Industry hears White House e-gov plea

Information technology companies are preparing to deliver a series of white papers to the White House detailing some of their best practices in providing e-government solutions to federal, state and local agencies.The papers come in response to a Bush administration appeal to state government and the private sector for advice on how to proceed with two dozen major federal e-government initiatives that will be rolled out over the next two years. Mark Forman, the White House e-government czar, told state chief information officers at their midyear conference last month in Denver that the federal government is counting on them to help implement the government-to-government initiatives, which make up about one-fourth of the 24 projects.At the same time, industry is taking an active role in shaping various initiatives through teams established to share best practices through the Federation of Government Information Processing Council's Industry Advisory Council, an organization that facilitates networking between the public and private sectors. So far, the private sector has formed teams under the auspices of the council to offer best practices for 10 of the 24 federal e-gov initiatives, said Alan Balutis, FGIPC's executive director and chief operation officer. "[Industry] decided it would be important, rather than just bombarding each of the managing partners, to do some work that shows what the best practices are for that type of initiative," Forman told Washington Technology. "For the $45 billion that the federal government spends annually on IT, we should be getting the best practices from industry." Some of the industry best practices teams will publish white papers to help agencies managing the projects, while other teams are just getting started on their efforts, said Cathy Hirsh, a vice president with the public sector group of American Management Systems Inc., Fairfax, Va. Regarding industry's efforts, Forman said: "This is a bid to show that they got the message and are making best practices available to us, even when it is not in their [immediate] financial interest."Since the 24 e-government initiatives were chosen from a field of 350 in October 2001, Forman, the Office of Management and Budget's assistant director for information technology and e-government, has been marshalling the intellectual resources of government and industry for the effort. The initiatives are divided into four groups: government to citizen, government to business, government to government and internal efficiency and effectiveness. In addition, there are several other initiatives important to state and local government that focus on barriers to government. Each initiative has a near-term, mid-term and long-term deployment plan, Forman said. Many of the initiatives include the term "one-stop" in their title, implying that a user will need to go to just one Web site to obtain all the services the initiative entails.For example, when fully implemented, the government-to-citizen initiative known as eligibility assistance online will enable users to visit one Web site, govbenefits.gov, for information from more than 300 different government eligibility programs, Forman said. The site went live April 29. Bob Campbell, global senior partner of public sector for Deloitte Consulting of Austin, Texas, said his company would like to take its state and local e-gov projects to federal agencies. The company has assisted with e-gov services projects in California and Michigan. "We believe that it is a growing market," he said regarding e-government. "It is an area in which we have been investing and will continue to invest." Forman traveled to the National Association of State CIOs midyear meeting in April bearing the message that it is in the mutual interest of federal and state government officials to ensure all the federal e-services initiatives succeed. He asked state technology officials for help with project development, businesses cases and governance matters for the intergovernmental initiatives.States have been involved in the process since it began last year when they helped federal officials narrow down the list of initiatives, said Arun Baheti, California's e-gov director.State CIOs will have direct input into the planning and implementation of the intergovernmental initiatives through the Federal CIO Council and similar intergovernmental efforts, said Matthew Trail, assistant director of NASCIO of Lexington, Ky. Although Forman asked states to help specifically with the intergovernmental initiatives, he conceded that they also are integral to the success of the government- to-citizen initiatives. Balutis agreed. He said state officials believe their involvement is just as important in government to citizen, internal efficiency and effectiveness as it is in the intergovernmental area. "States are very attuned to this issue," Balutis said of e-government. Many of the lessons learned from state e-gov projects are applicable to federal e-government, Hirsh said. AMS, for example, is sharing best practices it developed from e-gov projects in New Jersey and Virginia. Baheti said the most important thing the federal government can do to help states is issue national standards in needed areas, such as geospatial data, information systems architecture, XML and wireless communications. "The federal government is in the perfect position to help us," he said, referring to standards. Company officials and industry observers are skeptical whether the federal government can meet its schedule for implementing the 24 initiatives with the current funding level, but Forman said more funding may not be required for many initiatives because they will be performed as part of existing projects. While the managing partners for some of the initiatives may issue requests for proposals to construct a new portal or to integrate various applications, in other cases the government will simply outsource the work, he said."There will be some new [projects], but generally what we're seeing is one or two of the companies that are already hired under some of the [existing] agency initiatives are stepping up to provide that service," Forman said. "My sense is that if we go the business process outsourcing route, it will comply with the standards we've already laid out," he said.Still, industry officials are optimistic that the initiatives will generate some projects worth pursuing.XXXSPLITXXX-OMB's Mark Forman has appealed to state chief information officers for assistance with seven e-government initiatives. They are:Vision: Find, apply and manage federal grants at a single portal and facilitate the quality, effectiveness and efficiency of operations for grant makers and recipients. Objectives: Pilot a simple, unified way to find federal grants via the Web by July 1. Establish a unique, single identifier for federal grantees by Sept. 1, 2003.Vision: Create a networked infrastructure for simple, common and appropriate access to vital statistics information.Objectives: Find five additional states to participate in the pilot program by Oct. 1. Identify opportunities to use vital records to reduce benefits fraud and erroneous payments in both federal and state programs by Dec. 31.Vision: Provide access to the federal government's spatial data assets via a single location and develop a set of standards for critical data layers. Objectives: Identify federal inventories of critical data layers by Sept. 30. Web mapping and spatial data access services as proof of the concept by Sept. 30.Vision: An authoritative one stop for end-to-end information and services related to disaster management. Objectives: Develop and deploy initial capabilities for portal by Aug. 1. Secure environment to conduct information sharing and secure transactions by April 30, 2003.Vision: Achieve interoperability and eliminate redundant wireless infrastructures among public safety agencies at all levels of government. Objectives: Have an integrated public safety response solution addressing the top two threat scenarios by Sept. 30. Intergovernmental gap analysis of existing inventories of public safety wireless communications by Dec. 31.Govbenefits.gov (Eligibility Assistance Online)Vision: An online tool that directs citizens to benefit programs across the federal government. Objectives: Release online screening tool for 20 benefit programs April 30. Online screening tool for 100 benefit programs by Sept. 30.Vision: Information and tools that will help citizens understand compliance and application of laws and regulations. Objectives: Pilot a content management tool for Businesslaw.gov by Aug. 1. Prototype seamless intergovernmental licensing and permitting tool by Nov. 30.