OMB: Agencies progress on president's e-gov agenda

In the last four months, 16 agencies, led by the National Science Foundation, have made significant progress toward President Bush's e-government goal, the Office of Management and Budget said July 15.

OMB released a midyear report card showing agencies' status toward meeting the five goals laid out in the president's management agenda. The report card comes five days after Bush sent a memo to department chiefs commending agencies who have actively engaged in e-government and urging those who have not "to follow their lead."

OMB evaluated the 26 major agencies using a green, yellow and red scoring approach. Green means agencies have met all standards for success, yellow means agencies have achieved some but not all the criteria, and red means there are some serious problems.

Each agency received two grades for each category. One grade measured progress in recent months in implementing the president's management agenda. The other grade measured status in achieving the overall goal.

Most agencies fell far short in status, receiving red or yellow scores. Nevertheless, many of these same agencies received green scores for their progress toward achieving the president's goals.

Agencies showed the most progress in the e-government and financial management areas. OMB gave 16 green and 10 yellow scores under e-government and 16 green, nine yellow and one red under financial management.

Agencies showed less progress under the other subjects: 12 green for human capital, 13 green for competitive sourcing and nine green for budget and performance integration.

For e-government efforts, only NSF improved its status, moving to green from yellow. It had already received a green score for financial management when OMB issued the first round of scores in February. OMB said the agency met "all of its core criteria" and developed "a process to implement corrective action plans for program level information technology security weaknesses."

"The federal CIO Council had strategic planning offsite in April, and we committed to making major progress on the 24 e-government initiatives over the next 12 months and helping each other through cross-agency budgets," said Mayi Canales, co-chairwoman of the CIO Council's E-government Committee and acting CIO of the Treasury Department. "You will find at the CIO level a continued planned progression toward green."

OMB's scorecard can be found at www.whitehouse.gov/omb/budget/fy2003/score1.html.