FY 2007 Report to Congress on 

Implementation of 

The E-Government Act of 2002 

March 1, 2008 
TABLE OF CONTENTS 

Introduction................................................................................................................................. 3 

Section I: Compliance with Goals and Provisions of the Act................................... 4 

Section II: Highlights of Individual Agency Internal E-Government Activities.............. 21 

 

 

 

Department of Commerce.............................................................. 21 

Department of Defense................................................................. 21 

Department of Education............................................................... 22 

Department of Energy.................................................................. 23 

Department of Homeland Security................................................... 23 

Department of Health and Human Services.......................................... 24 

Department of Housing and Urban Development................................... 25 

Department of the Interior.............................................................. 25 

Department of Justice................................................................... 26 

Department of Labor.................................................................... 26 

Department of Transportation......................................................... 27 

Department of the Treasury............................................................ 28 

Department of State..................................................................... 28 

Department of Veterans Affairs....................................................... 29 

Environmental Protection Agency.................................................... 30 

General Services Administration...................................................... 30 

National Aeronautics and Space Administration.................................... 31 

Nuclear Regulatory Commission...................................................... 32 

National Science Foundation.......................................................... 32 

Office of Management and Budget................................................... 33 

Office of Personnel Management..................................................... 33 

Small Business Administration........................................................ 34 

Social Security Administration........................................................ 34 

U.S. Agency for International Development........................................ 35 

U.S. Department of Agriculture....................................................... 36 

Section III: Operations of the E-Government Fund.............................................................. 37 

Section IV: Listing of Reports and Policies Used in This Report................................ 41 

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INTRODUCTION 

The use of information technology to provide consistent access to and dissemination of 

government information is essential to promote a more citizen-centered government in a costeffective manner. Agencies manage web-based technologies and services to help citizens obtain 

government information and services. In addition, agencies use information technology to 

communicate with the public and gather feedback to determine whether Federal programs are 

achieving results and meeting user needs. E-Government is the result of this use of information 

technology to improve citizen access to government information and services. 

To ensure agencies apply E-Government principles and use information technology to the fullest 

potential, agencies measure results to verify progress and planned performance improvement. 

This allows agencies to better manage their information resources including their investments in 

information technology. The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) works with agencies to 

systematically track and measure whether resources used by programs help achieve intended 

goals and results through the President’s Management Agenda (PMA) Scorecard each quarter. 

The Federal Government continues to deploy industry-leading information technologies to more 

effectively manage and deliver government information and services. This results in more 

effective and transparent operations of Federal programs with an increased ability to manage the 

risks associated with information technology and protect information in care of the Federal 

government. Greater access to government information benefits the country by sustaining an 

informed citizenry, aiding government decision-makers, and supporting the economy, all of 

which are fundamental to a healthy democracy. 

ABOUT THIS REPORT 

This is OMB’s fifth annual progress report on implementation of the E-Government Act of 2002 

(Pub. L. No. 107-347; Dec. 17, 2002) (the “E-Government Act”) as required by 44 USC 3606. 

This report describes activities completed in fiscal year (FY) 2007, and is among a series of 

reports produced by OMB to describe the Administration’s use of E-Government principles to 

improve government performance and the delivery of information and services to the public 

Most prominent among these other reports are: 

1. Chapter 9 of the President’s FY 2009 Budget of the U.S. Government describing how 

agencies are integrating information technology to enhance services;1

2. The January 2006 report, “Expanding E-Government: Making a Difference for the 

American People Using Information Technology,” highlighting E-Government 

accomplishments and setting goals;2

 

1

 Chapter 9 of the President’s Fiscal Year 2009 Budget of the U.S. Government fulfilling the requirements of the 

Clinger-Cohen Act can be found at: http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/. 2

 This report can be found at: http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/egov/documents/expanding_egov_2006.pdf. 

3
3. The 2008 “Report to Congress on the Benefits of the E-Government Initiatives,” 

describing the economic value of multi-agency and cross-government E-Government 

activities;3

 and 

4. OMB’s FY 2007 report, “Federal Information Security Management Act,” describing 

agency privacy programs, including compliance with section 208 of the E-Government 

Act of 2002.4

 

This report comprises four sections. Section I describes the government’s efforts over the past 

year to implement certain technical requirements of the E-Government Act and also describes 

related activities complementing specific requirements and objectives of the Act. Section II 

includes examples of internal agency E-Government activities. Section III details use of the EGovernment Fund established by Section 3604 of the E-Government Act. Section IV provides 

links to all reports or policies referenced in this report. 

This report, other reports referenced here, and OMB’s prior reports on implementation of the EGovernment Act (i.e., for FY 2003 through FY 2006) are available on OMB’s website and have 

been provided to the Government Printing Office (GPO) for distribution to Federal Depository 

Libraries.5

 The reader is encouraged to refer to all of them for a complete picture of past, 

current, and planned Administration efforts. 

SECTION I: COMPLIANCE WITH SPECIFIC GOALS AND 

PROVISIONS OF THE ACT 

Improving Public Access to Government Information 

Information is the result of processing, gathering, analyzing and organizing data to convey 

knowledge to the receiver. Federal Government information is a public resource which has 

value and associated costs. Considering the magnitude of government information and the 

breadth of the Federal Government’s program activities, it is crucial for Federal agencies to 

strategically manage their information resources to achieve their missions and program goals, 

and preserve information for the future. 

