<DOC>
[108th Congress House Hearings]
[From the U.S. Government Printing Office via GPO Access]
[DOCID: f:86681.wais]
FEDERAL E-GOVERNMENT INITIATIVES: ARE WE HEADED IN THE RIGHT DIRECTION?
=======================================================================
HEARING
before the
SUBCOMMITTEE ON TECHNOLOGY, INFORMATION
POLICY, INTERGOVERNMENTAL RELATIONS AND
THE CENSUS
of the
COMMITTEE ON
GOVERNMENT REFORM
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED EIGHTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
MARCH 13, 2003
__________
Serial No. 108-6
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Government Reform
Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.gpo.gov/congress/house
http://www.house.gov/reform
______
86-681 U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE
WASHINGTON : 2003
____________________________________________________________________________
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COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT REFORM
TOM DAVIS, Virginia, Chairman
DAN BURTON, Indiana HENRY A. WAXMAN, California
CHRISTOPHER SHAYS, Connecticut TOM LANTOS, California
ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN, Florida MAJOR R. OWENS, New York
JOHN M. McHUGH, New York EDOLPHUS TOWNS, New York
JOHN L. MICA, Florida PAUL E. KANJORSKI, Pennsylvania
MARK E. SOUDER, Indiana CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York
STEVEN C. LaTOURETTE, Ohio ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland
DOUG OSE, California DENNIS J. KUCINICH, Ohio
RON LEWIS, Kentucky DANNY K. DAVIS, Illinois
JO ANN DAVIS, Virginia JOHN F. TIERNEY, Massachusetts
TODD RUSSELL PLATTS, Pennsylvania WM. LACY CLAY, Missouri
CHRIS CANNON, Utah DIANE E. WATSON, California
ADAM H. PUTNAM, Florida STEPHEN F. LYNCH, Massachusetts
EDWARD L. SCHROCK, Virginia CHRIS VAN HOLLEN, Maryland
JOHN J. DUNCAN, Jr., Tennessee LINDA T. SANCHEZ, California
JOHN SULLIVAN, Oklahoma C.A. ``DUTCH'' RUPPERSBERGER,
NATHAN DEAL, Georgia Maryland
CANDICE S. MILLER, Michigan ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, District of
TIM MURPHY, Pennsylvania Columbia
MICHAEL R. TURNER, Ohio JIM COOPER, Tennessee
JOHN R. CARTER, Texas CHRIS BELL, Texas
WILLIAM J. JANKLOW, South Dakota ------
MARSHA BLACKBURN, Tennessee BERNARD SANDERS, Vermont
(Independent)
Peter Sirh, Staff Director
Melissa Wojciak, Deputy Staff Director
Randy Kaplan, Senior Counsel/Parliamentarian
Teresa Austin, Chief Clerk
Philip M. Schiliro, Minority Staff Director
Subcommittee on Technology, Information Policy, Intergovernmental
Relations and the Census
ADAM H. PUTNAM, Florida, Chairman
CANDICE S. MILLER, Michigan WM. LACY CLAY, Missouri
DOUG OSE, California DIANE E. WATSON, California
TIM MURPHY, Pennsylvania STEPHEN F. LYNCH, Massachusetts
MICHAEL R. TURNER, Ohio
Ex Officio
TOM DAVIS, Virginia HENRY A. WAXMAN, California
Bob Dix, Staff Director
Scott Klein, Professional Staff Member
Ursula Wojciechowski, Clerk
David McMillen, Minority Professional Staff Member
C O N T E N T S
----------
Page
Hearing held on March 13, 2003................................... 1
Statement of:
Forman, Mark, Associate Director, Information Technology and
Electronic Government, Office of Management and Budget;
Joel C. Willemssen, Managing Director, Information
Technology, U.S. General Accounting Offfice; Patricia
McGinnis, president and CEO, the Council for Excellence in
Government; and Leonard M. Pomata, president, Webmethods
Government................................................. 12
Letters, statements, etc., submitted for the record by:
Clay, Hon. Wm. Lacy, a Representative in Congress from the
State of Missouri, prepared statement of................... 11
Forman, Mark, Associate Director, Information Technology and
Electronic Government, Office of Management and Budget,
prepared statement of...................................... 16
McGinnis, Patricia, president and CEO, the Council for
Excellence in Government, prepared statement of............ 66
Pomata, Leonard M., president, Webmethods Government,
prepared statement of...................................... 74
Putnam, Hon. Adam H., a Representative in Congress from the
State of Florida, prepared statement of.................... 5
Willemssen, Joel C., Managing Director, Information
Technology, U.S. General Accounting Offfice, prepared
statement of............................................... 33
FEDERAL E-GOVERNMENT INITIATIVES: ARE WE HEADED IN THE RIGHT DIRECTION?
----------
THURSDAY, MARCH 13, 2003
House of Representatives,
Subcommittee on Technology, Information Policy,
Intergovernmental Relations and the Census,
Committee on Government Reform,
Washington, DC.
The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 2 p.m., in
room 2154, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Adam Putnam
(chairman of the subcommittee) presiding.
Present: Representatives Putnam, Clay, and Miller.
Staff present: Bob Dix, staff director; Scott Klein, Lori
Martin, and Chip Walker, professional staff members; Ursula
Wojciechowski, clerk; John Hambel, counsel; David McMillen,
minority professional staff member; and Jean Gosa, minority
assistant clerk.
Mr. Putnam. This hearing of the Subcommittee on Technology,
Information Policy, Intergovernmental Relations and the Census
will come to order.
Good afternoon and welcome to the first hearing of the
newly reorganized subcommittee. I am honored to have been
selected by Chairman Davis to serve as chairman of this
subcommittee. Despite of what this might look like, this is not
``bring your son to work day.'' They really do let people this
young in Congress. We look forward to an exciting term with
this subcommittee. There is a tremendous amount of work to be
done. Chairman Davis laid the groundwork and blazed a path,
particularly on some of the issues we will be discussing today.
He did a tremendous job of beginning the process of bringing
the Federal Government into the 21st century. He and I will
continue to work together on this issue in the weeks and months
to come.
I also look forward to welcoming my good friend and ranking
member and fellow sophomore, Mr. Lacy Clay from Missouri. I
have no doubt that we will have an outstanding working
relationship throughout the term, and both his staff and our
staff will continue to work together for the good of the
subcommittee.
I will draw your attention later in the hearing to the
images on the screens, which are a number of the Web sites that
we will be discussing as part of the E-government initiative. I
recognize some faces in here this afternoon who were present
during the morning hearing. The Web sites we will be showing
you this afternoon are not nearly as interesting as the ones
the full committee was showing this morning.
Before I talk specifically about today's hearing on the
current status of the Federal Government's E-government
initiative, though, I would like to speak briefly about my
vision for the subcommittee's work during the 108th Congress.
We have outlined an aggressive agenda and I am anxious to get
the ball rolling. I expect to examine closely the
intergovernmental relations in the areas of emergency response,
land management, disaster management, as well as Federal grant
disbursement.
In the area of the census, the subcommittee will continue
to examine the American Community Survey and ensure that the
census is an accurate count based on real numbers. The
subcommittee will examine data sharing and privacy issues, with
an eye toward the sharing of information within and between
governments, looking in particular at programs such as the
Total Information Awareness Program through the Department of
Defense.
We will examine the President's recently submitted
cybersecurity proposal and the security of our infrastructure
for our financial markets, public utilities and other critical
systems. In IT management and E-government, the subcommittee
will examine agency and department Web site development, cross-
agency coordination, acquisition strategy and performance
results.
I hope that these items give a flavor for the direction
this subcommittee will take in the coming months. We do have an
aggressive agenda, and we intend to provide vigorous oversight
of the areas under the subcommittee's jurisdiction.
Today's hearing focuses on the subject of E-government,
which is, simply put, the ability of the Federal Government to
use technology, particularly Web-based Internet applications,
to enhance access to government information and delivery of
information services to citizens, business partners, Federal
employees and other agencies. At the same time, E-government
initiatives seek to make the Federal Government itself more
efficient, productive and cost-effective.
I want to thank today's witnesses for adjusting their
schedules to accommodate the rescheduling of the original
hearing date. Today we have an expert panel on E-government
that will provide us with their professional insight. I would
like to welcome Mark Forman, the Associate Director of
Information Technology and Electronic Government from the
Office of Management and Budget; Joel Willemssen, Managing
Director of Information Technology with the U.S. General
Accounting Office; Patricia McGinnis, president and CEO of the
Council for Excellence in Government; and Leonard Pomata,
president, webMethods Government.
The expansion of E-government was one of five key elements
in the President's management agenda. The goal is to ``champion
citizen-centered electronic government that will result in a
major improvement in the Federal Government's value to the
citizen.''
The Office of Management and Budget developed a task force
known as the Quicksilver Process, and began to gather
information and strategize on E-government initiatives in
August 2001. In all, the task force identified over 350
potential E-government projects. These projects were then faced
into 40 portfolios of related ideas, eliminating duplicates
along the way. Eventually, with the final approval of the
President's Management Council, 24 initiatives were selected.
