OMB lines up next set of e-gov projects

The Office of Management and Budget expects agencies to finish the next set of e-government projects by October 2005.To set this process in motion, the General Services Administration later this month will release a request for information to industry for initiatives aimed at consolidating lines of business.John Sindelar, director of the line-of-business project, said GSA is asking vendors to submit proposals that identify systems, best practices, migration strategies and key interfaces for common systems in each of four business areas: case management, financial management, human resources and back-end grant management.A fifth business line, federal health architecture, is not suitable for the RFI process, Sindelar said.“There probably is no single common solution that can support all eight subfunctions in the federal health line of business,” he said. “Even though they share some data and other functions, each of the eight subfunctions are substantially different.”For the other four areas, the functions are mostly related, Sindelar said.For financial management, GSA is asking vendors to look at accounts payable and receivable, general ledger and budget execution.For human resources, GSA detailed 15 functions contractors need to consider, including personnel action processing, vacancy tracking, training management, position classification and management, benefits administration and labor relations.The functions for grants and case management are much more direct. For grants, GSA is asking vendors to discuss disbursement, and for case management, the ability to share information.“I’ve heard that Justice has 70 case management systems alone,” Sindelar said. “We need to work toward a more consolidated approach for all of these lines of business.”Responses to the RFI will be due in mid-May, he said.OMB earlier this month set up task forces for each line of business. The teams will review the responses and draft recommendations and possible alternatives by June.The lead agencies then will use the information to develop business cases for the fiscal 2006 budget submissions.