OMB makes more demands for next PMA score card

The Office of Management and Budget is raising the bar for agencies to progress or retain their top-level green status on the next President’s Management Agenda score card covering the second quarter of the fiscal year, said Clay Johnson, OMB’s deputy director for management, in guidance dated March 20. OMB provided guidance for program officers and PMA leads to prepare for meetings with OMB to discuss agency progress in the next score card. Agencies must have their final score card submitted to OMB by April 25. Among the actions for the next quarter, agencies must submit by April 15 a revised plan regarding consolidation of external connections based on the Trusted Internet Connections program requirements to be provided by the Information System Security Line of Business later this month. By May 1, agencies are to update and submit justifications for the targeted number of trusted Internet connections for evaluation and recommendation to OMB. OMB rates agencies on their status and progress on improving their workforce management, financial performance, expanding electronic government and competitive sourcing, in addition to several other initiatives, such as program performance improvement and health information quality and transparency. The next score card will cover the period from Jan. 1 through March 31. To maintain green status in e-government, for example, agencies must now also have a plan to meet necessary communication requirements for business continuity in addition to previous standards to complete certification and accreditation of all systems, which must be set in accordance with security configurations; develop and publish a system of records for 90 percent of systems with personally identifiable information; and conduct and post a privacy impact assessment for 90 percent of applicable systems. To remain green, all of an agency’s business cases have to be considered acceptable, he said. To maintain yellow status in e-government, agencies now must also have an up-to-date, OMB-approved plan for all of the appropriate governmentwide e-government, lines of business and SmartBuy initiatives instead of creating duplicative or agency-unique information technology projects. That’s in addition to achieving an enterprise architecture score of 4 in completion and results; producing acceptable business cases for more than half its major IT investments and security reports that document effectiveness; and demonstrating use of earned value management so the IT portfolio performs within 30 percent of its cost and schedule goals. For the program performance improvement initiative, agencies need to provide a first draft of their 2008 Program Assessment Rating Tool to OMB by March 31. Agencies must decide which PART performance goals to address in the quality improvement process and the accompanying action plans. Agencies must update their performance measures assessment in OMB’s PARTWeb by June 30.