OMB's criteria for choosing initiatives included the potential
value to customers, potential improvement in agency efficiency,
and the likelihood of deployment in 18 to 24 months.
Government Reform Committee Chairman Tom Davis is to be
commended for the E-Government Act of 2002, which sought to
improve IT investment and required OMB to provide an annual
report to Congress on the status of E-government.
Rather than simply identify and report IT investment at
each agency, the E-Government Act forces a cultural change in
IT procurement from consolidating and integrating IT
investments to encouraging performance-based, citizen-centered,
cross-agency planning. Under the act, the Office of Management
and Budget has been designated as the lead organization for all
Federal Government IT purchasing and planning, and all Federal
agencies must comply with OMB guidance to ensure implementation
of E-government.
Federal Government expenditures on IT will near $60 billion
in fiscal year 2004, making the Federal Government the largest
purchaser of IT in the world. Simply because the Federal
Government spends the most does not mean that it spends that
money wisely, gets the most for its investment, or provides
technologically advanced and easy to use services to the
public. One of our most important missions on this subcommittee
is to ensure to the greatest extent possible a technologically
advanced government providing fast, efficient and needed
services to the American public.
I want to thank each witness for taking the time to
participate in this important hearing, and thank you for your
valuable contribution. Today's hearing can be viewed live via
Web cast by going to http://reform.house.gov and then clicking
on the link under ``Live Committee Broadcast.''
Today, I am also pleased to announce that this subcommittee
will be the first subcommittee in the House to use video-to-
text technology. In a few days, the public will be able to go
to the committee's home page and find a specific piece of video
for this hearing by doing a word, phrase or name search. They
will then be given a list of choices to choose from, and can
view a video clip of 45 seconds in length containing the
information they searched for. This is a tremendous advance in
the archiving and retrieval of historical records in the House
of Representatives. The Library of Congress, in conjunction
with FedNet, has been taking the lead in bringing this
technology to the House. Chairman Davis is to be commended for
bringing emerging technologies to this committee.
As we await the arrival of Mr. Clay and make additional
introductions, I just want to take a couple of moments and talk
about the opportunities that we have from a technology
perspective to redefine the way that the Federal Government
interacts with its citizens and its taxpayers. As the youngest
Member of Congress, there is a generation of Americans out
there who have grown up accustomed to certain technologies and
a certain way of doing business based on the newest and latest
technologies. It has redefined their relationship in
recreation. It has redefined their relationships in commerce
and business, and it can redefine their relationship with the
government.
As this new generation of voters comes online and becomes
productive, tax-paying members of society and leaders in
business and leaders in the communities, they expect that the
same conveniences and technologies that have been commonplace
to them throughout their life will be available from their
government as well. Unfortunately, the government has been
lagging behind.
So as our taxpayers and as our consumers, our customers,
our citizens continue to have higher levels of expectations,
the gap between the expectations and what the government is
able to provide is a gap that we need to work very hard to
close and make sure that those expectations are met and that we
redefine that relationship.
As we await the arrival of Mr. Clay, I want to introduce
the vice chair of the subcommittee, Candice Miller. I know that
she is ready and eager to pull up her sleeves and get down to
business. I would like to yield now to her for a few opening
remarks.
[The prepared statement of Hon. Adam H. Putnam follows:]
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Ms. Miller. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I am certainly pleased
to serve here on this subcommittee with you and to be your vice
chairperson. I was interested to hear you talk about how we are
going to be on the leading edge as a committee to have all this
availability on the Internet. I think that is an appropriate
role for this subcommittee. I think it is wonderful that we are
going to have the opportunity to offer that to the taxpayers
across the entire Nation.
I am so excited about hearing from all of you today. I
certainly appreciate you all taking the time to come here
today. I think E-commerce and E-government is such an
interesting area, certainly with the exploding technology and
what can happen. It is, I think, very important for us to try
to benchmark where we are as a Nation with E-government and
where we have been and where we are going. The Internet in many
ways is a relatively new phenomena.
I hope to be able to bring my own experiences, perhaps my
own perspective, to this committee as well. I was a former
Secretary of State in my former life, for the last 8 years in
Michigan. I was concerned with all the motor vehicle
administrative matters. We actually had a very antiquated
department--180 branch offices, 20 million transactions
annually, and there was neither a fax machine nor a copy
machine in any of our branch offices, if you can imagine. We
became the first State agency actually in our State to do E-
government, E-commerce. We architected all the data base where
we were actually able to take money from people for credit
cards and those kinds of things so they could do vehicle
registrations, snowmobile, boat registration, what have you,
via the Internet or fax or touchtone phone--all of these kinds
of things. We also architected a kiosk program that we put out
in shopping malls and that kind of thing.
We used that as the foundation for a lot of the other State
agencies--recreational kinds of things and all of these--to be
able to be a one-stop-shop for E-government in our State. As
well--something certainly worth mentioning as we are sitting
here talking about politics I suppose as the Chief Elections
Officer I was also responsible for something that we called our
qualified voter file in Michigan. We had a very decentralized
system. In other words, normally in every State it is the local
county clerk that maintains the voter registration rolls. In
Michigan, it was every local city, municipal clerk. We have
about 1,800 various voter registration files floating around
there in Michigan. We built a statewide computerized voter
registration list, which actually was noted in the Ford-Carter
Presidential Commission report on election reform as an
outstanding national model on how you can have a Statewide
computerized voter registration file when you are doing
election reform and these kinds of things.
So I am very, very excited to be able to work with all of
you as we go forward here. There are so many things, as the
chairman has said, not only the new generation, but certainly
those of us that are starting to feel more comfortable about
accessing information electronically and using the Internet for
so many kinds of services, look to government to be more
progressive perhaps than we have been in the past. I think it
is for all of us to ensure that all of these services and all
of the different governmental agencies is accessible and easy
to use and in that kind of a format.
Additionally, I know not at this hearing, but we will be
discussing privacy concerns as well. And of course, all of us
in government that have responsibilities for maintaining data
bases and what have you, have to be concerned about
intervention, sometimes over the line by government into
personal privacy as well. Who is going to have the information,
how is it going to be utilized, who will have the ability to
access it--those kinds of questions as well.
So I am very excited to hear your testimony and again
appreciate all of you coming today. Thank you.
Mr. Putnam. I thank the gentlelady. I am notified that
Congressman Clay will be right with us. He is wrapping up a
vote in another committee.
Before we get to the witnesses, I do want to introduce the
staff. We were here until 2 a.m. doing budget work, and of
course some of the unsung heroes in this process are staff. I
want to introduce to you and to the audience, as you all have
issues, the folks who make these things happen. I will let Mr.
Clay introduce the minority staff. The majority staff, Bob Dix
is our staff director. He is a former staff member for the DC
Subcommittee; former locally elected official, and former
president and CEO of a technology company himself. He brings a
broad background of both public and private sector service.
Scott Klein is our professional staff member, IT Government
Relations, for both TRW and BDM are in his background, as well
as some work for Senator Warner. He is a Virginia Tech guy,
handling our tech issues. Lori Martin, another professional
staffer, senior research analyst, media assistant for Podesta
Matoon. She is a lawyer from Regent University. She handles our
privacy and information policy issues. Chip Walker, former
deputy staff director for the Subcommittee on Civil Service,
Census and Agency Organization; staff director of the
Subcommittee on the Census. He got his education at Long Island
University and handles all of our census issues. He has
forgotten more about the census than most of us will ever know,
as well as intergovernmental relations and cybersecurity.
Ursula Wojciechowski--she is the subcommittee clerk. She
formerly worked for Subcommittee Chairman Horn on the
Subcommittee on Government Efficiency. For those of you who
knew how many hearings he had, she is probably the most
efficient clerk in the Congress. And John Hambel, on my left,
another counsel who formerly was counsel on the Energy and
Commerce Committee Subcommittee on Oversight and
Investigations, and former counsel to Representative Norm Lent.
With that, at the risk of dumping everything in his lap
just as soon as he sits down, I will recognize the ranking
member, the distinguished gentleman from Missouri, Mr. Clay.
Mr. Clay. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I really look
forward to this assignment and look forward to working with you
and the other members on this committee.
I guess I will start with introducing our staff on the
minority staff. That would be, first, David McMillen, the
professional staff member; also Jean Gosa, assistant clerk of
the full committee; and then Robert Odom from my office who
assists us here.
I am looking forward to working with you, and hopefully we
will be able to advance the needs and the causes of this
committee forward in a judicious and bipartisan manner.
Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Hon. Wm. Lacy Clay follows:]
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Mr. Putnam. I thank the gentleman.
We will now begin with the witnesses. Each has kindly
prepared written testimony which is available for all. As is
the routine, we ask that you summarize these in a 5-minute
opening statement to give us plenty of time for questions.
