OMB restates fiscal 2008 IT budget request

The Office of Management and Budget restated the federal government’s information technology budget today, raising the fiscal 2008 request by almost $1 billion. Every spring, usually by April, the Bush administration recalculates its IT budget after receiving missing data from agencies. The administration’s IT budget request for 2008 rose to $66.4 billion, up from the initial estimate of $65.5 billion in February. In all, eight agencies saw their requests rise, 10 saw their requests fall and nine stayed the same under the reconfigured numbers. OMB also provided funding for fiscal 2007 because in February, Congress had not decided on agency budgets for this year. The biggest winner in the new budget numbers is the Homeland Security Department. Its new request is up by more than $1.4 billion since February, and $300 million over fiscal 2007. NASA saw the largest decrease from February until now -- $195 million -- while others, including the Energy, Justice and Transportation departments, saw decreases of less than $15 million. Along with the new budget numbers, OMB released agencies’ project-by-project funding requests. For instance, one of DHS’ largest project increases is for the U.S. Visitor and Immigrant Status Indicator Technology system. It’s slated to get $462 million, up from $362 million in 2007. Secure Flight, another DHS program, would increase to $52.8 million from $15 million in 2008. The Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative would get a $252 million boost after receiving nothing in 2007. The Transportation Worker Identification Card would suffer one of DHS’ biggest drops to $38.4 million from $71.7 million. Another agency, the Veterans Affairs Department, requested $47.9 million for its financial and logistics integrated technology enterprise program — more than $27 million more than in 2007. It also requested $20.7 million to work on Homeland Security Presidential Directive 12. Other agencies also requested quite a bit to meet the HSPD-12 mandate. The General Services Administration requested $6 million for its internal smart card effort, while the Environmental Protection Agency requested $7.5 million, up from $6.3 million in 2007.