STATEMENT OF SALLY KATZEN ADMINISTRATOR OFFICE OF INFORMATION AND REGULATORY AFFAIRS OFFICE OF MANAGEMENT AND BUDGET BEFORE THE SUBCOMMITTEE ON REGULATION AND GOVERNMENT INFORMATION SENATE COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS UNITED STATES SENATE DECEMBER 2, 1993 Mr. Chairman and members of the Subcommittee, I am Sally Katzen, Administrator, Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs in the Office of Management and Budget (OMB). I am pleased to begin what I hope will be a continuing dialogue with this Subcommittee, as we move forward to exploit the potential of information technology to improve the delivery of government services to the public. I appreciate your inviting me to be here today to discuss the National Performance Review and the goals and the strategies being undertaken by the Administration to use technology to improve delivery of services to the public. As your letter of invitation recognizes, the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs is charged under the Paperwork Reduction Act (44 USC 35) with providing leadership and oversight for the information resources management (IRM) activities of the Federal government. This responsibility includes monitoring agency activities under the Computer Security Act and the Privacy Act. Since I arrived at OIRA, we have taken several steps to improve the Federal government's performance in the information area. One of the most important projects is the revision of OMB's policy guidance on information resources management (OMB Circular No. A-130). We issued a revision of the provisions with respect to information policy on July 2, 1993, and a notice of proposed revisions of the provisions affecting government acquisition and use of information technology on September 10, 1993. In addition, in June of this year, OIRA began a project to improve Federal information management practices using the resources and talents of the principal Federal management agencies. To this end, OMB has joined with the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA), the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), the Office of Personnel Management (OPM), the General Services Administration (GSA), and the General Accounting Office (GAO) to sponsor a series of pilot studies and evaluations that, when available on a government-wide basis, will improve both the efficiency of the Federal government and its ability to serve the public. The Project has three basic thrusts, all underway concurrently.  The first focuses on short-term actions, already planned or in progress, sponsored by one of the participating agencies. By evaluating and publicizing successful information systems, the Project will illuminate models and practices that other agencies can use. This initiative seeks to take advantage of steps that can quickly be undertaken, using key agency projects as pilots for change. An example of a short-term pilot is OPM's efforts to reduce the time required to fill certain Federal job vacancies in high demand professions by allowing candidates to begin the application process using an "800" number via a touchtone telephone. Since going live in August 1993, the system has processed over 1000 applications for nursing positions. The application process has been simplified, taking less than ten minutes to complete, and it proved to be so successful that OPM expanded the system from 4 to 8 incoming lines. A customer satisfaction study performed as part of the pilot study shows that over 80 percent of the applicants find the system easy to use. Feedback from the applicants has resulted in several improvements being made to the system. Making the application more "user friendly" and responsive increases its attractiveness to candidates, resulting in a larger applicant pool. From the agency perspective, the revised process facilitates the screening and identification of potential hires. OPM is now working to develop an online access capability for agencies to screen applicants in near-realtime. Agencies have also expressed an interest in expanding the pilot to allow completion of applications for other positions over the phone instead of using the SF-171.  The goal of the Project's longer-term efforts (lasting 12 to 18 months) is to achieve measurable performance gains through fundamental changes in information management practices. This initiative also aims to evaluate and select the best prototype activities for use government-wide. New opportunities made feasible by technology advances will be identified and exploited. In several cases, these long-term projects involve several agency participants and cover a range of interrelated subjects. An example of an effort oriented towards improving the ability of the Federal government to provide service to the citizen involves sharing military records between the Departments of Defense and Veterans Affairs. Sponsored by OMB, this effort seeks to improve the interagency sharing and internal agency processing of information concerning service members. Important information concerning an individual's eligibility for veteran's benefits, including home loans, Montgomery student loans, Veteran's burial benefits, and Veteran's health benefits, is contained in Department of Defense records and forwarded, on a paper form, to the Department of Veterans Affairs for benefit administration. The initiative will explore methods to streamline this information transfer, which will, in turn, improve processing and awarding of veterans benefits. The Department of Veteran's Affairs is working to create a Master Veteran Record which would serve as a locator for the potentially diverse set of records maintained for service veterans and their dependents. The DVA has also established a Service Medical Records Center in St. Louis that is receiving service medical records from the Military Services, and is piloting a method of electronically sharing medical records between DVA and DOD hospitals.  