Effective management of information resources requires programs designed to disseminate and 

provide the public with access to government information. The Federal Government continues to 

improve the methods by which government information is disseminated and made available to 

the public. By utilizing Federal agency public websites and partnership agreements to 

complement effective Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) operations, agencies can maximize 

the usefulness of their information while minimizing the costs for the American taxpayer. 

 

3

 Information on compliance with Section 206 of the E-Government Act can be found in this report. This report can 

be found at: http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/egov/. 4

 This report can be found at: http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/inforeg/infopoltech.html. 5

 Information on compliance with Sections 203, 210, 211, and 215 of the E-Government Act can be found in prior 

reports at: http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/inforeg/infopoltech.html. 

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Helping the Public Locate Government Information 

Federal agency public websites and portals are valuable information dissemination tools which 

allow greater access to government information and services and allow the public to participate 

and become more involved in its government. At the same time, the public increasingly uses 

commercial search engines as a primary portal into agency websites, rather than more traditional 

access via agency homepages. 

OMB Memorandum M-06-02, “Improving Public Access to and Dissemination of Government 

Information and Using the Federal Enterprise Architecture Data Reference Model,” promotes 

greater access to government information by requiring agencies to publish all public information 

directly to the Internet. This procedure exposes information to freely available search engines 

and organizes and categorizes agency information thereby improving the public’s access to 

government information.6

 To demonstrate effort towards meeting this requirement, agencies 

updated and published their Information Resources Management Strategic Plan, describing how 

such activities help accomplish the agency’s mission.7

 Agency plans also describe how the 

respective agency ensures the activities are integrated with organizational planning, budget, 

procurement, financial management, human resources management, and program decisions. 

A good example of an E-Government service helping the public to locate Federal information of 

pertinence to them is eRulemaking, the government-wide online portal (www.Regulations.gov) 

and federal docket management system to facilitate public participation in the federal regulatory 

process. eRulemaking recently celebrated its five year anniversary in January 2008, and in those 

five years it has transformed access to the Federal government rulemaking process by improving 

the public's ability to locate, view, and comment on federal regulatory actions affecting them.

A significant development in assisting the public to locate government information has been the 

increasing prevalence and sophistication of commercial and governmental search engines. By 

having a presence online, agencies are able to leverage the benefits from advances in search 

technology to allow for more timely and accurate retrieval of information on agency websites. 

Some examples of more agency-specific efforts to assist the public in locating government 

information include: 

• The Veterans Benefits Administration (VBA) provides a direct link to a query system in 

order to allow public access to resource materials relative to VBA. 

http://www.vba.va.gov/ ; 

• The Small Business Administration (SBA) provides the news media and the general 

public with easy access to information regarding SBA programs and activities through 

the SBA Newsroom online portal. 

http://www.sba.gov/news/ ; and

• The Department of Education offers a one-stop system for ordering Department 

publications which are provided at no cost. 

http://edpubs.ed.gov/webstore/Content/search.asp. 

 

6

 OMB Memorandum M-06-02 can be found at: http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/memoranda/fy2006/m06-02.pdf. 7

 A link to each agency’s strategic plan can be found in the individual agency E-Government Act Report. The links 

to these reports can be found in Section II of this report. 

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The Federal Internet Portal 

USA.gov

As the official Internet portal to government information, USA.gov provides a centralized point 

of entry where the public can locate government information, benefits, and services. This can 

reduce time spent by individuals trying to locate government information of interest to them. 

The public has embraced the usefulness of USA.gov and in FY 2007, it received approximately 

97 million visits during the year, or 1.87 million visits per week. USA.gov has also received 

numerous national recognitions for the quality and effectiveness in providing government 

information to the public and was highlighted in July 2007, by Time Magazine in an article 

entitled, “25 Sites We Can’t Live Without.” 

New search tools and technologies have been added to USA.gov to aggregate and present 

information on jobs, weather, congressional contact information, Federal forms and FrequentlyAsked-Questions from over 40 Federal agencies. USA.gov’s search functions have recently 

been expanded to include authoritative news and image searches of government information. 

USASearch.gov provides tailored responses to ensure high-priority information is highlighted in 

response to search queries during times of national emergencies or high interest stories. 

Nine online tutorials were launched on December 4, 2007 for USA.gov. Each online tutorial or 

tool is specifically designed to teach visitors how to access government information and services 

on the Internet. Each tutorial lasts just a few minutes and among the available tutorials are: 

• Get It Done Online with Government – instructions on how to complete government 

tasks online; 

• Shop Government Auctions and Sales – directions on shopping for real estate, cars, 

gifts, and other items available from government auctions or stores; 

• Find Government Benefits and Grants – information on finding government money 

available through benefits, grants, loans, and financial aid; 

• Locate In-Person Government Services Near You – instructions on finding contact 

information for local government offices; and 

• Search Government Using USA Search – ways of using the search function to find 

information from government Web sites. 

The National Contact Center supports USA.gov through 1-(800)-FED-INFO and serves as a 

single telephone number to obtain official information about State, local, and Tribal benefits, 

providing services in both English and Spanish. GobiernoUSA.gov provides links to Spanishlanguage government information and the ability to search across the government online in 

Spanish. Additionally, the public now has the ability to chat interactively with agents in the 

National Contact Center through USA.gov or with government bloggers at www.GovGab.gov. 