Before we do, as is the practice of this subcommittee, I would
ask our witnesses to stand and raise their right hands and be
sworn in.
[Witnesses sworn.]
Mr. Putnam. Note for the record that the witnesses have
responded in the affirmative. I will introduce our first
witness, Mark Forman, Associate Director for Information
Technology and E-Government for OMB, a position he has held
since June 2001. He is the CIO of the Federal Government and
the leading Federal E-government executive responsible for
fulfilling the President's E-government initiatives. He has a
tremendous background in the public and private sector, and
will be invaluable to this subcommittee as we proceed with our
work.
With that, Mr. Forman, you are recognized for 5 minutes.
STATEMENTS OF MARK FORMAN, ASSOCIATE DIRECTOR, INFORMATION
TECHNOLOGY AND ELECTRONIC GOVERNMENT, OFFICE OF MANAGEMENT AND
BUDGET; JOEL C. WILLEMSSEN, MANAGING DIRECTOR, INFORMATION
TECHNOLOGY, U.S. GENERAL ACCOUNTING OFFFICE; PATRICIA MCGINNIS,
PRESIDENT AND CEO, THE COUNCIL FOR EXCELLENCE IN GOVERNMENT;
AND LEONARD M. POMATA, PRESIDENT, WEBMETHODS GOVERNMENT
Mr. Forman. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and members of the
subcommittee. Thank you for the opportunity and for the
gracious rescheduling of the committee.
The answer to the question posed in the title of this
hearing, yes, I think we are headed in the right direction. We
welcome your leadership and the continued opportunity to work
with you and the committee to strengthen IT and E-government.
We find that E-government is increasingly becoming the
principal means by which citizens engage with their government.
The September 2002 report from the Pew Foundation found that 71
million Americans have used government Web sites, up from 40
million in March 2000. We know the Council for Excellence has
been instrumental in documenting key elements of that.
The President sees E-government as part of a larger vision
for reforming government. The President's E-government
initiative through billions of dollars in Federal spending,
reduce government's burden on citizens and businesses, and
improve operations to accelerate government's response times,
often moving from weeks or months down to minutes or hours.
This administration continues to integrate and align E-
government with the President's other management initiatives,
budget and performance integration, strategic management of
human capital, competitive sourcing and improved financial
performance.
The potential for substantial improvement is greater if all
of these initiatives are pursued concurrently. For the E-
government initiative, the strategic question that we face is
how to maximize the results from the more than $50 billion we
invest in IT. Through E-government, conducting business with
the government becomes easier, more private and more secure.
Achieving our vision of three clicks to service requires
agencies to integrate and to simplify their operations, while
addressing longstanding IT management problems that include
redundant buying and IT security.
The administration's E-government strategy is a two-pronged
approach to IT reform: First, modernization within agencies
around the tenets of E-business, and then consolidating and
integrating IT investments across agencies around the needs of
citizens. The Federal Government has made significant progress
toward becoming a transformed and more productive E-enterprise.
The Presidential E-government initiatives consolidate dozens of
redundant agency-centered efforts. Twenty-four projects were
selected on the basis of the value that they bring the
citizens, while generating cost savings and improving the
effectiveness of government.
These initiatives reflect the administration's focus on
four citizen-centered groups. For individuals, we are creating
single-points of easy access to high quality government
services. For businesses, we are minimizing redundant data
collection and using commercial electronic transaction
protocols, while making it easy to find, understand and comply
with laws and regulations. For other levels of government, the
Federal Government is making it easier for States and
localities to meet reporting requirements and collaborate,
while promoting performance.
For internal efficiency and effectiveness, the Federal
Government is modernizing internal processes to reduce costs,
while facilitating the ability of government employees to do
their job. Significant progress has already been made on the
projects in the past year, including the launch of numerous
government portals. A recent achievements and next steps are
listed in the written testimony, and the E-Government At A
Glance document, which is available at the Egov.gov Web Site.
We also provided the committee with copies of Table 22-2 from
chapter 22 of the analytical prospectus of the President's 2004
budget. That summarizes the 24 E-government initiatives, the
recent accomplishments, the performance metrics, and the coming
milestones.
Agency IT investments continue to make the Federal
Government the largest buyer, as you noted. Table 22-1 from
chapter 22 of that prospective document discussed the agency
progress on E-government. Improvements have been attained
through IT management within the agency. Additionally, there
are specific agency initiatives that are highlighted in my
written statement. Three agencies improved their status score
on E-government from red to yellow since the baseline
evaluations in September 2001. I would recognize the Department
of Education, Energy and Veterans Affairs for their progress.
The National Science Foundation upgraded their status from
yellow to green, and continues to serve as a model for how
small agencies can successfully implement E-government.
Seventeen agencies also received green for their progress in
the first quarter of 2003, as listed in my written statement.
Specific actions need to be taken to address the chronic
problems. I listed many on the six chronic problems in my
written statement. Agencies must continue to address these
longstanding challenges in order to deliver measurable results.
I would like to highlight a few that we are specifically
focused on over the next 12 months. First, agencies are
required to take a comprehensive approach to reform. They have
to look at people, processes and technology, and how that mixes
together to deliver significantly better results. As a result
of lack of doing so or lack of including adequate security, we
put 771 projects, $21 billion worth of requested funding on
what we call a list of projects that are at risk. These
projects will be monitored throughout fiscal year 2003 and
agencies have demonstrated good progress over the last month.
OMB will allow investments on this list to move forward only
after agencies present successful business cases.
Second, the administration continues to work to ensure that
IT investments reflect consolidation around citizens groups in
long lines of business; that we reduce duplicative collection
of data from citizens, businesses and State and local
government; that we leverage enterprise licenses for the
Federal Government where appropriate; and that we reduce
surplus infrastructure capacity.
Third, a comparison of agency investment requests for 2003
versus what is reported as actual cost provides specific
demonstration that too many IT projects have cost and schedule
overruns. Not surprising, these same projects fail to
successfully make the business case and are on the at-risk
list. Over the past year, OMB required that all major
acquisitions implement an earned value management standard
based on a commercial standard. OMB also directed agencies to
have a program management plan and qualified project manager
for projects to be approved for spending, beginning with
October of fiscal year 2004 and thereafter.
Fourth, to ensure that IT security weaknesses are
appropriately addressed, OMB requires agencies to develop,
implement and maintain plans of actions and milestones for
every program in its system where an IT security weakness is
found.
The need for Federal Government enterprise architecture was
one of the most significant findings from the E-government
strategy effort. I discussed the five interrelated reference
models in my written statement. In constructing the 2004
President's IT budget, OMB employed a cross-agency approach.
This committee has strongly supported an effective IT
management practice, and OMB pledges the administration's full
support to employ these practices throughout the government.
There have been many concerns expressed about the funding
required to meet the goals and challenges of E-government. The
administration has sufficient funding for cross-agency E-
government projects if we simply stop funding what is redundant
or not working. In some cases, agency cultures and government
organization structures make it difficult to finance and manage
cross-agency projects. To help overcome this barrier, the
President included in his fiscal year 2004 budget a proposed
$45 million for the E-government fund. This seed money for new
and innovative projects and consolidating redundant information
technology investments is important. Indeed, as we are
successful in using the E-government fund to integrate
redundant systems, we can free up those same agency resources
to be spent on more productive ways to achieve the missions
that appropriated dollars are intended to serve. Thus, it
remains a key priority for the success of the E-government
agenda.
The administration has made major advances in E-government
over the last 2 years. The passage of the E-Government Act has
strengthened the mandate. Mr. Chairman, we look forward to
working with you and your colleagues to achieve these important
goals.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Forman follows:]
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Mr. Putnam. Thank you very much, Mr. Forman.
Our next witness is Joel Willemssen, Managing Director of
Information Technology for the U.S. General Accounting Office.
In that position, Mr. Willemssen has overall responsibility for
GAO evaluations of IT across the Federal Government. He has
been with GAO for 24 years and has appeared before
congressional committees more than 80 times. You do not look
any worse for the wear, Mr. Willemssen.
Mr. Willemssen. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Putnam. You are recognized for 5 minutes. Thank you for
being here.
Mr. Willemssen. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for inviting us to
testify today. Ranking Member Clay, Vice Chair Miller, as
requested, I will briefly summarize our statement.
As you mentioned earlier, Mr. Chairman, under the project
known as Quicksilver, OMB and the President's management
council have selected a strategic set of initiatives to follow
through on the President's management agenda. According to OMB,
the initiatives were selected on the basis of value to
citizens, potential improvement in agency efficiency, and the
likelihood of deployment within 18 to 24 months. The
initiatives focus on a wide variety of services aimed at
simplifying and unifying agency work processes, providing one-
stop services to citizens, and enabling information to be
collected once and re-used.
While several of the projects have achieved tangible
results, not all of them are making the same degree of
progress. For example, some have had major management changes
that have contributed to the delays in project milestones. In
addition, updated information that we have received from
project managers reveal that about half the initiatives had
changes in estimated costs exceeding 30 percent. Fluctuations
such as these indicate a need for a strong oversight to ensure
that the larger goal of realizing the full potential of E-
government is not jeopardized.
