FWD - GCN: OMB's Clay Johnson predicts e-government's future - 2008 and beyond

["David RR Webber \(XML\)" <david@drrw.info>]

FYI

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

By Jason Miller,

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

That is one White House's goals for the President's Management Agenda
over its last 2 1/2 years, according to Clay Johnson, the Office of
Management and Budget's deputy director for management. 

"We have demonstrated we can do these things over the past few years, so
we have to continue to focus on performance," Johnson said earlier this
week at the 8th annual Government Performance Summit in Washington
sponsored by The Performance Institute of Arlington, Va. "We have the
ability to set targets and move to them. We couldn't do that 10 years
ago." 

Additionally, Johnson said he expects the public to be using 80 percent
to 90 percent of the 25 Quicksilver projects to their full capabilities
by 2008. 

He also said agencies will fully implement all nine of OMB's Lines of
Business Consolidation initiatives-budget formulation, case management,
federal health architecture, financial management, human resources
management, geospatial, grants management, IT infrastructure and IT
security-and demonstrate high level of services for lower costs. 

Besides e-government, the administration expects that Congress will pass
some sort of civil service modernization, including pay-for-performance,
for every agency, and that at least 22 Chief Financial Officer Act
agencies will have unqualified financial audits. He also said the
administration expects to continue to show savings through competitive
sourcing competitions, where agencies compete inherently commercial
positions with the private sector. 

Johnson added that the White House expects to reduce improper payments
by $20 billion and dispose of at least $6 billion in unused real
property by 2008. 

To accomplish many of these tasks, especially e-government and
competitive sourcing, Johnson admitted that they need to do a better job
educating lawmakers. 

"It is a mystery to me why we get push-back on the Hill with
e-government," Johnson said. "Their comprehension is limited. They think
these are OMB pet projects we push on agencies, and the projects have no
value to citizens. They are dumbfounded when I told them what it really
it." 

He added that OMB has not done a good enough job communicating why these
initiatives are worthwhile. 

Of course, OMB has blamed poor communication for the poor reception
e-government has received on the Hill for almost five years, and things
don't seem to be getting better in the short term. Karen Evans, OMB's
administrator for IT and e-government, said recently that the recent
mandated report on e-government would help improve lawmakers'
understanding about these projects. 

OMB will see how the report goes over as Congress weighs in on the
fiscal 2007 budget request this summer.