This online chat ability provides an immediate response to questions about Federal agencies, 

programs, benefits, or services through an “instant messaging-like” interface. There are 

currently just over 1,000 chats per month. 

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A distinguishing characteristic of USA.gov is its ability to quickly adapt and serve other agencies 

in the event of a Federal emergency. The usefulness of the National Contact Center and 

USA.gov is highlighted by their support for the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) during its 

response to the breaches of personally identifiable information in May 2006.8

 Their response 

enabled Veterans and other citizens to call the National Contact Center or access USA.gov to 

learn more about the breach incidents, who to contact, and steps to mitigate and prevent future 

breaches and allow those who were affected greater peace of mind. For this particular incident, 

the USA.gov page on Veterans Data Security was viewed 515,993 times in a three week period 

from May 22 to June 11, 2006. During the two months of May and June 2006, 26,801 new 

subscribers signed up for e-mail alerts to learn of updates to the Veterans Data Security page. 

Additionally, the National Contact Center handled 113,354 calls related to this incident. 

Finally, USA.gov provides an inventory of websites managed by agency consortia integrating 

similar information products by topic, published by disparate programs.9 These interagency 

websites aggregate various data sources and make them readily accessible to the public. Similar 

programs operating at different agencies can better coordinate their activities and tailor their 

information products. 

Executive Order 13392, “Improving Agency Disclosure of Information” 

Executive Order 13392, “Improving Agency Disclosure of Information,” established a citizencentered and results-oriented framework for agencies to improve their Freedom of Information 

Act (FOIA) operations.10 The Executive Order required agencies to designate a chief FOIA 

officer and FOIA public liaison, establish FOIA requester service centers, conduct a review of 

FOIA operations, and create FOIA improvement plans. These measures were designed to make 

FOIA operations more results oriented.11 

On June 1, 2007, the Attorney General, in accordance with the Executive Order, published the 

second report summarizing the initial phase of the Executive Branch's implementation of the 

Order, with a focus on the reviews and FOIA Improvement Plans agencies had developed and 

issued.12 The report states overall, agencies have made diligent and measurable progress and 

have made positive achievements in FOIA administration. 

Effective agency FOIA programs complement effective dissemination activities by locating 

records in public demand. In turn, agencies publish popular records requests directly to their 

website in anticipation of additional requests for the same records.13

Agencies have widely embraced the area of technology and automation as an effective medium 

for improving their FOIA operations. Agencies reported the use of up-to-date information 

 

8

 The website can be found at: http://www.usa.gov/dataincidents.shtml. 9

 For more information see: http://www.usa.gov/Topics/Cross_Agency_Portals.shtml. 10 The full text of EO 13392 can be found at: http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2005/12/20051214-4.html, 11 See Section 1(c) of EO 13392. 

12 The Attorney General’s Report to the President pursuant to Executive Order 13392 can be found at: 

http://www.usdoj.gov/oip/ag_report_to_president06012007.pdf. 13 The website link where frequent requests for FOIA records can be found is located in the individual agency’s EGovernment Act Report. The links to these reports can be found in Section II of this report. 

7
technology and proactive disclosure of information prior to receipt of a FOIA request as two 

promising practices for improving access to requested records and reducing backlog and 

disseminating information more quickly, thereby resulting in more cost-effective FOIA 

processing. The report from the Attorney General shows half of the 25 key agencies reported 

significant improvements through the innovative use of technology. Some examples from this 

report include: 

• The Department of Defense (DOD) assessed FOIA software use and applicability and 

established a team to conduct a feasibility study to create an agency-wide electronic 

network to process FOIA requests; 

• The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) purchased and 

installed an automated FOIA processing program which provides improved FOIA request 

tracking capabilities; and 

• SBA deployed a web-based tracking system for FOIA inquiries, and made online training 

slides available to all users. 

Financial Accountability and Transparency 

On September 26, 2006, the President signed the “Federal Funding Accountability and 

Transparency Act of 2006” (Pub. L. No. 109-282), to improve the quality and accessibility of 

information about Federal spending.14 The Act required OMB to oversee development of a 

website through which the public can readily access information about grants and contracts 

provided by the entire Federal government.15 

This website was launched at www.USASpending.gov, ahead of schedule, on December 13, 

2007, and to date, OMB has received data from 21 of the 24 Federal agencies subject to key 

congressional financial management improvement standards, and new government data will be 

posted to the site every two weeks during development, until a routine process is in place. 

Specifically, the website provides, for each Federal award exceeding $25,000, the following 

information: 

A. The name of the entity receiving the award; 

B. The amount of the award; 

C. Information on the award including transaction type, and funding agency; 

D. The location of the entity receiving the award; and 

E. A unique identifier of the entity receiving the award. 

These 21 agencies which submitted data for the website comprise approximately 90 percent of 

Federal government spending, and OMB will continue to work with all levels of government to 

improve data collection and integrity. Some remaining challenges include incorporating 

business information already collected, but not required by the statute, such as competition 

information and actions below the dollar threshold. Another challenge is including agencies 

 

14 The full text of the Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act can be found at: 

http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/getdoc.cgi?dbname=109_cong_public_laws&docid=f:publ282.109.pdf. 15 More information on the development of this website can be found at: http://www.USASpending.gov. 