The third thrust of the Project seeks to tie the short- and long-term efforts together. It is based on an ongoing GAO project to improve the Federal government's information resources management by identifying and disseminating practices from organizations that have proven to be consistently successful in applying information technology to improve mission performance. The target audiences for the results of this project are the highest-level senior decisionmakers in both agencies and the oversight community. Dissemination of the best practices will proceed in three phases. The first phase will concentrate on getting the general message out to the broadest possible audience through a combination of briefings, hearings, and reports. The second phase will focus on providing technical and managerial assistance to those agencies who wish to implement these practices. A complementary effort will involve the identification of several "model" agencies that are particularly interested in applying these management practices in pilot projects. This testing will determine whether the specific practices are workable government-wide. At this point, pilots and dissemination efforts will be evaluated for their applicability to other Federal agencies. The third phase will involve determining if laws or regulations need to be changed so that these practices can be implemented throughout the government, supporting these regulatory or legislative changes, and then coordinating the actions of oversight activities to ensure that agencies, wherever possible, are held accountable for implementing these practices. GAO is working closely with OMB and GSA on this project. National Information Infrastructure While OIRA has taken a number of steps to improve the Federal government's performance in the information area, the Administration has launched several bold initiatives. The first involves the National Information Infrastructure (NII). The phrase "information infrastructure" has an expansive meaning. The NII includes the physical facilities used to transmit, store, process, and display voice, data, and images. But it encompasses more than an ever-expanding range of equipment including scanners, keyboards, wire, satellites, and printers. Using software and services, the NII will integrate and interconnect these physical components through the efforts of a wide variety of private sector providers. In addition, beyond the physical components of the infrastructure, the value of the NII to users and to the nation will depend in large part on the quality of its other elements:  vast quantities of information that exist today in government agencies and the valuable information produced every day in our laboratories, studios, publishing houses, and elsewhere;  applications and software that allow users to access, manipulate, organize, and digest the massive amounts of information that the NII facilities will put at their fingertips;  network standards and transmission codes that facilitate interconnection and interoperation between individuals yet ensure the privacy of persons as well as the security and reliability of the networks; and  the people -- largely in the private sector -- who create information, develop applications and services, construct facilities, and train others to tap the NII's potential. The NII will be designed, built, owned, and operated by the private sector. But the Federal government has as important role -- to promote partnerships among industry, academia, non-governmental organizations, and various government components; to serve as a leader and a model in expanding the use of the NII; and, most importantly, to provide the policy and legal environment for full exploitation of the NII's potential. In order to carry out this work and to coordinate the Administration's efforts to formulate forward-looking telecommunications and information policy, the Administration has established the Information Infrastructure Task Force (IITF). The Task Force, chaired by Secretary of Commerce Ron Brown and composed of high-level Federal agency representatives, currently has three committees -- Telecommunications Policy chaired by Larry Irving, the head of the National Telecommunications and Information Administration; the Applications and Technology Policy Committee, chaired by Arati Prabhakar, Director of the National Institute of Standards and Technology; and the Information Policy Committee, which I chair. On September 15, 1993, the Administration released The National Information Infrastructure: Agenda for Action, which articulates clearly and, I believe, persuasively the vision for the NII. This document discusses in detail the promise of the NII, what it encompasses, the role of the government to make it a reality, the benefits, and many of the next steps the government will take, in partnership with the private sector, to help bring it about. Above all, it is clear that the development of the NII is not an end to itself; it is a means by which the United States can achieve a broad range of economic and social goals. National Performance Review A successful Federal effort to improve service delivery requires a government that can model best practices, administer programs efficiently, and develop effective policies. Reinventing government in accordance with the recommendations of the National Performance Review (NPR) -- the second bold initiative by the Administration -- is thus critical to all that we have discussed so far. Reinventing government is an enormous, complex undertaking that begins with leadership, not technology. However, information technology -- because it can help break down bureau and agency boundaries and offer new ways of serving the public -- can be a powerful tool for reinvention. The Federal government's track record in integrating IT into systems supporting its operations has produced some successes -- and some costly failures. Despite spending $25 billion in fiscal year 1993 on information technology, the Federal government has lacked the strong and effective leadership required to assure that it makes the most of these resources. Until recently, we have operated without a government-wide strategic plan or vision of the role of information systems in government and with little or no regard for possible connections among various Federal agencies, or with State and local governments. Without clear direction and support from the top, individual agency programs tend to degenerate into loose collections of independent systems solving unique problems and can result in automating -- rather than improving upon -- the existing ways of doing business. In the past, the oversight community -- OMB, GSA, Congressional committees, the Inspectors General, and the GAO -- has often aggravated this situation by focusing on such matters as the acquisition cost of individual IT projects, rather than their effect on program delivery. Instead, effective leadership should foster the analysis of work processes and the formulation of strategic plans that integrate information technology with agencies' missions. In fact, leadership is the first category of recommendations in the NPR report. The other categories, which I will also briefly describe, are Electronic Government and Supporting Mechanisms. Leadership The NPR makes two recommendations. 