OMB Unveils E-Gov Initiatives

The Office of Management and Budget released its list of 23 e-government initiatives this week with projects ranging from tax filing for citizens to international trade processing for businesses.

The 23 projects were culled from about 269 projects that were suggested to OMB and its e-gov task force. OMB has grouped the projects into four categories: government to citizen, government to business, government to government and internal effectiveness and efficiency.

The projects should be deployed in the next 18-24 months. Each project has a managing partner or agency that will oversee its development. The initiatives cut across many federal agencies and include partnerships with state and local governments.

"We now have an action plan and roadmap to e-government," said Mark Forman, executive director of the task force established in August to develop the initiatives. Forman is OMB's associate director for information technology and electronic government.

The e-gov strategy is part of President Bush's management agenda to improve government effectiveness, efficiency and customer services.

The projects will use Internet-related technologies to accelerate and streamline service delivery to citizens, reduce paperwork burdens on business, improve management and responsiveness of joint federal-state-local programs, and apply commercial best practices to improve government operating efficiency. Several initiatives will focus on computer security, disaster response, and intergovernmental communications for public safety.

The projects and managing partners are:


Government to citizen

* USA services ? GSA

* EZ tax filing ? Treasury

* Online access for loans ? Education

* Recreation one stop ? Interior

* Eligibility assistance ? Labor


Government to business:

* Federal asset sales ? GSA

* Online rulemaking management ? Transportation

* Simplified and unified tax and wage reporting ? Treasury

* Consolidated health informatics ? HHS

* Business compliance one stop ? Small Business Administration

* International trade process streamlining ? Commerce


Government to government

* e-Vital ? Social Security

* e-Grants ? HHS

* Disaster assistance and crisis response ? FEMA

* Geospatial information one stop ? Interior

* Wireless networks ? Justice


Internal effectiveness and efficiency

* e-Training ? Office of Personnel Management

* Recruitment one stop ? OPM

* Enterprise human resources integration with eTravel ? OPM

* Integrated acquisition ? GSA

* e-Records management ? National Archives and Records
Administration

* Enterprise Records Management - Justice Department

Cross-cutting

* e-authentication - GSA