The Treasury Department isn't getting ready for the holiday buying season with its new catalog of shared services. Rather, Treasury is opening the door for industry to participate in the governmentwide effort. In his biweekly feature, Inside the Reporter's Notebook, Federal News Radio's Executive Editor Jason Miller writes about Treasury's plans. He joined Tom Temin on the Federal Drive to discuss the next step to move the government toward shared services for financial management.
The Treasury Department isn't quite getting ready for the Christmas buying season, but it is preparing for the shared services buying season. Treasury will release a catalog of shared services early in 2015.
Sonny Bhagowalia comes back to the federal government after spending almost three years working for the Hawaii state government as a technology executive.
The churn among federal CIOs and others in the IT community has been uncommonly high over the last year.
Kelvin Wood, the director of TAI, said the organization is investing more in virtual training as travel budgets continue to decrease. Wood said the institute also is focusing on more tailored courses to meet specific needs of its students.
OMB and Treasury are creating a roadmap on how to move forward with DATA Act implementation over the next 12 to 36 months. Meanwhile, congressional and executive branch auditors are part of the oversight process from the beginning.
Christina Ho, the executive director for data transparency in the Bureau of the Fiscal Service, said Treasury developed short-and long-term plans to improve the spending portal. She said DATA Act requirements fit well in the department's strategy.
The Treasury Department has heard the complaints about the USASpending.gov portal: it's hard to use, the data quality is poor, etc. Treasury inherited the portal in February from the General Services Administration. It already has short- and long-term plans to improve the federal spending website. In part one of their interview, Christina Ho, executive director for data transparency in the Bureau of the Fiscal Service, told Federal News Radio Executive Editor Jason Miller about the portal's improvement strategy.
Feds participating in the Federal Flexible Spending Account Program will now be able to rollover up to $500 from one year to the next in unspent funds from their limited expense and health care flexible spending accounts.
The Office of Management and Budget and the Office of Science and Technology Policy are on track to launch a new metadata validator tool this month. They are also developing an integrated dashboard that will track agency progress on the administration's open data goals.
The Obama administration looks to expand shared service usage even more by improving existing financial shared service providers and laying the groundwork for shared service governance.
Richard Gregg, the Fiscal Assistant Secretary, will step down in June. Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew tapped Dave Lebryk, currently the commissioner of the Bureau of the Fiscal Service, to replace him.
Robyn East confirms she will leave after three years on the job.
Robyn East, Treasury's chief information officer, said users previously were not excited to move to an enterprise content management system, but a better understanding of the value of shared services has helped them come around.
The Office of Financial Innovation and Transformation issued two RFIs in the last few weeks. One announced an industry day for May 21, and the other is looking for ideas to improve how the government manages and integrates data from different systems.