1) Plan for effective use of information technology throughout the government. This is part of the work of the (IITF). As previously discussed, this Task Force is responsible for developing a strategic vision for using information resources within the Federal government and developing strategies to improve the leadership and authority within agencies. As recommended by the NPR, we have established a Government Information Technology Services (GITS) Working Group within the IITF, as a part of the Committee on Applications and Technology Policy. The mission of this working group will be to promote the improvement of agency mission performance through the use of information technology and to improve information technology leadership within and across Federal agencies. The goals of GITS include:  Develop an implementation plan for the recommendations made in the NPR Reengineering Through Information Technology report.  Identify additional opportunities for and oversee follow-up on sharing information resources across agencies to improve program performance. James Flyzik, Director of Telecommunications at the Department of Treasury, is the chair of GITS. The GITS Working Group will include representatives of Federal agencies, including the Departments of the Treasury, Justice, Agriculture, Commerce, Health and Human Services, Defense, Housing and Urban Development, the General Services Administration (GSA), and the Office of Management and Budget (specifically its Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs). Other agencies will be included, as appropriate, for specific programs. GITS will consult with State and local governments to promote cooperation and information sharing and will make maximum use of existing interagency councils, working groups, task forces, and teams to carry out its objectives. 2) The second NPR recommendation under Leadership specifically tasks OMB to step up to its leadership role in IRM. It recommends that, in close cooperation with GITS and with GSA, OMB should use interagency teams, chaired by an appropriate program agency, to bring to bear the wide variety of expertise available to the government on common problems and opportunities. We have already begun this work through the establishment of an interagency Electronic Mail Task Force, chaired by HHS. We concur with NPR that such an interagency approach is well-designed to tackle several of the applications that will lead us to the next set of recommendations -- "Electronic Government." Electronic Government The second category of recommendations, which we are calling Electronic Government, ties most directly to the Subcommittee's interest in improving service delivery to the public. Both public and government workers must deal with an incredibly complicated array of Federal agencies, organizations, processes, and forms. The existing service delivery system is largely based on hierarchical design structures developed in the 1930's. The result is slow, inefficient service that often does not satisfy the needs of the public. You are all aware of the problem -- every week your offices handle scores of inquiries from constituents who are looking for information or who are not being well-served by their government. Information technology can be a key to providing more cost-effective and user-friendly government services. This will allow citizens broader and more timely access to information and services through efficient, customer-responsive processes -- thereby creating a fundamental change in the relationship between the Federal government and everyone served by it. We envision that the electronic services that support government operations will be a subset of the NII. Existing components include the computer systems that facilitate the payment of monthly Social Security benefits, the FTS2000 telecommunications system the Federal government uses for long distance voice and data communications, internal networks run by individual government agencies, and the wealth of data and information that the government makes available to the public. The expanded use of IT will enable us to integrate these components and create "virtual agencies" which give the public access to program information and services organized around service themes (e.g., entitlement benefits programs), rather than unique agency programs. To illustrate this concept, the NPR IT team chose seven cross-agency initiatives which NPR proposed implementing on a fully operational or pilot basis. These are key examples of the opportunities for improving government efficiency and effectiveness using IT and were highlighted because work is already in progress and they may offer significant payback opportunities.  Develop Integrated Electronic Access To Government Information and Services. Of all of the application areas mentioned in the NPR IT report, this one is of particular relevance to today's hearing. Currently, public access to government services is uncoordinated, cumbersome, and not user-friendly. If more than one agency is involved, an individual usually must go through two or more rounds of inquiries. One possible alternative is for government services and information to be accessed remotely from a kiosk located at a shopping center or public library, through a home or business computer, or via an "800" number. This would allow a recent retiree to go to a government service kiosk and get information about retirement, Social Security, or veterans benefits. The kiosk would request the individual's Social Security number and other personal information and then print out a summary of the individual's Social Security contribution, as well as the benefits to which she or he would be entitled as a veteran. Annuity distribution options