At 1st birthday, e-gov push toddles along

 

Connecting state and local government leaders

Almost a year after the Office of Management and Budget outlined an ambitious rollout of 24'now 25'e-government initiatives, project leaders have had mixed success in meeting deadlines.

Almost a year after the Office of Management and Budget outlined an ambitious rollout of 24'now 25'e-government initiatives, project leaders have had mixed success in meeting deadlines.With many projects reaching their first critical deadlines within the past few weeks, nine e-government teams saw their projects slip off schedule.OMB set milestones for 16 projects over the last two months. But factors such as insufficient agency cooperation, inadequate technology, and last-minute reviews and revisions caused the missed deadlines, team leaders said.The Federal Emergency Management Agency's disasterhelp.gov portal and the Office of Personnel Management's E-Payroll project are among the initiatives that are behind schedule.Norm Enger, OPM's e-government project director, said the team working on E-Payroll, which will consolidate 22 government payroll systems into two or three, will need an extra 30 to 45 days to choose from seven agency payroll provider bids. OPM needs the extra time to complete a study on federal workers who will be displaced by the consolidation. OPM director Kay Coles James late last month requested the study, Enger said.Disasterhelp project leaders originally set an Aug. 20 launch date for their portal, then pushed it back to mid-September. The portal began running last month as a test site for use by FEMA workers only. Some partner agencies were slow to provide content for the site.The Small Business Administration's Business Compliance One-Stop team also needed more time to roll out its portal. But project manager Jim Van Wert said the site's second version should be ready by month's end.Officials managing other projects, such as the Health and Human Services Department's Consolidated Health Informatics, which has moved from a business case to become the 25th Quicksilver project, and FEMA's Safecom wireless initiative, have had to redo business cases and still are in the early phases of development.Some projects are on track. The General Services Administration's E-Authentication initiative, which many see as the crucial cog in the e-government engine, last month tested a prototype gateway with the Agriculture Department's National Finance Center.'We demonstrated the essence of the gateway,' said Stephen Timchak, E-Authentication program manager. 'It is real, it works, and we hope to go operational with it using live transactions in the first quarter of fiscal 2003.'GSA tested the gateway using the finance center's time and attendance program to show that the gateway can recognize different levels of authentication, such as public-key infrastructure and password protections, Timchak said.When the gateway goes live in the next three months, GSA will offer transactions for five or six federal projects, Timchak said.The Social Security Administration's E-Vital project, which will let federal, state and local officials share birth and death records, earlier this month rolled out its first version.Through a partnership with the National Association for Public Health Statistics and Information Systems, SSA employees can verify birth and death records collected by Colorado's vital statistics agency. SSA plans to integrate records systems for seven more states by the end of November.E-Vital uses middleware to transmit an SSA employee's query to a state system. The state system verifies the data submitted by SSA and transmits the clearance back to SSA.'This is an efficient way to query diverse databases and do it in a fashion where everyone is satisfied with security and privacy issues, and the information is returned in a timely manner,' said John McGing, E-Vital's program manager.The states still control the data, but using a standard Extensible Markup Language format provides an audit trail, McGing said.Transportation Department officials had hoped to launch the Online Rulemaking site more than three months early, but technical problems delayed the portal by a few weeks.An OMB official said last month that project leaders are fixing a problem with user capacity. The official said the portal still will launch before the Dec. 31 deadline.The Interior Department's Recreation One-Stop, Labor Department's GovBenefits and HHS' E-Grants projects also met their September deadlines. Interior relaunched a Recreation One-Stop portal a few days early and added new services, including features that provide users with maps and driving directions. Project leaders also implemented a data exchange with the National Park Service to update its database more easily.GovBenefits surpassed its goal of integrating links to 100 federal benefits programs by Sept. 30 and plans to add more than 20 programs a month to its portal.For E-Grants, HHS has identified data standards it will use for grants forms governmentwide, program manager Charles Havekost said.'This was one of the hardest pieces,' he said. 'There has been an effort to reach consensus on these standards for a long time. We tried to come up with something people are familiar with so we wouldn't have to slog through policy or standards battles.'HHS and its partner agencies agreed to use SF 424, a form now used by about 100 grant programs. The portal also will use the public-sector X12 standard transaction conventions for data interchanges, known as X12 Set 194.In the year since Mark Forman, OMB's associate director for IT and e-government, introduced the projects, many inside and outside of government have tracked the progress of the Quicksilver initiatives.Melissa Wojciak, staff director for Rep. Tom Davis (R-Va.), chairman of the Government Reform Subcommittee on Technology and Procurement Policy, said Davis thinks the projects are going better than expected. 'There was some common thought in the community that many projects would fail, but they have been able to build on their early successes,' she said.Wojciak said the e-government efforts still face two major hurdles: convincing Congress to embrace cross-agency projects and getting agencies to share money.David L. McClure, vice president for e-government at the Council for Excellence in Government and a former director for IT management at the General Accounting Office, agreed.'The greatest thing we have seen out of the 24 projects as a whole is there is a fundamental change in the business model being put into place for government IT,' he said. 'While there have been attempts in the past, this one is being backed up by OMB scrubbing the budgets and looking at overlap. That makes it real.'He said e-government's main challenges are figuring out who owns the projects and how agencies will share the cost of maintenance'and getting Congress to fund them.McClure said many projects are in a critical stage where they must demonstrate results.Congress especially is interested in the payoff.Sens. Joseph I. Lieberman (D-Conn.) and Fred Thompson (R-Tenn.), the ranking members of the Governmental Affairs Committee, earlier this summer asked GAO to review how OMB selected the Quicksilver projects and how the implementation is progressing.'Such a review is important to understand how the initiatives are expected to support the goals of the President's Management Agenda and ultimately provide improved government service to citizens, businesses and other governments,' Lieberman and Thompson said in their letter to GAO.John de Ferrari, assistant director for IT Management at GAO, said the study should be finished by the end of October.Still, McClure, who left GAO as the study was beginning, said OMB's progress is clear and its successes are evident.'Mark [Forman] has gotten farther along than many would have suspected at this time,' he said. 'There have been some starts and stops, but substantial progress is being made in re-examining how projects are funded and how business models are created.'