8
unfamiliar with reporting spending information. Overall the goal to improve transparency is 

embraced by agencies wanting to use this tool to fulfill accessibility objectives. 

Organizations Complementing Federal Agency Information Dissemination Programs 

Agencies use a number of different channels to effectively disseminate information to the public, 

such as Federal and non-Federal government libraries, and the private sector. By utilizing these 

entities, agencies can leverage outside skills and resources to provide the public with multiple 

sources for accessing information and manage their information resources in a more costeffective manner. 

There are many dissemination channels available for agencies, including popular commercial 

search engines (e.g., MSN, Google, and Yahoo search engine services), USA.gov, and many 

others.16 Community technology centers sponsored by the Department of Education, public 

libraries, research rooms at the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA), and 

Federal Depository Libraries managed by the Government Printing Office complement agency 

dissemination programs. The information technology resources of these organizations combined 

with the assistance of organization staff and volunteers provide increased access to government 

information. 

Agencies are establishing innovative partnerships with nonprofit and private sector entities to 

improve access to and dissemination of government information. For example: 

• The International Trade Administration has arranged cooperative marketing agreements with 

Google, FedEx, UPS and PNC Bank to reach as many small and medium-sized businesses as 

possible with export and marketing information; 

• The Department of Justice has partnered with the National Center for Missing and Exploited 

Children to provide resources and services to help protect children from harm and disseminate 

child protection information; 

• The Department of Housing and Urban Development participates in over 30 professional 

organizations related to housing and community development to increase the number of 

communication channels to deliver information to the public; 

• The Office of Personnel Management has a formal agency agreement with Monster 

Government Solutions to provide world-wide access to job postings for employment 

opportunities throughout the Federal government; 

• The Environmental Protection Agency sponsors, through a cooperative agreement with the 

Advertising Council, a national childhood asthma campaign to provide timely information to 

the media and the public on issues that adversely affect children with asthma and their 

families; and 

• NARA has a pilot program with Google to digitize and make searchable more than 100 films 

on Google’s and NARA’s websites. 

 

16 To learn more about organizations complementing Federal information dissemination, see: OMB’s April 15, 2005 

report, “Organizations Complementing Federal Agency Information Dissemination Programs.” The report can be 

found at: http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/inforeg/section_213_report_04-2005.pdf. 

9
OMB continues to encourage strategic partnerships, including those mentioned above, to support 

the principles of E-Government by maximizing the usefulness of government information while 

minimizing the cost to agencies and the public. 

Public Access to Electronic Federal Records 

Effective management of government records ensures proper documentation of the policies and 

transactions of the Federal Government allows the Federal Government to review and improve 

its programs, and helps the public obtain information about such programs. To achieve these 

benefits, agencies systematically manage all of their records regardless of form and medium 

(e.g., paper and electronic form) throughout the information life cycle. 

In their 2007 E-Government Act Reports, agencies were required, under section 207(e) of the EGovernment Act to describe how they were fulfilling their responsibilities to develop records 

schedules for all records in existing electronic information systems and establish procedures for 

addressing records management for new electronic systems. All major agencies are actively 

engaged with NARA to prioritize existing systems and schedule records. 

NARA worked closely with agencies in FY 2007 to schedule records in core-function electronic 

systems and approved schedules for more than 1,000 systems. To focus resources where they are 

most needed, NARA staff developed criteria for targeting certain agencies to partner with to 

schedule their e-records and systems. These criteria were based on requests from an agency for 

assistance, the importance of their systems to mission critical activities, and an agency-submitted 

inventory of systems still unscheduled. Notable accomplishments include: 

• A comprehensive project with the Department of State covering the subject terms used to 

categorize records in the agency’s Central Foreign Policy File. This project represents 

one of NARA’s most significant electronic records scheduling and appraisal 

accomplishments to date in terms of the project’s importance to the archival preservation 

of a major body of electronic records that provides significant documentation of U.S. 

history; 

• NARA joined with the Environmental Protection Agency, the Department of Treasury, 

and the Department of Interior in pilot projects to assist them in implementing the 

Records Management Profile.17 These projects were initiated to ensure new IT systems 

include appropriate electronic records management requirements and could be 

appropriately managed throughout the entire life-cycle of the records; and 

• The Department of Commerce is actively working with NARA to develop a vigorous 

program for managing its records, including updating its 2010 Decennial Census records 

schedules to ensure that they cover new electronic records and systems needed to ensure 

adequate and proper documentation of this essential activity. 

OMB and NARA continue to work with agencies on fulfilling their electronic records 

management responsibilities. On April 11, 2007, NARA hosted a web briefing for Federal 

agencies regarding improving the management of electronic records and more than 160 agency 

 

17 Additional information about the Records Management Profile is located at 

http://www.cio.gov/documents/RM_Profile_v1.pdf. 

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CIOs and Records Managers participated. OMB requires agencies to document and verify 

whether records produced by each major information technology investment are appropriately 

scheduled, with NARA’s approval, as part of their capital planning and investment control.18

Access to Federally Funded Research and Development 

Dissemination of and access to information about Federally funded research and development 

(R&D) stimulates the exchange of new scientific information and technologies, and provides 

opportunities for understanding and applying knowledge towards the advancement of science 

and the development of innovative products and services.19 Federal agency R&D activities are 

an essential component of many agency missions resulting in a broad variety of Federally funded 

R&D. Many Federal agency public websites disseminate and provide access to Federal R&D 

information and as a result, agencies can better: 

• Coordinate Federal R&D activities; 

• Collaborate among those agencies conducting R&D; 

• Disseminate Federal R&D activities to the public; 

• Transfer technology among Federal agencies and the public; and 

• Access information about R&D activities. 

