Federal CIO Vivek Kundra said Justice and Interior are the latest examples of agencies making hard decisions about underperforming IT projects. Justice canceled its litigation case management system after almost four years. Interior rescoped its Incident Management Analysis and Reporting System.
Lew said his first task would be to review every OMB program for efficiency and responsiveness to the public. When pressed by a Senate committee, however, Lew declined to comment about freezing federal pay and hiring.
The head of the Office of Management and Budget\'s Office of Federal Financial Management said the federal audit community has a powerful new tool to battle improper payments and fraud. Danny Werfel said for most citizens, battling improper payments may even trump the accounting community\'s holy grail of a clean audit opinion.
Senators praise Lew for experience. Committee plans to vote on his nomination next week. Lew said technology, acquisition reform and performance management are among his top non-budget priorities.
EPA CIO Jackson said he wants to dig deeper to improve programs and save money on technology systems. Others are using the data on the dashboard to have a common language across the department.
VA, SBA, EPA and HUD are the first to go through the review process and see dramatic changes. OMB controller Werfel said the goal for each agency is to invest only in top priorities, saving $1 billion a year by eliminating or reducing the size of agency modernization projects.
Learn more about what senior executives thought about OMB\'s memo.
Find out what the industry reaction and analysis of the OMB assessment
Francis Rose is joined by former OMB associate director Robert Shea with analysis on the memo
Learn more in today\'s Cybersecurity Update
The Obama administration’s chief performance officer self-assessment of how the federal government is doing so far: “I believe we are off to a good start, and that we are developing the momentum required for meaningful,…
NARA says the Electronic Records Archive is at risk if they build it and agencies don\'t use it. We get details from NARA\'s Meg Phillips and Charles Piercy.
Agencies now have another 12 months to submit their transition plans and have GSA pay for the costs to move to the new telecommunications contract. GSA does an about-face after saying for the past year it would hold agencies to that Aug. 31 deadline. Congressman Towns to introduce legislation to require agencies to transition to Networx by June 2011.
The FCC, GSA and the Smithsonian were among the best agencies to work for in the latest survey and officials point to a few specific reasons for their success. Agencies must make their employees feel like they are part of the answer to meeting their mission, agency officials say.
When NASA scientists were stymied last year in trying to devise a formula for predicting solar flares, they took an unusual approach: They posted their problem online, and offered a prize to anyone who could solve it. One requirement: the person with the winning solution would have to fork over exclusive rights to the idea - in exchange for a $30,000 prize. 579 people considered the challenge, while only five submitted entries. The winner was a retired radio frequency engineer from New Hampshire who offered an algorithm that may be a first step in helping NASA predict when solar particles might endanger astronauts or spacecraft. Top officials within the General Services Administration and the Office of Management and Budget have called the contest the beginning of a huge movement. Now, the website challenge-dot-gov allows agencies to post challenges, create blogs and discussions, and reward winners with an array of incentives.