would be included on the printout, as well as the rules governing earning income while collecting the benefits. Retirees could be asked if they wanted related information on retirement, information on senior citizen groups, or brochures on other events going on locally. Some work has been going on in this area for sometime. Later in this hearing, Fred Wood of the Office of Technical Assistance will discuss some of it in connection with OTA's report on the Electronic Delivery of Federal Services. But I believe it is important that you understand who has been involved and what has been begun in this area. Since information technology became a part of mainstream business practices in the 1970s, a steady stream of innovations has substantially changed public expectations about the quality of service received from government organizations. In January 1990, the General Services Administration (GSA) and OMB jointly sponsored a workshop to focus on the management on the government-wide IRM program of the future. The "Service to the Citizen" theme -- namely, efforts to respond to the public's expectations of service delivery using information technology -- arose in this workshop. In February of 1993, GSA published the results of its "Service to the Citizen" project, which studied ten Federal programs in three functional areas -- business loans, retirement programs, and mortgages. The overall recommendations can be summarized as follows.  Provide citizens more choices and easier ways of getting information and services. A key part of improving services is giving the citizen easier and better access to services and information. The most common technologies to do this include toll-free telephone numbers and fax machines. Other technologies that are just beginning to be used by agencies include bulletin board systems, kiosks, and smartcards.  Increase partnerships among Federal agencies. One way that the government could improve service is through increased interagency cooperation. As I discussed earlier, the public sees the Federal government as a single entity, while the reality is that agencies are structured along agency mission and organization lines.  Increase partnerships with local governments and other service providers. The public receives information from a variety of sources, including non-Federal sources. Federal agencies are beginning to look for ways to develop partnerships with others providing similar services and information to the public.  Improve internal management practices. Many service delivery improvements will result from better internal management. Eliminating redundant efforts, training employees, maintaining current and accurate information, giving employees better access to information, and improving the internal processing of information will improve service to the public. Currently, various states and municipal governments as well as several major universities -- the Kennedy School of Government and Syracuse University -- are also looking at applying technology to improve service delivery. At the Federal level, the Federal IRM Policy Council has a task force, chaired by the Department of Veterans Affairs' Bob Woods, promoting the "Service to the Citizen" theme. To develop additional information, the Federal IRM Policy Council asked Harvard University's Program on Strategic Computing and Telecommunications in the Public Sector to examine the use of information technology and customer service in the Federal government. Their initial findings were as follows:  The public sector is falling behind the private sector in the use of information technology for service delivery. Expectations for how computing and telecommunications will be used for service delivery are being defined primarily by private corporations. For example, financial institutions have destroyed the stereotype of "banker's hours" as a barrier to accessibility. Now, the expectation is that whenever customers call, they should quickly reach someone with all the information needed to resolve the problem.  Recent efforts to correct this problem are promising, but just the beginning. Leading agencies are using IT to improve the accuracy and timeliness of answers to questions, the costs per client served, the costs per transaction, and customer satisfaction.  The largest benefits to IT-based customer service will require data sharing and the fundamental redesign of government services and organizations. In general, IT makes it easy for data, once collected, to be readily reused. Benefits may be generated by data sharing, but society will need to make wise trade-offs among values related to service, privacy, security, and other concerns.  The primary obstacles to IT-based service delivery are organizational and political, not technological. Sharing data between two similar programs in two different agencies, for example, can result in a new division of labor and in new jobs and organizational relationships. All of this activity complements OTA's comprehensive study of this issue. The findings of this report -- that IT by itself will not guarantee improved access for citizens unless other factors are dealt with, that the management structure for Federal IT applications is outdated and needs to be redesigned, that our telecommunications infrastructure needs to take advantage of the options now available, and that Federal information polices must be updated to reflect the changes in our world -- fit well into the picture of "where do we go from here?" One project currently underway at OMB is to compile a comprehensive listing of projects and their current status to help get from "here to there." This project will:  create a comprehensive inventory of "Service to the Citizen" projects;  identify impediments to implementation that might require changes to public law or government-wide policy; and  increase information sharing among federal agencies on best practices and "lessons learned" by creating a list of exemplary projects. OMB will publish the results of its analysis in its annual Information Resources Management Plan of the Federal Government, before the end of this year. The rest of the NPR-recommended application areas, which are further stages in the implementation of electronic access to government information and services, tend to be more specific. They are the following.  