When we previously reviewed project planning documentation
for each of the initiatives, we found indications that
important aspects had not been fully addressed. For example, in
reviewing the brief business cases prepared to justify the
selections, we determined that while all initiatives included a
discussion of expected benefits, and all but one included a
discussion of the initiative's objectives, only nine of the
business cases discussed how customer needs were to be
identified and addressed, and only eight addressed
collaboration among agencies.
In addition, in reviewing the initiatives' work plans and
funding plans, we determined that four of five best practice
elements we identified were addressed in a majority of the
project plans. However, only nine identified a strategy for
obtaining needed funds. Further, 10 did not identify a final
completion date, and 6 were not expected to be completed within
the 18 to 24 month timeframe established by OMB.
Given these challenges, we have previously recommended to
OMB that it take steps as overseer of the E-government
initiatives to reduce the risk that the projects would not meet
their objectives. Specifically, we recommended that OMB ensure
that the managing partners for the individual initiatives had
performed the following steps: one, to focus on customers by
ensuring that input was solicited from them; two, to work with
partner agencies to develop and document effective
collaboration strategies; and three, to provide OMB with
adequate information to monitor cost, schedule and performance.
In following up on our recommendations, we have requested
from OMB updated business cases that were submitted as part of
the fiscal year 2004 budget process. These updated business
cases should provide more recent cost and schedule information,
and indications of whether key topics such as collaboration and
customer focus are now being addressed for all initiatives. OMB
officials told us earlier this week that the business cases
still, however, need to be reviewed before they can be
released.
Mr. Chairman, that concludes a summary of my statement, and
after the panel is finished, I would be pleased to address any
questions that you or the ranking member may have.
Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Willemssen follows:]
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Mr. Putnam. Thank you, sir. I appreciate your being here.
Our next witness is Patricia McGinnis, president and CEO
for the Council of Excellence in Government, a nonprofit
organization working to improve the performance of government
and engage citizens. Promoting E-government is one of its top
goals. Ms. McGinnis testified last year before Congressman
Davis' Technology and Procurement Policy Subcommittee, back
when the name was still manageable, providing valuable insight
on this issue just as we were marking up the E-government
legislation. Her candid views on the progress and challenges
since then I think will be very beneficial to the subcommittee.
We welcome you. Thank you.
Ms. McGinnis. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman and Mr.
Clay, and Ms. Miller.
I want to commend you and the entire subcommittee for your
leadership in focusing on this now and continuously to turn the
potential and promise of E-government into reality. The role of
Congress and your oversight function will be absolutely
critical in this area, not only to hold OMB and the Federal
agencies accountable for results, but also to assess and assure
the necessary and flexible investment of funds to make this
happen. It is not just the amount, but the flexibility, and we
will come back to that.
You gave a nice introduction of the Council, so I will not
talk so much about that, but the fact that we chose E-
government as a very high priority a few years ago really
reflects our belief that this provides a way to leap ahead to
better services and to connect citizens to government in a
powerful way. So it is a two-way communication, in addition to
offering information services and transactions.
The E-Government Act, as far as we are concerned, was
terrific--a great framework to move this forward. Certainly not
a final step, but a very good first step, reflecting the
principles and recommendations that we have made about the
importance of accessibility, ease of use, collaboration,
innovation, privacy and security, and focusing on leadership in
this strategic investment capability, as well as the work
force, standards for privacy security and interoperability, and
also access to the Internet--because until we have full access,
we really cannot realize the potential of E-government.
There is no question that the public is both interested and
engaged in this. This is a way of making government truly of,
by and for the people. Public use of government online has
risen steadily over the past few years, as Mark said, and we
well know. We have done a lot of work over the last few years
measuring public opinion and attitudes, and trying to
understand that, trying to bring that to the attention of
decisionmakers. We have a poll underway right now, one of the
series that we have done with Bob Teeter and Peter Hart, which
we will be releasing in the middle of April. I look forward to
giving you those results, because we are focusing on some very
timely and interesting issues related to the satisfaction that
people have with the quality of existing online information and
services; also their concerns about privacy and security,
particularly in the context of homeland security; and maybe
most important, their sense of future possibilities to organize
online interactions with government in a very integrated and
user-friendly way that goes beyond what is available now.
There will also be an international dimension to this
year's poll. We are doing public surveys in five other
countries, so we will be able to show some interesting
comparisons there; and also surveying Federal, State and local
leaders to get their perspective. So I think this will be very
helpful to you and we look forward to sharing it.
The most recent poll that we have made public, I included
some points in the testimony. I know you have had a chance to
look at it, but basically it says that people are going to
government Web sites in much larger numbers. They like what
they are seeing. They expect E-government to have a positive
effect on the way government operates. They think a high
priority should be homeland security, health and safety. They
are very positive about investing tax dollars in making
government services and information available online. They are
concerned about privacy and security, we know, and those
concerns have to be taken seriously.
So to paraphrase the slogan that we hear from the popular
music video channel--I hear my teenagers listening to it--
Americans want their E-gov. So that is clear.
The progress that we have seen in these initiatives, the 24
initiatives that Mark has talked about, I think has been
remarkable, despite the issues that have been raised by GAO--
and they are all absolutely correct. There is no difference of
opinion there. I know I, for one, when these 24 initiatives
were announced, felt that maybe they were taking on too much.
What I see now is a lot of progress. It is not even. Everything
is not where it should be, but these clusters of initiatives
around individuals, around businesses and around State and
local government, government to government, make a lot of sense
to me. Then the infrastructure, looking at the enterprise
architecture is absolutely necessary. So I think we are in a
good spot.
Not to say that we should be complacent. There are issues
to talk about in terms of funding and collaboration and all the
issues that Mr. Willemssen raised. But I just want to
congratulate Mark and the members of those Quicksilver task
forces for being very innovative, very flexible, and bringing
this a long way in a short time.
The examples--Mark has included some in his testimony--you
can pick out the stars here. Having those successes hopefully
will offer a pattern for the others to follow. FirstGov, for
example, which has improved dramatically since it was first
launched, is now a finalist in the prestigious Innovations in
American Government award competition, which we are pleased to
partner with Harvard University on. Not that it cannot be a lot
better, and we all have ideas about that, but it is really
state-of-the-art at this point.
The next steps for the 24 E-gov initiatives still hold the
key to actual meaningful results. We are not there yet, but the
public, businesses and government are clearly benefiting from
the early results in the stage we are now. The challenge is to
drive the implementation of E-government in a very strategic
way down into the agencies where leaders in agencies would
embrace and demand these tools for their own decisionmaking and
day to day management regimen. So it is not just the members of
the task forces and the CIOs and the people who have really
signed onto this, but it becomes a matter of course in the way
agencies are led and run.
The focus has to be on the citizens and businesses who are
both the customers and owners of government. I think it is not
just customer, it is also owner, and that is really important.
Active engagement between government and citizens is essential
to getting this right down the road. I would urge this
subcommittee to consider holding some of your oversight
hearings as public forums around the country, and to use the
technology so people can engage in this discussion not only in
person, but online. We have also recommended such public forums
to OMB and to GSA, so perhaps some joint legislative-executive
branch forums would make sense. We would be delighted to help
with that.
This phase of E-government has to be focused on
breakthrough performance and tangible results. The measures of
performance should include measurable, tangible items like
improvements in quality and customer satisfaction; improvements
in cycle time; cost reductions; and also the reduction on the
burden of customers of E-government, which can be quantified.
In looking at this and working with the public and private
sector, we see four critical success factors for E-government.
Sometimes we call them ``E-tensions,'' and they actually are
both, and that is why they are so important.
The first is that greater attention needs to be paid to the
governance issues. This is certainly not just about technology.
We need more collaborative models for identifying, funding and
managing cross-agency and intergovernmental initiatives. This
is not a natural act, collaboration. Even though we have seen
it in these Quicksilver task forces, it needs to be much more
widespread, and those models need to be shared.
Mr. Putnam. I hate to interrupt. If you could just run
through the next three and tell us what they are, then we will
get back into that with questions.
Ms. McGinnis. The second one is easy because it is very
related, and that is the culture of agencies. The third is the
human capital challenges. We need the right work force. Maybe
it is a smaller work force, but it certainly has to be a work
force with the right tools to do this work. Finally, and maybe
most important, is the need for flexible investment in E-
government and the infrastructure required. In that regard, I
would like to suggest that the appropriations process, in
addition to the way the funding is managed within the executive
branch, does present some impediments here. It would be
wonderful if you, who understand E-government so well, could
hold some joint hearings or have joint sessions with the
Appropriations Committee so that the risk and benefits could be
factored into that process as well.
Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Ms. McGinnis follows:]
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Mr. Putnam. Thank you very much, Ms. McGinnis.
