Editorial: Getting the power

We were pleased to learn this month that the Navy is transforming the way it manages its information technology infrastructure by centralizing oversight of warfighting and business systems spending.

We have ranted in recent months about the importance of incorporating IT in agencies' senior leadership teams. Most recently, we chided agencies for failing to illustrate on their organizational charts how IT enables them to fulfill their missions.

Given IT managers' lack of clout at most agencies, it's no wonder that mission-critical functions such as information sharing continue to be a quandary.

But few things are more motivating than the power of the purse strings. When he was in Congress, former Rep. Steve Horn (R-Calif.) had a long-running quixotic campaign to bisect the Office of Management and Budget: one organization would focus on budget and the other would focus on management. He argued that the budget takes so much of OMB's time, energy and effort that the agency cannot devote adequate attention to management issues.

OMB officials counter that the power of the purse allows them to sway agencies on management issues by tying them to the budget.

That argument, however, has not carried through to agencies.

Mark Mohler, assistant deputy director of the Office of the Assistant Chief of Naval Operations-IT, said few chief information officers have complete budget authority.

At most agencies, IT managers can create policies and standards, but they don't control the budgets.

Mohler and the IT naval operations team now shoulders the burden of demonstrating that linking budget and management can work.

By giving senior IT leaders budget authority, agencies come closer to making them meaningful members of their management teams. They also empower IT leaders to more effectively accomplish their jobs.

— Christopher J. Dorobek