update data to better manage space and customer billings. HHS’ budget would include $50 million to support state and regional grants to test data exchange among health care and other projects. The projects will help accelerate public-private efforts to adopt health data standards set under the Consolidated Health Informatics initiative.The budget would allot $140 million for biosurveillance through the Public Health Information Network of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. PHIN would monitor public health, collecting information on outbreaks, such as flu or SARS. HHS funds grants up to $170 million for state and local governments to participate in PHIN. The Tenant Rental Assistance Certification System, a repository of tenant data for multifamily housing that also processes 250,000 Section 8 subsidy payments annually, would receive $6 million.The Federal Housing Administration would get $8.6 million for the FHA Subsidiary Ledger to comply with reporting requirements. The department’s Office of Historical Accounting would receive $109 million to backtrack through hundreds of thousands of American Indian trust accounts and provide beneficiaries with authentic account statements. The Geological Survey would work with the Federal Geographic Data Committee and the Geospatial One-stop Initiative in a $7 million program to create agreements with states for high-resolution imagery. The Justice Department would receive $55 million in new FBI funds to fight cybercrime. The budget also calls for $29 million for the FBI to operate the Terrorist Screening Center, the watch-list merger entity that currently operates with funds from several agencies.The department plans to continue to integrate the Automated Biometric Identification System with the Integrated Automated Fingerprint Identification System gradually before fielding a fully integrated IDENT/IAFIS. The budget proposes $80.5 million for office automation across the department and $56.3 million for the Terrorist Threat Information Center, which oversees counter-terrorism response. Overall IT spending would fall from $48 million to $34 million. But the Employment Standards Administration would be authorized to collect $39.7 million from the Postal Service and other agencies to pay for IT services it provides to administer benefits for those agencies. A separate account would provide $1.25 million for a new database of labor-management information for the Employment Standards Administration.  The space agency is reorganizing its space flight program around three projects: Lunar Exploration, Human and Robotic Technology, and Transportation Systems, which collectively will draw funds from a renamed Exploration Capabilities account. The mission and accounting reorganization devotes $8.5 billion to Exploration Capabilities, up from $7.5 billion this year.For the Electronic Records Archive project, the budget requests $35.9 million, about $13 million more than requested for this year. The project’s goal is to create a system that can preserve any kind of electronic record without hardware or software limitations. NSF would get $14.2 million for a new Proposal, Review and Awards Management Integration System. PRAMIS will be used to manage and track e-government initiatives, back-office grants management operations, strategic information management and customer relationship management.The budget allots $8.1 million for Fast Lane, the agency’s online transactions system. NSF hopes to add 40 Web grants management applications to the site, which lets agency researchers, reviewers and other partners exchange information and conduct business. NSF asked for $5 million for a new human capital system. Officials requested $27.6 million for OPM’s retirement systems modernization project, which will automate manual processes, including the review of claim applications, updating benefit pay status and appeals filings. OPM is considering outsourcing the project. The proposal would set aside $10.2 million—down from $13.5 million this year—for OPM’s Personnel Investigations Process System. The project supports background investigations on potential federal employees or current employees who are receiving new clearances. SBA would receive $1.5 million to develop a paperless, electronic loan application and loan process system. The Disaster Credit Management Modernization project would improve the paper-based application process through imaging.  SSA would receive $73.5 million for the Accelerated Electronic Disability System, which will improve claims processing.Electronic wage reporting, which is intended to improve the accuracy of Social Security payments, would get $10.4 million.  The Consular Lookout and Support System, an effort to strengthen border security by matching names in State’s database with visa and passport applicants, would receive $16 million.Two other major IT initiatives would see significant budget decreases. Funding for the State Messaging and Archiving Retrieval Tool, a secure system for sending, storing and retrieving information from overseas offices, would drop to $32.5 million from $38.7 million this year. State’s Passport Modernization System would receive $29.9 million in 2005, down from $44.5 million.The Federal Aviation Administration’s budget proposes $300 million in IT investments for airspace modernization projects. This includes $51.3 million for Airport Surface Detection Equipment, a system to prevent runway accidents through enhanced surveillance and alerts. FAA also would receive $100 million for the Wide Area Augmentation System, which enhances signals from the Global Positioning System to help pilots land small aircraft, and $32 million for Next-Generation Telecommunications. Transportation’s Office of Information Services Operations in the CIO’s office would get $85 million for e-government projects and information security. Various IRS Business Modernization projects would get significant funding, including the Custodial Accounting Project, $22.2 million; Integrated Financial System, $21 million; the legacy Master File, $15.6 million; the Customer Account Data Engine, $128.6 million; and e-Services, $42.4 million.The Bureau of Public Debt would get $3.6 million to expand its TreasuryDirect system, which lets retail investors buy and redeem Treasury securities online. VA’s budget includes $17.5 million for programs such as an enrollment and income verification system that can accept and process veterans’ applications, share data with VA health care facilities, and manage veterans’ correspondence and telephone inquiries.