To increase public access to R&D information, agencies disseminate information through 

multiple channels, including public libraries and Federally funded R&D dissemination websites. 

Some examples of these include: 

 Science.gov provides search capability across 30 Federal agency R&D databases and 

provides links to science websites and scientific databases so citizens can access the 

results of Federal research.20 In FY 2007 Science.gov experienced 6.5 million search 

queries across all its scientific databases and 2.6 million page views of its website. 

http://www.science.gov ; and 

 The RaDiUS database provides the public and agencies with information about Federally 

funded R&D activities. RaDiUS was accessed by users 1,010 times in FY 2007. 

https://radius.rand.org/radius/index.html. 

OMB continues to monitor current solutions and possible future ones, to most effectively 

disseminate R&D information to the general public. 

Some examples of Federal agency efforts to disseminate R&D information include: 

 The Department of Health and Human Services maintains the CRISP (Computer 

Retrieval of Information on Scientific Projects) searchable database website to provide 

information on Federally funded biomedical research projects conducted at universities, 

hospitals, and other research institutions. http://crisp.cit.nih.gov/ ; 

 

18 OMB Circular A-11, Section 300 can be found at: 

http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/circulars/a11/current_year/s300.pdf. 19 This section includes information on compliance with Section 207(g) of the E-Government Act. 

20 The list of databases can be found at: http://www.science.gov/searchdbs.html. 

11
 The Department of Transportation’s Research and Innovative Technology Administration 

maintains a Hydrogen Portal to provide information about Federal government activities 

related to hydrogen and fuel cells. http://www.rita.dot.gov/ordt/hydrogen_portal/; and 

 NASA maintains an R&D portal which enables scientists, researchers, technologists, and 

the general public to discover how NASA works with industry, academia, and Federal 

and State entities to perform breakthrough research, develop cutting edge technologies, 

and incorporate them into commercially viable products. 

http://www.nasa.gov/audience/forresearchers/features/index.html. 

Ensuring Accessibility to Government Information and Information Technology for People 

with Disabilities 

Agencies must disseminate information on equitable and timely terms, regardless of the type, 

medium and technology, to all members of the public including those with disabilities. 

Consistent with section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 (29 U.S.C. 794d), as amended 

(“Section 508”), agencies must ensure the development, procurement, and use of electronic and 

information technology provides access to government information and data to the disabled. 

 

The General Services Administration (GSA) and the Access Board (an independent Federal 

agency devoted to accessibility for people with disabilities), share a statutory obligation to 

provide technical assistance to agencies in support of their implementation of Section 508. 

The Access Board, acknowledging the convergence of software and websites, is currently 

leading the effort to draft new Section 508 standards to help clarify E-Government requirements 

and eliminate the overlap found in the current regulations. GSA facilitates the Federal agency 

network of Section 508 Coordinators whose focus is to ensure the accessibility of E-Government 

applications.21 

 

In February of 2001, President George W. Bush announced his plan, the New Freedom Initiative, 

to tear down the remaining barriers preventing full integration into American life that remain for 

many of the 54 million Americans with disabilities. The latest report, published July 26, 2007, 

highlights implementation of the President’s vision and provides an update on the results 

achieved so far and actions taken by the Administration and Federal agencies to improve equal 

access by using innovative assistive technology.22

Furthermore, OMB’s Office of Federal Procurement Policy (OFPP) and the Office of EGovernment and Information Technology jointly released a memo on November 6, 2007, 

reminding agencies of their responsibility to ensure Section 508 compliance when procuring new 

information systems.23

Common Protocols for Geographic Information Systems 

Effective and efficient development, provision, and interoperability of geospatial data and 

services serves both the Nation’s interest and the core missions of Federal agencies and their 

 

21 Additional information and services for agencies can be found at: http://www.section508.gov. 22 http://www.whitehouse.gov/infocus/newfreedom/newfreedom-report-2007.html. 23 This memo can be found at: http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/procurement/508/electronic_info_technologies.pdf. 

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partners. Cross-agency coordination of geospatial activities can identify, consolidate, and reduce 

or eliminate redundant geospatial investments. 

The Federal Geographic Data Committee (FGDC) has been essential to the development of 

recommendations for better management of technologies, policies, and people to promote the 

sharing of geospatial data throughout all levels of government, the private and nonprofit sectors, 

and the academic community. The FGDC was organized in 1990 under OMB Circular A-16, 

“Coordination of Geographic Information, and Related Spatial Data Activities.” The FGDC 

serves as an interagency group with representatives from Federal agencies, as well as numerous 

stakeholders representing the interests of State and local government, industry, and professional 

organizations. The 2002 revision of OMB Circular A-16 assigns the Deputy Director for 

Management of OMB as Vice-Chair of the FGDC 

As part of the President’s 2007 budget, the Geospatial Line of Business (LoB) was launched to 

enable geospatial interoperability across Federal programs through interagency cooperation, and 

enhanced capacity for understanding and use of information in terms of its relevant geography. 