Getting a consensus on data standards for grant forms was tough''we tried to come up with something people are familiar with.'

'Charles Havekost, E-Grants project manager

Henrik G. DeGyor









































Poised for the portal























Results time












NEXT STORY: You can secure that wireless net

X
This website uses cookies to enhance user experience and to analyze performance and traffic on our website. We also share information about your use of our site with our social media, advertising and analytics partners. Learn More / Do Not Sell My Personal Information
Accept Cookies
X
Cookie Preferences Cookie List

Do Not Sell My Personal Information

When you visit our website, we store cookies on your browser to collect information. The information collected might relate to you, your preferences or your device, and is mostly used to make the site work as you expect it to and to provide a more personalized web experience. However, you can choose not to allow certain types of cookies, which may impact your experience of the site and the services we are able to offer. Click on the different category headings to find out more and change our default settings according to your preference. You cannot opt-out of our First Party Strictly Necessary Cookies as they are deployed in order to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting the cookie banner and remembering your settings, to log into your account, to redirect you when you log out, etc.). For more information about the First and Third Party Cookies used please follow this link.

Allow All Cookies

Manage Consent Preferences

Strictly Necessary Cookies - Always Active

We do not allow you to opt-out of our certain cookies, as they are necessary to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting our cookie banner and remembering your privacy choices) and/or to monitor site performance. These cookies are not used in a way that constitutes a “sale” of your data under the CCPA. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not work as intended if you do so. You can usually find these settings in the Options or Preferences menu of your browser. Visit www.allaboutcookies.org to learn more.