Mr. Pomata, we appreciate you being here as well. Leonard
Pomata is the president of webMethods Government. He has been a
leader in the IT community for over 35 years, and has a
tremendous amount of industry experience, particularly in the
area of providing complex computer systems and business
solutions to our Federal Government, and has a wealth of
experience and knowledge in this area.
We welcome you and look forward to your comments. You are
recognized for 5 minutes, Mr. Pomata.
Mr. Pomata. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and members of the
subcommittee. It is an honor to be here before this committee,
which through the work of Chairman Davis and others, and my
fellow panelist Mark Forman have really brought the government
into the 21st century. Everybody here is due a debt of
gratitude from the citizens.
Let me state some principles, and I will summarize, that I
feel are important and fundamental to IT programs that are used
in the private sector and really apply to E-government
initiatives.
First of all, the driving force--and this has been
mentioned by the other panelists--is the customer. The customer
needs to drive the process and determine what is and when an IT
project is necessary and viable. That needs to be kept in mind.
For technology to be successful, well-defined outputs to
the customer, whether business or government, is an important
first step. All that matters at the end of the day is, has the
customer received the results in a timely manner and has the
project fulfilled the entire needs of the customer. To
translate that into the public sector, agencies should ask if
their customers, whether taxpayers directly or indirectly, are
gaining benefit from the project. That is at the end of the day
what needs to be measured.
In business, customers measure performance of IT projects
by return on investment or savings. The savings in government
need to be measured in either reduced cost of service or
increased service to their customer, whether that is internal
to the government and government to government, or to the
taxpayer. So we must ask how much value are we adding to their
work or to their personal lives.
We need to identify and commit in industry investments to
ensure that throughout the intended duration of a project that
an IT project will be successful. All too often, shortfalls in
this area lead to diminished capacity of the organization to
deliver, protracted schedules, and reduced delivery of
services. Unfunded mandates lead to undesired results. It is a
fundamental principle in business to stop underfunded projects
before the investment is wasted.
So the question to government is, we know what authority
and direction agencies have been given, but what have they been
given in terms of funding? Fundamental to the success of any
project is a well thought-out plan, and I think we have talked
about it before here, with rigorous milestones and incremental
measurable outputs. Modern IT development techniques allow for
continuous evolution of capabilities, rather than a single
revolutionary delivery. Project teams need to be fully trained
and the approaches need to embed measurement points in the
process to determine process. Management teams need to be
responsible and accountable to review the team's progress and
have similar measurement methodologies. Among the widely used
industry practices is the CMM, capability maturity model. This
is one way for an organization to measure the development and
progress of IT projects.
We also believe strongly in a team. That does not mean just
to share the glory. For instance, in our company we have one
mission, one overall objective, and it is not just an
conglomeration of independent operations. Therefore, the
question for agencies is also, do employees and officials see
their incentives as just advancing their own objectives of one
fiefdom, or are they committed to the success of the overall
mission?
The function of teams, obviously, is to have individuals
and units coordinate, cooperate and communicate as a team
across departments and organizations. A team must have a single
objective and a single leader. Otherwise, there will be
redundancy, confusion, roadblocks and frustration and poor
results. It would be a shame if good intentions are defeated by
avoidable lapses in basic communication and organizational
leadership.
Today's citizens, as we talked about, are not satisfied
with faxes and telephones and being on hold. They really want
to go to one screen and have results come up in real time and
not have to be put on hold on the computer as well, and to come
back a week from now to find their results. Therefore, agencies
need to ask, when a taxpayer comes to a portal, for instance,
can they get instant comprehensive information or are they
still put on hold?
Today for the first time, as you know, information services
can be delivered to anyone, anywhere on the planet at any time.
The Internet and the integration of departments, agencies and
information will truly satisfy this global vision. The E-
government initiatives will promise to fulfill this vision.
E-government really does not mean just putting a Web front-
end or a portal, but to improve the back-end. It also means
reevaluating, if necessary, reengineering the back-end so it
makes sense to deliver value. It also does not mean abandoning
legacy systems that work, but revising these systems and
revitalizing them in new ways by inserting new technology.
It also means instead of continuing to operate in a
stovepipe mentality, simple mapping of logical and efficient
overall business processes can lead to the facilitation and
connection of these functions and have a major deliverable
result.
In summary, priorities, commitment and leadership remain
the most fundamental ingredients to success or failure.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate being able to
testify.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Pomata follows:]
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Mr. Putnam. We appreciate you being here.
As is unfortunately too common in this process, we are
going to have to recess the subcommittee. We will go vote. We
have two votes, a 15 and a 5, so I presume that we are looking
at about a 30 minute recess. With that, the committee stands in
recess.
[Recess.]
Mr. Putnam. I reconvene the subcommittee hearing. We have
completed our votes. We want to thank everyone for their
patience and understanding. It is a heck of a way to run a
railroad, but I guess nobody has come up with a better way yet.
Without objection, all members of the subcommittee will
have 5 days to submit statements for the record. Objection?
Seeing none, show it done.
At this time, I would like to recognize our ranking member,
Mr. Clay, for 5 minutes of questioning.
Mr. Clay. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I would like to thank all of the witnesses also for being
here today, and I would like unanimous consent to enter my full
opening statement into the record.
Mr. Putnam. Without objection.
Mr. Clay. Thank you, sir.
Let me ask Ms. McGinnis, according to the Department of
Commerce report published last month, almost half of the
population still does not use the Internet at all. In addition,
for minorities and people of lower income, public institutions
like libraries and community centers are the only source of
Internet access. This means that the government must operate
dual systems--one for those who use the Internet and one for
those who do not. In your testimony, you emphasized the need to
redesign systems and take full advantage of these new
processes. How does maintaining dual systems strain the
intellectual and financial resources of agencies?
Ms. McGinnis. I am not sure I can answer that question in
terms of exactly what the cost would be of meeting the goal of
universal access. The E-Government Act did provide for another
study of the digital divide. I think that rather than
continuing to study this, it would make more sense, and perhaps
could be done in the context of that work, to set a goal of
universal access, say, within a certain period of time--5
years, whatever--or just say universal access. And then ask for
an action plan. What would it take to get us there and how much
would it cost?
I think that given what is happening with the technology,
the cost is likely to be much less than we envision now,
because there are lots of ways to access the Internet. Working
through libraries and community centers is one, but we have an
explosion of wireless devices. This is all happening in a way
that could lead and should lead to universal access.
Mr. Clay. Along those same lines, there also exists a
digital divide between urban and rural communities, not much
access to the broad band and Internet use in rural communities.
Would you also include in that study how we access to rural
residents?
Ms. McGinnis. Absolutely. As that goes forward, I would
encourage you, and we certainly will, to pay attention to that
study and see if it cannot be as practical as possible.
Mr. Clay. Thank you.
Ms. McGinnis. Thank you.
Mr. Clay. Mr. Forman, the electronic government bill passed
by Congress last year created the Office of Electronic
Government. On the White House Web site this is identified as
the Information, Technology and E-Government Office. There is
also an information policy and technology branch within the
Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs. How will these
separate organizations be staffed, and how will you divide
responsibilities between your office and those of the
information policy branch within OIRA?
Mr. Forman. John Graham and I have a very close working
relationship. The question is one that we are grappling with
and are working as we work through the organization chart.
Largely, my work is staffed by that information technology
policy branch. The person who leads that is a remarkable
individual, and the members of that team are truly remarkable.
When we look at the organization, there are a number of
policy issues. There are a number of technology issues. I have
as a political deputy Norm Lorentz, our Chief Technology
Officer. What I will probably do in implementing the E-
Government Act is maintain that breakout between the IT and
information policy, versus the technology era.
The only question, therefore, is whether that IT policy
branch gets re-coined and moved up under me, with a dotted line
to John, or stays with the dotted line to me, and has a direct
report to John, and we are working through that.
Mr. Clay. Let me also ask you, as this Congress considers
reauthorization of the Paperwork Reduction Act, should we
clarify the distinct responsibilities of the Office of
Information Regulatory Affairs and the Office of Electronic
Government?
Mr. Forman. There is an element within the Paperwork
Reduction Act that does need clarification because quite
frankly this job did not exist when that act was written.
Mr. Clay. OK, thank you.
Mr. Putnam. I thank the gentleman.
I want to begin with a couple of questions for Ms.
McGinnis. Ms. McGinnis, you mentioned that the E-government Act
was the first step, certainly not the final step. At this point
in the game, has enough time elapsed for you to evaluate any
gaps that may exist in the legislation and opportunities where
Congress will need to step in, need to correct some glitches,
or add to?
Ms. McGinnis. I think the biggest gap at this point is in
funding. The E-Government Act authorized much more than the
Congress appropriated for fiscal year 2003. I do think that is
a gap, because that management fund is the glue money, if you
will. This is not to say that our investment in IT overall is
inadequate. I am not sure that it is. The problem is that the
flexible funding for cross-agency and even intergovernmental
initiatives is not readily available. So I would say the
biggest problem at this point is that.