Twenty-six Federal agencies participate in an interagency task force seeking to identify 

opportunities to optimize and standardize, to develop accountability and improved performance 

in Federal geospatial activities, and to support the further development of the National Spatial 

Data Infrastructure (NSDI). 

In FY 2007, the Geospatial LoB Interagency Task Force which is led by the Department of the 

Interior, analyzed agency investments in geospatial information to help develop a strategy for 

geospatial data management. The Interagency Task Force: 

• Compiled information on current agency investments in geospatial related activities and 

capabilities; 

• Conducted the Qualitative Data Survey to provide a better understanding of agency 

business activities and how they can better align to meet agency mission requirements; 

and 

• Established the Program Management Office to support the initiative Managing Partner 

and LoB Work Groups. 

An annual report published by the FGDC identifies additional key accomplishments and planned 

milestones to coordinate nationally the development, use, sharing, and dissemination of 

geospatial data.24 To ensure agencies’ initiatives increase access to geospatial information and 

effectively invest in geospatial resources, the planned milestones coordinate with existing EGovernment initiatives, including Geospatial One-Stop and the Geospatial Line of Business.25

 

24 The FGDC 2006 Annual Report can be found at: http://www.fgdc.gov/library/whitepapersreports/annual%20reports/2006-report/index_html.

25 The Geospatial OneStop initiative promotes interagency partnerships and a single point of access to map-related 

data found at: http://www.geodata.gov.

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Information Technology Workforce Development 

On April 25, 2007, OFPP issued a memorandum titled, “The Federal Acquisition Certification 

for Program and Project Managers,” which called for an interagency working group to develop 

common, essential competencies for the certification of program and project managers.26 This 

certification is required for program and project managers assigned to major information 

technology acquisitions as defined in OMB Circular A-11, exhibit 300. 

For the FY 2009 submitted budget, 88 percent of all major information technology investments 

were reported as having qualified project managers. This is an increase from 83 percent in the 

FY 2008 submitted budget, and OMB and the CIO Council are continuing to work with agencies 

to try and increase this number for the remaining information technology investments. 

To develop, supplement, and modernize Federal agency information technology workforce 

skills, the E-Government Act authorized the Information Technology Exchange Program (ITEP). 

The program allows members of the Federal information technology workforce to work in the 

private sector and conversely allows individuals from the private sector to bring their skills to the 

Federal workforce. To help agencies implement the program, the Office of Personnel 

Management (OPM) finalized regulations and posted guidance for participating agencies.27 On 

December 13, 2007, the first ITEP agreement in the Federal government was signed between the 

CIO of the Department of Defense (DoD) and an employee at Lockheed Martin. The ITEP 

participant will be assigned to DoD’s Information Policy and Integration Directorate and will be 

on detail for 1 year to develop, analyze, evaluate and advise to foster improvement of 

information management policy and practices at DoD. 

Integrating and Reporting Pilot Projects 

OMB’s Federal Enterprise Architecture (FEA) helps identify the relationships between business/ 

management processes and information technology systems so agencies can better align their 

technology investments with their agency.28 By combining and analyzing these relationships 

from a government-wide perspective, agencies are able to determine how much information 

technology spending is occurring in support of specific lines of business or services, including 

those which may transcend agency boundaries (e.g. environmental management, law 

enforcement, human resources, supply chain management, and security management). This 

analysis also identifies redundancies among information technology investments (within an 

agency, or across agencies), thereby highlighting opportunities for potential consolidation, 

collaboration, or re-use of information technology assets. 

OMB also continues to work with agencies to evaluate and improve their agency enterprise 

architectures. During the most recent evaluation (February 2007), OMB originally assessed 19 

of 26 agencies’ enterprise architectures as “effective” as part of the President’s Expanded E-

 

26 This memo can be found at: http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/procurement/workforce/fed_acq_cert_042507.pdf. 27 The OPM ITEP guidance can be found at: http://www.opm.gov/leader/hrd/lead/itep/overview.asp. 28 The FEA is described in more detail at http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/egov/a-1-fea.html. 

14
Government Scorecard.29 These architectures sufficiently describe the agency mission and the 

resources needed to achieve them, and have been used to drive satisfactory program performance 

and/or cost savings. Since last February, two of the seven underperforming agencies have 

elevated their architectures to an “effective” level. OMB continues to work with the remaining 

five agencies to work toward an “effective” rating for the February 2008 assessment. 

Use of Information Technology to Enhance Crisis Management 

Federal agencies use information technology to improve the coordination and dissemination of 

disaster preparedness, response, and recovery information. OMB, in consultation with the 

Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), 

completed a study on using information technology to enhance crisis preparedness and response 

to natural and manmade disasters in March 2007.30 The Computer Science and 

Telecommunications Board Committee of the National Academy of Sciences also participated in 

this effort. 

Furthermore, three Presidential E-Government initiatives, Disaster Management, SAFECOM, 

and the Disaster Assistance Improvement Plan (DAIP) are working to improve information 

sharing and communications related to crisis management. These initiatives are led by DHS and 

are supported by other Federal agencies with similar responsibilities and partnerships with State, 

local, and Tribal organizations where appropriate. 