Implement Nationwide Integrated Electronic Benefit Transfer (EBT). This recommendation would improve service delivery via electronic benefits transfer. This is an extension of an idea first popularized in electronic banking. Automated teller machines, plastic access cards, and bank-wire networks now are commonplace. However, provision of government benefits relies primarily on paper-based systems - such as checks, vouchers or coupons. In the Food Stamp program alone, there are over 26 million monthly recipients, and the government spends $400 million annually just to print, distribute, and, ultimately, destroy stamps. EBT adopts commercial electronic payment practices for the delivery of government assistance services, enabling benefits to be transferred electronically. In the second panel today, this Subcommittee will be hearing about the State of Maryland's EBT project. I would like to briefly give the Subcommittee a sense of what is happening at the Federal level. OMB created an EBT Task Force consisting primarily of representatives from OMB, USDA, HHS, Treasury, and Education, with other agencies participating as needed. The Task Force, under the direction of the Vice President, will assess the ability of a nationwide EBT system to enhance the quality of service to beneficiaries and to improve the efficacy, efficiency and security of benefit programs. The Task Force initially consists of four work teams, examining issues related to the development and operation of a national EBT network, including the following: banking and financial services, program integration, budget and finance, and communications (including outreach to both users and retailers). A report, to be delivered to the Vice President in March, will detail government-wide EBT goals, performance standards, and implementation schedules. Specific tasks include development of a uniform nationwide EBT operating environment (including identification of settlement services and operating rules) and evaluating the potential for prototyping a multi-state basic service EBT system by early 1996. Following an assessment of its performance and cost-effectiveness, this prototype system could be expanded to include additional geographic regions and benefit/welfare programs. OMB will be a leader and coordinator, eliminating redundant efforts, ensuring efficient use of resources, and resolving issues that adversely affect achievement of project goals.  Establish a National Law Enforcement/Public Safety Network. Whether responding to a natural or technological disaster, or performing search and rescue activities, Federal, State, and local law enforcement and public safety workers must be able to communicate with each other effectively, efficiently, and securely. Presently, there are dozens of independent networks serving every metropolitan area in the country. Federal, State, and local law enforcement and public safety officials operate on their own radio frequencies and often cannot communicate with one another. Indeed there may be several independent network control centers operating in the same building with no interoperation. This must change! Over the next ten years, these systems must be replaced with new, digital, narrowband technology to meet the need for spectrum efficiency. Now is an opportune time to plan a coordinated effort to solve the interoperability problems of the past. Thus, if an earthquake hit part of the U.S., local, State, and Federal agencies -- including fire and police units, state highway units, and National Guard and Department of Defense units -- could be called to the scene. Even though they come from different jurisdictions, the units could coordinate easily because they would share a common communications system. As a result, emergency services could be dispatched where needed, lives saved, and property loss reduced.  Provide Intergovernmental Tax Filing, Reporting, and Payments Processing. Currently, the public prepares and submits the same financial data to a large number of different Federal, State, and local entities. This duplication should be minimized as much as possible. This will allow a business owner to file wage information only once, rather than submitting the same employee financial data to several different agencies and levels of government. Additionally, this will enable more emphasis to be placed on reconciliation before the fact rather than report enforcement after the fact.  Establish an International Trade Data System. Forty agencies collect and use trade data for analysis and import-export processing. Information about shippers, bills of lading, types of cargo, exports, imports, duties, favored nation consideration, and a host of information throughout government and private industry must be integrated into a cohesive system. This integration would allow a business which operates in a specialized market -- such as importing tropical fruits and vegetables -- to offer a greater variety of produce since the trade data system will eliminate duplicative import forms and allow speedy preclearance of international exports and imports.  Create A National Environmental Data Index. Environmental data and related information are collected by a large number of Federal agencies -- the Department of Interior, the Environmental Protection Agency, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration of the Department of Commerce, and others. However, finding these data is some time very difficult. Policy development is often ad hoc due to the dispersed, uncoordinated approach to collecting national and world data. Scientists, academics, and the public often do not know where the data are. An index would allow a prospective home buyer to go to her local library and locate information about the statistical probabilities of major storms and floods in various areas. She could also retrieve information about relative heat, humidity, pollution, and pollen counts.  