Sale of Personal Data, Targeting & Social Media Cookies

Under the California Consumer Privacy Act, you have the right to opt-out of the sale of your personal information to third parties. These cookies collect information for analytics and to personalize your experience with targeted ads. You may exercise your right to opt out of the sale of personal information by using this toggle switch. If you opt out we will not be able to offer you personalised ads and will not hand over your personal information to any third parties. Additionally, you may contact our legal department for further clarification about your rights as a California consumer by using this Exercise My Rights link

If you have enabled privacy controls on your browser (such as a plugin), we have to take that as a valid request to opt-out. Therefore we would not be able to track your activity through the web. This may affect our ability to personalize ads according to your preferences.

Targeting cookies may be set through our site by our advertising partners. They may be used by those companies to build a profile of your interests and show you relevant adverts on other sites. They do not store directly personal information, but are based on uniquely identifying your browser and internet device. If you do not allow these cookies, you will experience less targeted advertising.

Social media cookies are set by a range of social media services that we have added to the site to enable you to share our content with your friends and networks. They are capable of tracking your browser across other sites and building up a profile of your interests. This may impact the content and messages you see on other websites you visit. If you do not allow these cookies you may not be able to use or see these sharing tools.

If you want to opt out of all of our lead reports and lists, please submit a privacy request at our Do Not Sell page.

Save Settings
Cookie Preferences Cookie List

Cookie List

A cookie is a small piece of data (text file) that a website – when visited by a user – asks your browser to store on your device in order to remember information about you, such as your language preference or login information. Those cookies are set by us and called first-party cookies. We also use third-party cookies – which are cookies from a domain different than the domain of the website you are visiting – for our advertising and marketing efforts. More specifically, we use cookies and other tracking technologies for the following purposes:

Strictly Necessary Cookies

We do not allow you to opt-out of our certain cookies, as they are necessary to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting our cookie banner and remembering your privacy choices) and/or to monitor site performance. These cookies are not used in a way that constitutes a “sale” of your data under the CCPA. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not work as intended if you do so. You can usually find these settings in the Options or Preferences menu of your browser. Visit www.allaboutcookies.org to learn more.

Functional Cookies

We do not allow you to opt-out of our certain cookies, as they are necessary to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting our cookie banner and remembering your privacy choices) and/or to monitor site performance. These cookies are not used in a way that constitutes a “sale” of your data under the CCPA. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not work as intended if you do so. You can usually find these settings in the Options or Preferences menu of your browser. Visit www.allaboutcookies.org to learn more.

Performance Cookies

We do not allow you to opt-out of our certain cookies, as they are necessary to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting our cookie banner and remembering your privacy choices) and/or to monitor site performance. These cookies are not used in a way that constitutes a “sale” of your data under the CCPA. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not work as intended if you do so. You can usually find these settings in the Options or Preferences menu of your browser. Visit www.allaboutcookies.org to learn more.

Sale of Personal Data

We also use cookies to personalize your experience on our websites, including by determining the most relevant content and advertisements to show you, and to monitor site traffic and performance, so that we may improve our websites and your experience. You may opt out of our use of such cookies (and the associated “sale” of your Personal Information) by using this toggle switch. You will still see some advertising, regardless of your selection. Because we do not track you across different devices, browsers and GEMG properties, your selection will take effect only on this browser, this device and this website.

Social Media Cookies

We also use cookies to personalize your experience on our websites, including by determining the most relevant content and advertisements to show you, and to monitor site traffic and performance, so that we may improve our websites and your experience. You may opt out of our use of such cookies (and the associated “sale” of your Personal Information) by using this toggle switch. You will still see some advertising, regardless of your selection. Because we do not track you across different devices, browsers and GEMG properties, your selection will take effect only on this browser, this device and this website.

Targeting Cookies

We also use cookies to personalize your experience on our websites, including by determining the most relevant content and advertisements to show you, and to monitor site traffic and performance, so that we may improve our websites and your experience. You may opt out of our use of such cookies (and the associated “sale” of your Personal Information) by using this toggle switch. You will still see some advertising, regardless of your selection. Because we do not track you across different devices, browsers and GEMG properties, your selection will take effect only on this browser, this device and this website.