Disaster Management

Disaster Management (DM) is a program of FEMA under DHS. DM aims to improve 

preparation, mitigation, response, and recovery for all hazards by creating the capability to 

seamlessly and securely share incident information across the Nation’s emergency response 

community in an effort to minimize the loss of life and property. The Disaster Management 

Interoperability Services (DMIS) incident management platform provides emergency managers 

with the ability to collaborate and share information with other DMIS users within their own 

organizations and with external organizations. The Open Platform for Emergency Networks 

(OPEN) system allows the exchange of information between different systems complying with 

DM standards. FEMA is working collaboratively with the Office for Interoperability and 

Compatibility, within the DMIS toolset, and with the OPEN backbone to allow agencies to 

communicate efficiently with local communities during an emergency, increasing the 

effectiveness of disaster response. 

SAFECOM 

SAFECOM provides research, development, testing and evaluation, guidance, tools, and 

templates on interoperable communications-related issues to Federal, State, Tribal, and local 

emergency response agencies. These services create more effective and efficient interoperable 

wireless communications, and as a result improve public safety response. 

 

29 The results of the February 2007 Enterprise Architecture assessment are described in more detail within “OMB 

2007 EA Assessment Results” at http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/egov/a-2-EAAssessment.html. 30 This study can be found free online at: http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=11824. 

15
SAFECOM is working with existing Federal communications initiatives and key public safety 

stakeholders to enhance the cross-jurisdictional and cross-disciplinary coordination of 

interoperable communications. The scope of this community is broad and the customer base 

includes over 50,000 local and State public safety agencies and organizations and over 100 

Federal agencies are engaged in public safety disciplines, including law enforcement, 

firefighting, public health, and disaster recovery. 

To address the most urgent interoperability needs, SAFECOM is supporting DHS’ Office of 

Emergency Communications’ development and implementation of a National Emergency 

Communications Plan and The National Communications Baseline Assessment. The National 

Emergency Communications Plan, which is scheduled to be completed by the end of 2008, 

supports and promotes the ability of emergency response providers and relevant government 

officials to continue to communicate in the event of natural disasters, acts of terrorism, and other 

man-made disasters, and to ensure, accelerate, and attain interoperable emergency 

communications nationwide. The National Communications Baseline Assessment provides the 

first comprehensive assessment of interoperable emergency communication capability across all 

levels of government and public sector entities. Emergency responders use the assessment to 

better plan and coordinate their investment in new communications technology. DHS is 

currently working to complete the assessment by summer of 2008. 

SAFECOM is helping to ensure all public safety agencies have the necessary tools and resources 

to meet the immediate demands for interoperability when responding to an emergency. 

SAFECOM guidance, tools, and templates help guide the migration of the emergency response 

community’s existing communications systems to work more collaboratively with one another. 

The initiative continues to: 

1. Develop Guidelines and Criteria for Public Safety Communications Systems; 

In FY 2007, SAFECOM released new updates to the Statement of Requirements (SoR), 

which defines future communications requirements for crucial voice and data 

communications. Industry will in turn use these requirements to develop equipment 

meeting public safety and Federal user needs. Specifically, SoR Volume I, Version 1.2 

was published to help align industry’s research and development efforts with the 

emergency response community’s needs.31 SAFECOM is also working to include video 

and security quality requirements in Volume II. SAFECOM established a working group 

comprising members of the emergency response community from all disciplines with 

specialized expertise, knowledge, and understanding of communications technology. 

This working group will continue to provide on-going feedback and recommendations for 

future improvements to the document. 

 

31 The SAFECOM Statement of Requirements Volumes I and II can be found at: 

http://www.safecomprogram.gov/SAFECOM/library/technology/1258_Statementof.htm. 

16
2. Assess Interoperable Communications Capabilities;

In December 2006, SAFECOM released the results of the National Interoperability 

Baseline Survey.32 The survey was administered to 22,400 emergency response agencies 

to determine and measure the capacity for interoperable communications among law 

enforcement, fire, and emergency medical service agencies across the Nation. The survey 

was designed to: 

• Establish a process for agencies to regularly measure communications 

interoperability; 

• Generate data to help emergency response officials make better-informed 

decisions about how to most effectively allocate resources for improving 

communications interoperability; and 

• Gather information to guide and measure the effectiveness of future 

communications interoperability improvement efforts that local, Tribal, State, and 

Federal emergency response organizations execute. 

Survey findings indicate agencies tend to be more developed in technology than they are 

in culturally related areas such as standard operating procedures. It also showed that 

cross-discipline and cross-jurisdiction interoperability at local levels tends to be more 

advanced than it is between State and local agencies. In addition, law enforcement, fire 

response and EMS agencies reported similar levels of development in most areas of 

interoperability. 

3. Coordinate Testing and Evaluation Processes for Interoperability Products;

SAFECOM developed a Compliance Assessment Program in partnership with the 

National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) to ensure consistent equipment 

communications standards. NIST, in cooperation with technical representatives from the 

Institute for Telecommunication Sciences and industry representatives, has established a 

framework for the program and is moving into the first stage of testing. The safety of 

emergency responders will be enhanced when industry’s claims of standards compliance 

can be measured objectively and independently, to ensure interoperability. This initiative 

continues to make certain Federal agencies purchase standards compliant equipment. 

