OMB to clarify role of CIO

By Jason Miller
Executive Editor
FederalNewsRadio

Nearly 12 years after the Clinger Cohen Act, the Office of Management and Budget is giving a reminder of the importance of technology and the role of the chief information officer.

In a memo due to be released around Oct. 20, the administration will ask agency heads to verify in writing to OMB that they have implemented the information technology governance framework detailed in the new document.

“This is a reminder to agency heads that IT needs to be managed through the transition and on an ongoing basis,” says Karen Evans, OMB’s administrator for e-government and IT at a lunch sponsored by AFFIRM in Washington Tuesday. “IT is managed differently in every agency. The goal is to have more consistency across the government.”

Congress passed the Clinger-Cohen Act in 1996. It established the CIO position in the major agencies, the CIO Council and several other IT management requirements.

Former CIOs and other government observers long have complained how agencies have implemented the law. Some say CIOs are not given enough influence in agency decisions.

Evans says the CIO Council requested OMB address this issue, in part to prepare for the next administration.

“The memo attempts to clarify the framework so that it is clear what the responsibility of the CIO is and authorities the CIOs believe they need to have going forward to ensure their programs run in a comprehensive way in each of the departments,” Evans says. “We thought now is the time to put the governance framework in place to say here is the current state of affairs so the next administration doesn’t have to start from the beginning.”

OMB is modeling the memo after one DHS secretary Michael Chertoff signed off on in March 2007.

The DHS memo gave its CIO budget authority and oversight over the hiring and pay raises of bureau level CIOs.

OMB’s version doesn’t get into budget authority, but does address acquisition and human resources as it relates to bureau level CIOs.

Evans says OMB will not require department CIOs to hire component CIOs. The decision of how much authority the department CIO receives in this area is up to the agency head, Evans says.

One CIO, who requested anonymity because the memo is not yet final, says there is some concern about this language. The CIO says it could give headquarter CIOs too much influence over the bureaus.

Evans says she has heard these concerns and believes the memo addresses them.

“There is one CIO who is responsible according to statute,” she says. “How that CIO wants to manage within that department, the framework gives them that flexibility. There is an alignment within component organizations with the agency as a whole.”

She adds the framework outlines that the CIO should have input into each IT professionals performance plan.

Evans says the next administration should continue with many of the e-government projects and lines of business efforts started under the Bush administration.

She says agencies have moved beyond the adopt and use phases and are into meeting customer satisfaction stage.

“For a long time we wanted to achieve average satisfaction, but now we are pushing to meet our stretch goals,” Evans says. “We are in the top 25 percent or higher as compared to industry.”

Evans also points to the savings across government under initiatives such as payroll processing and travel vouchers. The cost to process a W2 form dropped to $125 each instead of $175, and the amount to process a travel voucher went down by 60 percent.

But the CIO Council under the next administration will have some decisions to make such as moving e-payroll under the Human Resources Line of Business program, Evans says.

Another area agencies will have to deal with in the future is the reduction of discretionary funding.

Evans says that is why it is more important than ever to think of the government as one enterprise.

“We need to deliver services faster and partner across the board,” she says. “Horizontal government is the future.”

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On the Web:

FederalNewsRadio – Transition Planning Begins Now

CIO Council – Clinger-Cohen Act

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