I do not think that going back to amend or change the E-
government legislation at this point really makes sense. I
think it is better to do what you are doing in terms of
overseeing the implementation and working to identify gaps over
time. But this funding issue I think is significant.
Mr. Putnam. Does anyone else on the panel have a comment on
the status of the legislation?
Mr. Willemssen. I would just add, Mr. Chairman, I would
concur that to the extent that you can allow some time to pass
to see what kind of implementation activities occur as a result
of the legislation. I think you in your oversight role are
going to be very well-positioned to see how well that act is
going to be implemented.
Mr. Putnam. Anyone else?
Mr. Forman. I would agree.
Mr. Putnam. Is there a mechanism in place for evaluating
who is visiting and utilizing these government Web sites--
FirstGov, Regulation.gov--the range of those that we have been
flashing up on the board. Has an analysis been done of who is
utilizing that, and conversely then, where the gaps are in
terms of reaching out and encouraging customers to use this
technology?
Mr. Forman. Let me say a couple of things about that. First
of all, under the Federal Government's policy, we do not use
cookies or anything like that that lasts beyond the session. So
for privacy purposes, we do not track who goes to a Federal Web
site and we would prefer to keep it that way.
That said, there are a number of organizations that track
Internet traffic, and they try to see who is coming to, for
example, FirstGov from Yahoo or Google or one of the other
search engines. Those are kind of what people call Web
analytics that we use to improve the quality of the Web sites.
The third thing that we do is focus groups, so that even
though we do not necessarily go out and survey people, there
are obviously some Web sites that do that, most of the big
initiatives both across agency E-gov initiatives or FirstGov
and some agency-specific Web sites have focus groups. They will
present to them new initiatives or new suggestions and test
them out. Sometimes these focus groups are ongoing and they
will meet once a month. Sometimes it is just when there is
something significant.
Mr. Putnam. Is there a marketing strategy for the Web
sites? I am struck by how outstanding the Kids.gov Web site
was. Do we market it to educators? Do we let teachers know
about it? Do we advertise in Scholastic News or Junior
Scholastic or some of the ways to reach these educators?
Mr. Forman. Generally in doing the business case,
especially when they are citizen-facing Web sites, agencies
have to not only say, we will get X amount of users, provide
this value to this group, but they have to identify the
critical success factors. Oftentimes, that is going to be what
is generally in industry called a channel partnership. Well,
government is not used to developing delivery channels. Both in
working with State and local government or going to rap on the
Web, so this is a new thing for a lot of organizations. It is
one of the taskings that we gave to the Office of Citizen
Services. It underlies a lot of the work at USA Services. But I
have to say this is a learning exercise still for most of the
agencies.
Mr. Putnam. Mr. Willemssen, I understand that GAO sought
updated E-government business cases that are being prepared for
the fiscal year 2004 budget, and that OMB agreed to provide
that information after the release of the President's budget.
Have you received that yet?
Mr. Willemssen. Not yet. We met with OMB officials on
Monday, and they indicated that they wanted to review those
business cases before providing them. They said they would try
to do that quickly. A specific deadline was not provided, but I
anticipate that we will be able to get them fairly soon.
Mr. Putnam. Mr. Forman.
Mr. Forman. There is certain data in the business cases
that we require which are a little unique to the government--
things like the acquisition strategy. In some initiatives, that
is procurement-sensitive information or it is protected under
other laws. So that is generally what is being extracted. From
our perspective, we told the agencies, the departments, it is
your job to figure out what is not appropriate to send, but to
communicate the business cases. There are certain things that
of course have to be communicated.
Most of the information that GAO highlighted in their
report has nothing to do with anything that is proprietary or
should be prohibited--things like performance goals,
performance measures, cost and schedule estimates and so forth.
So those should be forthcoming. If there is a hold up, I need
to be held accountable. I will track that down.
Mr. Putnam. We will.
Let's get into some of the numbers. Which of the 24
initiatives would you classify as being complete or nearly
complete, versus those in progress, versus those that are
stagnant or behind schedule? Let's start with Mr. Forman.
Mr. Forman. OK. I would first preference with the notion
that we started out after the E-government task force, and
having at that point 23 and then we added in E-payrolls, the
24th. Then we went to the managing partner and told them it was
their job to meet with their partners and put together a
business case. Here were the criteria for the business case.
The thing that we added in, versus the standard agency business
case, was a requirement to look at the value proposition for
the citizen that was being created. What we got back was pretty
bad.
So we had what we call partnership meetings with the
managing partner and the partners. We adopted an iterative
approach. The first iteration was to get up a Web site or a Web
tool that showed that as a team, they could do something that
would help citizens, and it was a visible mark that as a team
they could do something successful.
The second iteration was to get involved in the
reengineering. Sometimes it was identify standards. Most of
that will not show up at a Web site. The third iteration was
actually deployment, and the migration to that reengineered,
simplified or consolidated solution.
So what is actually there? What is close to that third
iteration? There are a few that actually are ahead of schedule.
For all practical purposes, you can say they are done, but they
have such energy now as a team. Those would be, I would say,
the recreation one-stop and the free file.
Mr. Putnam. What was the second one you said?
Mr. Forman. Recreation one-stop and the IRS free file.
Some have made it through the reengineering or they are
heavy-duty into the reengineering. They are grappling with, how
do we successfully define a migration plan? But they have not
done that. we will know they are done per se when we have
migrated off of the siloed agency approach and we have come
together around citizen needs.
Some of the ones that I think are on a decent path right
now would be, for example, the E-grants project. E-grants has
had some early--they promulgated the regulation, and like all
good government entities, when we have a reengineered business
process, it is not real until it goes out for comment as a
regulation, so that is done. But there are probably 9 to 12
months away from deploying that reengineered process. E-
payroll--the payroll consolidation effort--has pretty much got
an agreement and they have locked into a path for
consolidation. Today, they released an RFP for technology. So
they are not only ahead of the game, but they are accelerating
continually. It is that kind of snowballing effect that I am
looking at. I think those are some of the ones that I would put
in there. I think disaster management is back on track.
Which are the ones that I would say are not firing on all
of the burners that we would like to see them fire? The online
access for the loans, or the E-loans project, took a step back
to really flesh out a business case that was going to be
viable. So they are behind, but they have one of the higher
quality business cases right now, I would say.
The international trade process streamlining, where they
have the Web site out there. In fact, they have their tool out
there, and you were flashing it up. I have trouble finding that
tool. I know it is there just because I know it is there. It is
not the quality that we would like to see. Moreover, it does
not have the process streamlining that we would like to see.
The business compliance one-stop has some pretty neat things
there, but that, too, does not have the quality program
management plan that we are looking for to get into that next
reengineering.
So there are a number of these projects that we have had to
take some action, as Mr. Willemssen mentioned--restructure the
program, restructure the program office. I think those are
known and highlighted.
Mr. Putnam. Mr. Willemssen, do you have anything to add?
Mr. Willemssen. Yes, we have also identified several
success stories. I think they map to some degree to what Mr.
Forman said. A lot of these ones that have benefits are of an
informational nature, where they are providing information to
the citizens more quickly, more easily, and in a much more
accessible format. GovBenefits.gov I think is one. E-training
has gotten a lot of participation; also recreation one-stop,
which I think also Mr. Forman talked about.
Now, we should recognize that these informational-type
projects are easier to accomplish. You are putting the
information on the site and people are finding out everything
they need to know in one location. So it is not surprising that
maybe some of that low-hanging fruit we are able to capture
more quickly.
When you start talking about transactional or
transformational projects, they are going to take a little
longer. That is going to be a little more difficult. Any kind
of transactional project, we are going to obviously have to
talk about security and privacy. For transformation, we will
have to discuss the kind of issues that Ranking Member Clay
talked about before. You cannot just shut down offices and not
provide people with that kind of access, because they may not
have Internet access.
So I think there are still some challenges there. I give
credit to Mr. Forman for laying out an ambitious goal of saying
we are going to try to do these in 18 to 24 months. But in some
of these projects, they are probably not going to be able to
get 18 or 24 months. An example would be safe.com, which is
interoperable wireless transmissions among our public safety
officials. That is going to be very difficult to achieve. The
current timeline I believe they are looking to do a concept of
operations for interoperability later this year. That is just
the concept of operations.
So some of these projects are going to take a little
longer. It is understandable because they are much more than
just supplying information.
Mr. Putnam. Any other comments on that?
Ms. McGinnis. I think it might be useful to at this point,
with the experience, to map out sort of a schedule that some of
these would be on a faster track than others, so you could see
what to expect. The most important column in their chart to
look at all the initiatives is the next steps. Even in
GovBenefits, which I think is one of the very best, they have
not really achieved the result that they set out to achieve.
They have got eligibility information about 200 Federal
programs online so that people can find out what they are
likely to be eligible for, but the goal is to both include
intergovernmental programs, State and local, and also to allow
people to actually apply online. So just getting a better sense
of what that schedule might look like with this much experience
I think would be helpful to you.
