People

Rep. Todd Platts | Systems requirements law key to improved management

I chaired a hearing on implementation of OMB's Financial Management Line of Business initiative. The general consensus from that hearing was that the ideal of a governmentwide shared-services model is a worthy goal.

People

Agencies want bold ideas for new LOBs

If anyone wanted a chance to help the government shape how it formulates and executes budgets and uses geospatial information in the future, this is your opportunity.<@SM>

People

E-Rate Probes Target Texas Vendor

The flap over how value-added reseller Micro System Enterprises Inc. and the Houston and Dallas school districts may or may not have abused the E-Rate program shows the pattern of the civil and criminal cases due to emerge over the coming months.

People

The Tangled Web of E-Rate

Congress created the E-Rate program as part of the Telecommunications Act of 1996 in a bid to provide Internet access to schools and libraries that otherwise would not have been able to afford broadband cabling and associated equipment, such as routers and servers. In the years since, the E-Rate program has come under fire partly because of its arcane and incestuous administrative structure.

Modernization

GSA struggling to regain momentum

Lurita Alexis Doan is about to have her hands full. After she was nominated by President Bush to take over the struggling General Services Administration, government and industry experts said that both restoring the agency’s morale and winning back customers will be chief among several high priorities.<@SM>

People

E-Rate Ripoffs

Arlene Ackerman, the San Francisco Independent School District’s superintendent, didn’t like the looks of a $50 million project proposal submitted for her approval shortly after her appointment in 2000. As she delved into the project application—made under a program known as E-Rate—Ackerman began a five-year journey into the sordid maze of a well-intentioned but disastrous effort to provide hard-pressed schools and libraries with access to broadband service.<@SM>

People

Deals & Deadlines

The General Services Administration has issued requests for information for the Geospatial and IT Infrastructure Lines of Business and set industry days in Washington April 18 and 19.

Modernization

OPM uses its buying power to support health IT

The Office of Personnel Management is pushing the adoption of health IT from the inside. With the weight of its 8 million-member Federal Employee Health Benefits program behind it, OPM earlier this month said it will make the implementation of health technology—including electronic health records, e-prescribing and linking disease management to health IT—part of the performance plans for its contracted carriers. The change will take two to four years, officials said.

People

RFI issued for Budget Line of Business

The General Services Administration has released the final request for information for Budget Formulation under the three new Lines of Businesses Consolidation initiative — three business days before the industry day.<@SM>

Modernization

DOE not meeting small business contracting goals

The Energy Department has fallen short of its small business prime contracting goals in four of the last five years and should take prompt action to improve its small business program management, according to the Government Accountability Office.<@SM>

People

Iowa re-ups NIC for e-gov portal

Iowa has entered into a new multiyear contract with Iowa Interactive, a subsidiary of the e-government firm NIC, for continued management of the state’s official government portal.<@SM>

People

Please sign on the digital line

In the latest sign that the public sector hasn’t exhausted all the possibilities of e-government, Pennsylvania recently began the nation’s first state-sanctioned program to let notaries digitally sign electronic documents.

People

Thornton to leave OMB

Jeanette Thornton, the government’s policy lead for E-authentication and Homeland Security Presidential Directive-12, is leaving government for the private sector, the Office of Management and Budget confirmed.<@SM>

People

GSA issues RFI for IT Infrastructure LOB

The General Services Administration has issued a request for information for the IT Infrastructure Line of Business and set April 19 for an industry day in Washington.<@SM>

People

RFI released for geospatial Line of Business

The General Services Administration and the Office of Management and Budget are seeking industry input for ways to create across-the-board geospatial data and capabilities as the government starts work on establishing the Geospatial Line of Business.

Modernization

OMB's Clay Johnson predicts e-government's future

By the time the Bush administration leaves office in 2008, all 25 original E-Government initiatives should be fully implemented.

People

Agencies push toward portfolio management for lines of businesses

As agencies prepare their fiscal 2008 budget submissions, the Office of Management and Budget is expecting fewer business cases and more use of portfolio management, according to one federal CIO.

People

USPS bar codes get smaller, smarter

The Postal Service is expecting its bar codes to do more with less.<@SM>

Modernization

OMB sidelines two rules on interagency transactions

The Office of Management and Budget temporarily set aside two business rules related to how agencies make payments and conduct transactions with each other because the rules caused unintended confusion.

Modernization

Labor starts A-76 competition for over 300 management, technical support jobs

The Labor Department has launched an analysis to determine if it would be more cost-effective to turn over to the private sector 330 jobs that support assorted administrative and technical support services.