Plan, Demonstrate, and Provide Government-wide Electronic Mail. Electronic Mail (e-mail) is a way to foster quick, efficient, means of coordination on an intragovernmental and intergovernmental basis. It provides rapid communication among individuals or groups. Workers in any part of an organization, within a building or throughout the world, can use e-mail for easy, rapid interaction. Electronic mail and messaging among Federal agencies must be improved. This would allow a local personnel counselor not familiar with a particular job category to send an e-mail message to an expert in another office. A few minutes later, the counselor can share a detailed reply with a jobseeker. As noted earlier, in June of this year, OIRA established an interagency planning task force to improve electronic mail and messaging among Federal agencies. This task force will work to establish a government infrastructure for interagency electronic mail. Eventually this will allow for such mail-enabled applications as electronic tax filing, electronic commerce, and interaction with State and local governments. In the spirit of the NPR's leadership recommendations, HHS is chairing the task force, with dedicated support from GSA. The milestones for this task force are to be completed by April 1, 1994, and include the following.  Request for Information (RFI) to industry.  Evaluation of initial results of existing electronic mail pilots.  Near-team program plan options for improving government-wide electronic commerce.  Long-term strategies for interconnectivity improvements. Supporting Mechanisms The third category of NPR recommendations address supporting mechanisms for electronic government. Government business requires an information infrastructure. This infrastructure consists of the technologies needed to allow information to flow smoothly, as well as the operational policies, procedures, and standards that support the various applications. In addition to a clear call for establishing the technology component of the NII, the NPR report includes the following recommendations:  Develop Systems and Mechanisms to Ensure Security and Privacy. In order for electronic government to work, individuals must have confidence in its respect for privacy and security protection. This Committee has long recognized the importance of assuring the security of automated information systems. As we develop electronic government, we will need to assure that the mandate of the Computer Security Act -- to protect information commensurate with the risk and magnitude of loss or harm that could result -- is fulfilled. Implementation of these recommendations will not only contribute to improved security, but can offer new opportunities to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of electronic government itself. For example, the use of a digital signature standard to authenticate the originator of electronic transactions will allow many transactions that currently require paper signatures, such as the filing of income tax returns and the submission of contract proposals, to be safely carried out electronically. Addressing citizens' privacy concerns in developing an information infrastructure is no less important than addressing security concerns. Americans are becoming increasingly concerned about threats to their privacy resulting from wider use of information technologies to collect, maintain, manipulate and share information. The perception is that existing statutory and regulatory protections are lagging behind the development and use of new technologies. Many other countries have created national commissions or boards to focus attention on and engage in public debate over privacy and technology issues. The United States has no counterpart. As a result, trade conflicts and issues may arise when U.S. businesses find they must deal with the privacy laws of other countries which may work to the disadvantage of American business.  Improve Methods of Information Technology Acquisition. Unlike the private sector, most government IT acquisition processes involve excessive layers of management oversight and regulatory rigidity. These add to acquisition costs and often result in the acquisition of old technology.  Provide Incentives for Innovation. In order to promote innovation, the government needs to reinvent its funding of IT and its relationships with the IT industry. Agencies must be encouraged to experiment and accept managed risks which are inherent in innovation. Agencies, the IT industry, and the public will benefit from funding mechanisms and contract terms that encourage the continual introduction of innovative IT solutions which will make government more responsive. Four NPR recommendations are intended to foster the innovative use of IT in and among agencies by overcoming fiscal, procedural, and cultural barriers and by providing opportunities for creative partnerships between the government and the IT industry: 1) Retain a portion of agency IT savings for reinvestment. 2) Promote performance-based contracting for IT. 3) Use multi-year funding for agency IT projects. 4) Establish a government-wide venture capital fund for innovative IT projects.  Provide Training and Technical Assistance In Information Technology to Federal Employees. Every year increasing numbers of Federal workers use IT skills and knowledge in performing their jobs. However, many members of the Federal workforce lack sufficient training and background to use new technologies effectively, and many managers fail to realize the importance of IT training. Compared with private industry, the Federal government invests few dollars and little time in IT training and retraining. Without this investment, the Federal workforce is unable to keep pace with the rapid changes in technology and improved methods of customer service. With these two important Administration initiatives underway - the NII and the NPR -- the seeds of change have been sown. Nurturing this growth will require resources, expertise, and a new partnership among OIRA, GSA, NIST, NARA, the operating agencies, and Congress. These initiatives demonstrate the Administration's commitment and innovation in this very important area. The use of information technology requires both a clear vision of how government can benefit from technology to change the way it does business, and a commitment to making the vision a reality. The NII and the NPR are the vision, and the President and the Vice President are committed to seeing that vision through. This is a very exciting time. The government of a few years from now will be very different than today's, and effective use of IT will be integral to that change. I look forward to working with this Subcommittee as we help create the government of the future.