Mr. Putnam. Mr. Pomata.
Mr. Pomata. I guess I would agree with that. I also agree
that all of these projects are not equal in terms of what the
payoff may be or the time to do it. Some of the larger projects
might even be the ones that are internal savings and
efficiencies--things like E-payroll, E-travel. Those are
probably greater payoffs in terms of, and I have not seen
specifically a business case, quite honestly--but in terms of
return on investment, in terms of reduced cost and higher
efficiency, internal to the government to provide service. But
there are probably larger projects and longer-term and a little
bit more complicated that need to be looked at on that basis,
but they do have a payoff. The citizen-facing ones might be a
little easier, but they are not all low-hanging fruit either,
so there is some difficulty there. But I think we need to look
at them as not all being equal in the context of how to get
these things done.
Mr. Putnam. Thank you.
Mr. Clay.
Mr. Clay. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Willemssen, in your testimony you have listed
performance measures for the Quicksilver project that is taken
from the President's budget. Can you give us an evaluation of
the quality of those measures? For example, many of the
projects use an increase in the number of Web site hits as a
measure. Is that a good measure of how well a Web site is
reaching its target audience, or should we also be looking at
the duration of those hits?
Mr. Willemssen. I think ideally you would want to initially
also establish a baseline of where the particular initiative is
at for hits, and then what kind of progress you want to make
over time. Then, as you mention, try to become a little more
outcome-oriented rather than just output oriented. To the
extent that there can be information garnered about the quality
of the interaction that the citizen had with the site, rather
than just ``I hit the site.''
Now, one method for doing that Mr. Forman touched on was
the concept of focus groups. That can be a useful guide. But to
the extent that there is a performance measure that is not only
just quantitative, but you can get some outcome and quality
measures in there too, I think that would be even more ideal.
Mr. Clay. Although if constituents are not satisfied, we
will hear from them, too, won't we.
Let me ask you another question. In some of the work GAO
did for the Government Efficiency Subcommittee last year, we
discovered that corrections to Social Security records did not
always get made to all relevant systems. For example, an
investigation of persons receiving benefits from a veterans
hospital turned up a number of active recipients who were
listed as deceased on the Social Security death index.
Subsequent investigation showed that the death index was
incorrect and that the errors had been corrected in other
Social Security systems, like the benefits file. Will the E-
vital performance measure of number of verified death records
address this kind of cross-system problem?
Mr. Willemssen. It can to the extent that the underlying
systems and data base structures are addressed. As Mr. Forman
pointed out, one of the objectives here is to try to enter data
once, and then re-use it, rather than entering data multiple
times, because in doing that you then increase the potential
for just the kind of issue that you talked about. So to the
extent that we can have a more unified data base structure and
a unified set of systems and a defined set of users, you will I
think get a much better handle at addressing those kind of
issues that came up previously.
Mr. Clay. I think Mr. Forman mentioned travel. One of the
Quicksilver projects deals with government travel. In the last
Congress, GAO documented serious abuse of government travel
cards for this committee. I do not, however, see anything in
the performance measures for this project that would address
those abuses. Is addressing those abuses missing from this
project?
Mr. Willemssen. The information I have on that work that we
have done, is that it has been focused on particular agencies
and the need for enhanced oversight and controls with their
existing systems. As OMB moves forward with this project, they
are going to have to incorporate appropriate controls within
it. I do not know at this point the specific details on the
controls planned within that particular initiative.
Mr. Clay. Perhaps Mr. Forman, could you address it?
Mr. Forman. Yes. Obviously, as I mentioned, things are
iterative here, but clearly one of the things that the E-travel
project has to look at and is looking at for future iteration
is this concept of some people would call it credit card-less
travel. We have contracts for airlines, contracts for cars, and
it is not that hard to imagine to a scenario of contracts for
the hotel. At that point, you are left with just per diem. So
there are a number of ways that we see some of the largest
companies deal with that. They do not literally give a credit
card to a person. The credit card is used for making that
electronic payment and doing the booking, but then you do not
have people doing nefarious things with the credit card.
So there are quite a few restrictions. That is clearly one
of the things that fits within the guidance for agencies to
look at. So we have asked for the E-travel project management
office to look at that as they look at the next iteration of
alternatives.
Mr. Clay. OK.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Putnam. Don't stop now. You are on a roll. [Laughter.]
I want to continue with the line we were on before. In
implementing Clinger-Cohen, agencies focused on the development
of enterprise technology architectures, which mapped the
agency's current IT architecture to a target IT architecture.
The E-Government Act defines EA's as modernization blueprints
for agency information technology. If you would, please
describe how OMB is helping agencies change those enterprise
architectures to support the new modern blueprint approach.
Mr. Forman. I think maybe the best example of this that I
saw when I first came in is we had the Treasury Department
brief us--I was maybe on the job for about 8 weeks--on their
enterprise architecture. It was a tremendous set of charts of
boxes, wiring diagrams and so forth. But I guess I kind of
think of the Treasury Department's role real simply--accounts
payables and accounts receivables. So given how much they spend
on IT, I asked, where can you show me how we are going to
improve accounts receivables or accounts payables? Accounts
payables obviously reduce error rates. Accounts receivable--we
ought to be able to account for everything that we are
collecting, and we do not have that accounting yet. They could
not tell me. They flat-out could not tell me how all the
technology was helping with accounts receivables or accounts
payables.
So we are having these discussions now as a result of the
E-Government Act and the scorecard with each of the CIOs to
focus on every department's two or three chronic management
issues, that relates not so much to what computers I am buying,
but why am I buying these computers. The modernization
blueprint, as a minimum, every department, every CIO, every
deputy secretary ought to be able to say, I am making this big
of an investment in IT to fix these two or three major
problems. And then the folks on the technology side working
with the folks on the operations side ought to be able to line
up and negotiate out those distinguishing investments.
As GAO highlights, that should show up. They should have a
management council, so you know they literally did get the IT
folks and the operational folks together, and they adjudicated
that discussion. Those are the types of things that we are
starting to see--the management frameworks, the documentation,
the business cases that back that up. That is what I would be
looking for.
Mr. Putnam. In creating that scorecard, how do you get
accurate information to sufficiently monitor those 24
initiatives?
Mr. Forman. Each week, we have portfolio managers that work
with each of the projects, and we update status against
schedule milestones. We put at a high level the key migration
milestones in the budget this year so that those would be more
public, in large part because this was something that was
highlighted by GAO, but also to get people to focus now that we
are fairly far along in these initiatives, that we have got a
joint solution. It is a joint solution, and we are going to
have to shut off siloed agency approaches and move to the joint
solution.
So I am looking for two things. I am looking first of all
for that E-gov initiative to clearly refine and make progress
on their solution, to get to those milestones. And then as we
look at the partner agencies, we are checking the business
cases. Literally, we get the business cases and align those or
overlay those against these initiatives to make sure that we
are not investing in redundant efforts. That is the fastest way
that we will be piecemealed is if we allow the agencies to
develop competing efforts. So it is a two-part approach--
working with the teams to make sure we stay on progress,
overseeing the agencies to make sure they are not off the
reservation.
Mr. Putnam. In bringing these together, you have
technological obstacles, logistical hurdles, and then you have
the people factor, the cultural hurdles. How well is the
culture changing in the Federal Government to make these
initiatives work and be successful in the timelines that you
have established?
Mr. Forman. Gee, I could use some performance measures for
culture. [Laughter.]
I will tell you, early last summer I took a look at all the
efforts resisting change, and I really think we passed a
milestone or we turned a corner last summer. I am not sure why.
Maybe somebody tried to get me fired and they were not
successful or something. I do not know what the benchmark is.
But I could literally place against the textbook, and the
textbook I use for this is called Evolve--it was Beth Moss
Kanter's, a professor at Harvard Business School. I could look
at who was doing what activity to resist change, and it was
textbook. So I have applied a lot of the textbook techniques to
deal with that resistance to change.
Some key lessons learned here, and I think the witnesses
have highlighted many of them. First of all, engaging the
President's Management Council via an E-government committee
was extremely important to us. It worked two ways. One, they
became the focal point for a lot of the issues and the high
level of resistance to change, and we could negotiate that out.
By the same token, they laid out some things that they wanted
OMB to do in adjudication as we went through the 2004 budget
process that would overcome the resistance to change. So by
them saying, for example, just as GAO had said, you have to
have a financing strategy and the table that lays out all of
the puts and takes by agency, what to expect their contribution
to be in 2003 and 2004 to these E-government initiatives. They
had resisted the financing strategy, but once we laid it out,
they said that agencies would comport to that. So those were
the types of things that we did.
Mr. Putnam. Mr. Willemssen do you want to add anything to
these?
