Data shows savings from LOB initiative
New data from the Office of Management and Budget suggests that considerable savings and efficiencies are being realized from the Lines of Business consolidation initiative.
New data from the Office of Management and Budget suggests that considerable savings and efficiencies are being realized from the Bush administration’s Lines of Business consolidation initiative.The Housing and Urban Development, Health and Human Services, and Labor departments, along with the Office of Personnel Management, have seen or will see considerable savings from signing up with shared-services providers for human resources, payroll and travel services, said Tim Young, associate administrator of e-government and IT, this week at the FOSE trade show in Washington. FOSE is sponsored by PostNewsweek Tech Media, the parent company of Government Computer News.“What this tells me is that we’re making progress,” added acting associate administrator for the Office of Governmentwide Policy at the General Services Administration John Sindelar after his presentation at FOSE.HUD, for example, could save nearly $27 million over the next 10 years because of its decision last year to to HR Connect, an automated human-resources processing system run by the Treasury Department, Young said.This migration let HUD consolidate 17 legacy systems and freed up the agency’s HR employees to focus on other, mission-specific tasks, Young said.Meanwhile, Young said, OPM is in the process of migrating its financial management activities to Treasury’s Bureau of the Public Debt and expects to save 25 percent a year in maintenance of its financial management system, which will result in $1.7 million in annual savings.After HHS migrated its payroll to an e-Payroll system run within the Defense Department, its annual cost for processing an employee’s payments dropped from $259 to $90, Young said.And by implementing an E-Travel system, Labor is reducing its voucher costs for travel expenses—booking flights, hotels, and other travel-related expenses—by more than 60 percent, Young said.But more importantly, Young said, is that the real savings from E-Travel come in time, not money. Before E-travel, Labor processed travel vouchers in seven days; however, with E-Travel, he said it only takes the agency three days.