IT gets a bump up in 2012 proposal
The Obama administration is taking on several initiatives to keep IT projects in line with its goals as it introduces its fiscal 2012 budget proposal.
Spending on IT gets a 1.9 percent boost in the proposed budget President Barack Obama released today. The fiscal 2012 proposal pegs total IT spending at $79.5 billion.
The administration's proposed increase compared with fiscal 2010 levels comes as the administration has worked to cut spending and eliminate failed IT projects. Officials have tackled problematic IT projects and reduced $3 billion in spending on them. The administration is also taking on several initiatives to keep IT projects successful.
Among the proposed cuts that will impact government contractors is a goal of reducing spending on advisory services contracts by $2 billion in 2012.
White House officials plan to align budget cycles and buying time to purchase IT because agencies now struggle with an appropriations process that can take years while technology moves much faster.
The administration wants to reconstruct agencies’ investment review boards to help streamline operations and hold officials accountable. The IT Investment Review Boards will be remade as vehicles for effective governance, officials said.
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Network of experts embodies government by the people
The administration also told agencies to develop an evidence-based culture when reviewing programs and said officials must begin to make decisions about programs and policies using information collected in a timely and consistent way. Officials must use data-driven reviews of their programs, and the reviews will help agencies stay on course to reach their highest-priority goals.
“Government works better when organizational leaders identify a limited number of clear, measurable and ambitious goals and regularly review progress toward them,” the budget states.
To help solve problems, officials need to establish stronger networks by contacting experts in related fields, such as through the online ExpertNet wiki, the budget states.
More broadly, the budget would freeze domestic spending for the next five years, and Obama proposed to again freeze salaries for federal employees “because everyone has to do their part,” he president said in his weekly address.
The budget contains more than 200 terminations, reductions and cost savings that would total more than $33 billion for fiscal 2012. Half of all agencies would see their top line reduced from 2010 enacted levels.
“We need to do this on a bipartisan basis," Jacob Lew, director of the Office of Management and Budget, said in an online video recorded last weekend. "There is no one side that has all the answers."
While Obama looks to cut back on government spending, House Republicans last week offered their own proposed cuts they plan to add to a continuing resolution, which will keep the federal agencies running through September.