Mr. Willemssen. To echo that the organizational, cultural
and bureaucratic hurdles that OMB faces in implementing these
initiatives should not be underestimated. Every agency ideally
likes to have their own system, because they often like to say,
well, you do not understand, we have unique needs that only
this particular customized system can meet. We hear that all
the time. The truth of the matter is, that is not necessarily
the case. In some instances, it is. In many, it is not. That is
why Mr. Forman and OMB, will be running into a challenge. This
is tough work to try to get supporting partners to say, OK, we
are going to buy in; we will be a supporting partner, and we
will use what the lead comes up with, instead of going ahead
with our own stovepipe approach and developing our own system
for our own parochial needs.
Again, in some cases those are justified. In many cases, I
do not think they are, and that is the biggest hurdle. I do not
think the biggest hurdle is technological. I think it is more
management and organizational, and to overcome that hurdle at
the agencies, you need top executive commitment behind where
the executive branch wants to go with these initiatives.
Mr. Putnam. Does that exist?
Mr. Willemssen. In selected cases, it does. I think it is,
as Mark pointed out, it is improving. But the key as to whether
it is really happening or not is what we see as the year moves
on as to whether these agencies are going to continue to get
funded for their individual projects and systems, which one
logical person may be able to say, why aren't you using this
other governmentwide approach.
Mr. Putnam. Mr. Pomata, what is your private sector take on
our cultural challenges?
Mr. Pomata. I think the commonality is that the private
sector has cultural challenges, too, as well, when change is
involved. I think the common goal approach is important. We
institute that in any change process, and that is there needs
to be a leader identified. Everybody has to know who the leader
is, and the goal has to be common, and it needs to be something
in the organizational as well as the individual level to see a
line of sight where they can affect the process. Sometimes that
gets lost, certainly down an organization. So individuals, the
management team, the individual contributors--we try to have a
situation where everybody can see their piece of making success
of the common goals. That seems to work, and I think it works
in industry, and I have been working with the government for 35
years of my life, so I see it from both sides, so to speak, and
I think that is something that can be successful as well.
One other comment on a process and uniqueness. I think that
happens in industry as well. When we go into an organization as
an implementer, we use a cots package. Every organization says
we look different, we need to make some changes. I think
industry has figured out that changing the process is easier
and less costly than modifying, customizing and making
something unique. I understand the government has constraints
that government does not necessarily have in terms of laws and
things, but I think that needs to be looked at. I think to some
extent it already is.
Mr. Putnam. Along those lines, a lot of work has gone into
determining best practices. In review of those, do you note any
major differences in best practices between the public sector
and the private sector?
Mr. Pomata. I think over the last few years with the
Clinger-Cohen Act and a number things that have happened, I
think that they have begun to converge. I think the government
has adopted the best practices that they found in industry, and
I think there is a cross-pollination, if you will, in looking
outside of government for practices that need to be used, and
for the most part and to a great extent, I think that they have
been adopted and are willing to adopt them. That was the other
cultural issue I think we have had for a long time, is the
adoption of best practices that were not invented here. I think
we have gotten for the most part over that.
Mr. Putnam. Let me try to bring this in for a landing. I
appreciate everyone's indulgence. On a scale of 1 to 10, with
10 being the highest or the best, where are we today in the
evolution of the E-government concept? We will start with you,
Mr. Pomata. I feel like we have left you out.
Mr. Pomata. You have put me on the hook immediately.
It depends. I say that not tongue in cheek. Overall, I
guess I would rate it in terms of expectations, and this is not
to diminish expectations, I would rate it in the nine category
in the context of these are major initiatives. They are
cultural changes we have talked about. There are some budget
issues. There are a lot of things that have to be done to move
this ball forward. I think all of us, and certainly speaking
for myself, would like to see things further along, but given
the magnitude of the problems, the magnitude of the kind of
initiatives that we have in place, I think there has been
significant progress made and significant things accomplished.
Hopefully, the next--to get from 9 to 10--does not take 10
more, as we sometimes find in doing things, in terms of
completing projects. I do not think that is the case. So I
think we are well along and it is being well managed. Things
need to be improved, as they always are.
Mr. Putnam. Ms. McGinnis.
Ms. McGinnis. I would probably go to the other end of the
spectrum, because I think we are just beginning here. So I
would probably give it a two or a three. But let me say that
when we ask the public to evaluate their experiences online
with government, they give very high marks. But I do not think
their expectations are as high as the potential, and that is
why my marks would be lower.
Mr. Willemssen. I would assess it in two ways--one,
direction, focus; and second, implementation. From my
perspective, direction and focus, I rate it very highly. The IT
investments chapter, for example, out of the President's 2004
budget I thought was a dramatic improvement, and hit all the
right issues. I think within the 24 initiatives there are a lot
of good projects that offer a lot of potential, and I think
more can be done. I think it is refreshing to hear that OMB is
willing to challenge the existing model and willing to say, no,
you cannot have that, to certain agencies. So I think overall
direction and focus I would rate highly.
Implementation I would have to rate as incomplete. I will
be in a better position to give you a rating on that once I see
updated information from OMB on where those 24 initiatives are
in focus on customers, collaboration strategies, funding
strategies, and whether individual agencies are going to
continue to go forward with their stovepipe projects.
Mr. Forman. In keeping with the tenets of the management
scorecard, I would probably give us a rating on status and a
rating on progress. I would probably give us a yellow on
status. We have made a lot of progress. There are measurable
results. But I would probably give us a green on progress
because the plans are clear, they are all known. There is
nothing being hidden I think from anybody in the agencies,
certainly. We were extremely articulate in the pass-back, the
guidance back to the agencies on what they were going to get
and what they were not going to get, and the fact that this is
a team-based initiative and they have to play with that. That
is why they either were or were not going to get funded for
certain things. We have the tools in place, the guidance is out
there in OMB A-11, and fairly far along on the EGO-VAC
implementation.
However, how a yellow and green translate into a 1 to 10, I
am not sure.
Mr. Putnam. I am not going to let you off that easy. I
guess yellow is a five. Is that in the middle?
Mr. Forman. Yes, I think that is fair.
Mr. Putnam. What does that make a green--a 10?
Mr. Forman. I would probably give us a 9 or 10 on progress.
I think what we are looking for on progress is that we are
covering all the right areas, and we have solid plans and
evidence that we are making that progress. I think that is
there.
Mr. Putnam. What can the taxpayers, the customers hope to
accomplish in terms of savings derived from the efficiencies of
a fully implemented E-government strategy in 5 years or a
decade? Is there a ballpark way of quantifying that, to anyone?
Mr. Forman. I think that savings is just one aspect. I
think productivity is the real key. The question, if you were
to take a look at the discretionary budget or discretionary
budget plus some element of the mandatories, and say what
portion do we devote to overhead and management, I would
probably apply commercial benchmarks to that, and say either
how much could we do at the current level in terms of the
productivity, the results of those programs, or could we do the
same level of performance as we are doing today at an order of
magnitude less cost in certain areas.
The reason that we maintain this has to be looked at from
the management perspective. There are some real pressures over
the timeframe that you are looking at. I would say that
probably the most constraining issue that is going to drive us
to really get a lot of E-government is the human capital issue.
There simply are not going to be enough government workers in
the Federal Government 5 or 6 years from now to do business as
usual.
Mr. Putnam. Anyone else?
Ms. McGinnis. I was going to say, rather than giving an
overall figure, I think the only way you can think about this
now is to take specific examples. If you look at, for example,
the difference in cost between even a toll-free telephone call
from Social Security and an online interaction, the multiples
are enormous. The potential for savings here, I think, is
absolutely enormous. It will not all mean less money. It may
mean the ability to actually invest in more services, better
quality services, the kind of work force that you are talking
about. But the potential is extraordinary.
Mr. Willemssen. I would just echo that. I think it is hard
to give a ballpark figure, but if you look at some of the
detail behind the individual initiatives, I think you can come
up with some good data. One example I would offer is E-payroll.
I would expect there is going to be tremendous savings from
going from 22 different processing centers to 2. In looking at
the OMB-reported performance metric on that, I think they are
focusing on the right thing--payroll cost per transaction per
employee. That is a good measure to see what kind of
improvement is going to happen when you go from 22 to 2. The
goal is I think to have that done by September of next year.
That is an optimistic goal, but to the extent they can do it,
they should get all the credit in the world for it.
Mr. Putnam. Mr. Pomata. Mr. Clay.
I want to thank our distinguished panel for their insight
and for their patience. I want to thank Mr. Clay. I look
forward to a number of other productive meetings on this topic.
As you know, this is just the first of many that we will hold
on maintaining our focus on E-government. I really see one of
the key missions of the subcommittee being to give good
oversight and ensure that the Federal Government is taking
advantage of every technology out there to increase efficiency
and improve customer service and transform that relationship
between the customer and the government.
Today's hearing certainly made clear we have a lot of work
to do, but that we are also on the right track, and have come a
long way.
I thank everyone for their hard work, and with that, the
meeting stands adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 3:51 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned,
to reconvene at the call of the Chair.]
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