E-gov scores improve

The President's Management Agenda Score card

Eight agencies improved their e-government management scores, according to the Office of Management and Budget. But more than half of the 26 departments OMB evaluated showed mixed results in reaching e-government goals on the President’s Management Agenda.

The score card for the first quarter of fiscal 2006, released Feb. 2, shows that eight departments moved from red to yellow or from yellow to green for their e-government initiatives, while 16 departments had mixed results.

Six agencies scored green on e-government, compared with only four on the previous quarter’s score card.

A green score is the top rating an agency can receive. It means that it is implementing its initiatives as planned. Yellow shows slippage or the need for other adjustments to achieve the objectives in a timely manner. Red means that an initiative is in serious jeopardy.

The Department of Housing and Urban Development, NASA and the Environmental Protection Agency each moved up to green status in meeting their e-government goals. The Transportation Department dropped to yellow, the only agency to do so.

Overall, agencies improved their management practices last year, said Clay Johnson, deputy director for management at OMB. About 40 percent of the agencies’ scores are now green, showing effective management discipline, and about 20 percent are red, meaning those agencies maintain unacceptable management practices, OMB officials said.

OMB evaluates agencies' current status and overall progress on President Bush's five management priorities: workforce, competitive sourcing, financial performance, e-government, and budget and performance integration. OMB began tracking executive branch agencies' scores in 2002.

The Labor Department held onto its status as the highest-scoring federal agency with five green scores, followed by NASA and the National Science Foundation with four green scores each.

The Department of Veterans Affairs had the lowest ratings with four red scores and a yellow score for workforce management.