4. Standardize Public Safety Communications Equipment with Grant Guidance;

SAFECOM continues to provide grant guidance for public safety interoperability 

equipment grants administered and awarded by DHS, the Department of Commerce 

(DOC), and the Department of Justice (DOJ) to local, Tribal, and State organizations. 

The grant guidance ensures consistency in public safety communications grant 

solicitations, maximizes the allocation and use of grants, and helps create interoperable 

 

32 The survey can be found at: 

http://www.safecomprogram.gov/SAFECOM/library/background/1295_2006national.htm. 

17
systems. The grant guidance lists planning requirements grant recipients must follow 

prior to procuring equipment bought using Federal funds. It also provides specific 

questions to be addressed in grant applications to ensure potential recipients of Federal 

funds have thoroughly assessed how their money will improve interoperability. 

5. Coordinate Communications Spectrum Policy; 

The radio spectrum is a finite resource shared by public safety, radio broadcasters, 

government users, and other commercial and private consumers and coordination of its 

use is critical to ensuring interoperability. Overcrowding due to high demand can cause 

delays or disruption of public safety communications. SAFECOM continues to assess 

the capacity of public safety spectrum to achieve the President’s national spectrum 

management initiative for addressing this critical spectrum need. 

6. Coordinate Communications Planning; and

SAFECOM continues to work with States as they develop Statewide Communication 

Interoperability Plans (SCIPs). The DHS FY 2007 Homeland Security Grant Program 

(HSGP) and the DOC Public Safety Interoperable Communications Grant Program 

required States and Territories to develop and adopt SCIPs. The development of SCIPs 

marks a critical milestone in the coordinated effort to enhance interoperable 

communications across the Nation. Locally driven, multi-disciplinary and multi–

jurisdictional SCIPs will help States and Territories to break down any existing planning, 

coordination, and cooperation barriers and lead to the establishment of a coordinated 

vision and set of strategic goals, objectives, and initiatives to enhance interoperability. 

Through guidance documents and outreach, SAFECOM has provided support to States 

and Territories in the development of the SCIPs. In March of 2007, SAFECOM 

sponsored the National Governors Association Statewide Planning Workshop in Los 

Angeles. Representatives from 51 of 56 States and Territories participated in the 

workshop. At the workshop, SAFECOM released the Statewide Interoperability Planning 

Guidebook.

33 Developed with practitioner input, the Guidebook outlines and explains the 

statewide plan criteria and provides a step-by-step guide for developing a SCIP. 

7. Provide Tools and Guidance. 

To integrate and complement the planning, coordination, and evaluation work 

SAFECOM is doing, tools and guidance documents have been developed to assist the 

emergency response community in planning for and implementing interoperability 

solutions.34 

 

33 The Guidebook and other statewide planning guidance documents are available at: 

http://www.safecomprogram.gov/SAFECOM/statewideplanning/.

34 All SAFECOM tools and guidance documents are available at http://www.safecomprogram.gov. 

18
In FY 2007, SAFECOM developed and released the following tools and guidance 

documents: 

• SAFECOM Guide to Standards and Technology - describes the standards 

development process and technical initiatives such as the Statement of 

Requirements and the Public Safety Architecture Framework; 

• SCIP v2 - an updated version of the SAFECOM’s methodology for statewide 

communications interoperability planning; 

• Creating a Charter for a Multi-Agency Interoperability Committee - provides 

questions to consider and example text to assist practitioners with the creation of a 

charter for a multi-agency communications interoperability committee; 

• Writing Guide for a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) - provides questions 

to consider and example text to assist practitioners with the creation of a MOU 

between agencies or jurisdictions to forge the agreements needed for an 

interoperability effort; 

• Writing Guide for Standard Operating Procedures (SOP) - provides questions to 

consider and example text to assist practitioners with the creation of SOPs around 

an enhanced communications capability; and 

• Improving Interoperability Through Shared Channels Guide v1 - helps State and 

local interoperability coordinators with the difficult task of creating a regional 

plan for interoperability. 

Disaster Assistance Improvement Plan (DAIP) 

The intent of the Disaster Assistance Improvement Plan (DAIP), which was approved by the 

President in September 2007, streamlines the process disaster victims use to apply for and 

receive disaster assistance from multiple Federal agencies. 

On August 29, 2006, the President issued Executive Order 13411, establishing a Disaster 

Assistance Task Force, which is comprised of 15 agencies, led by the Department of Homeland 

Security (DHS). 

Specifically, Executive Order 13411 calls for the Task Force to: 

“Recommend specific actions to improve the delivery of Federal disaster assistance, which shall 

include actions to provide a centralized application process for Federal disaster assistance; 

provide a centralized and continuously updated clearinghouse from which disaster victims may 

obtain information regarding Federal disaster assistance and State and local government and 

private sector sources of disaster assistance; reduce unnecessarily duplicative application forms 

and processes for Federal disaster assistance; and strengthen controls designed to prevent 

improper payments and other forms of fraud, waste, and abuse.” 

19
Upon approval of the plan by the President, DHS assigned the Federal Emergency Management 

Agency (FEMA) to lead the plan’s implementation, in collaboration with all other Federal 

programs providing disaster assistance. The central information technology system has three 

basic components: 

• Applicant Intake (via the GovBenefits.gov website); 

• Tracking (via FEMA’s existing victim assistance database); and 

• Assistance (via the several programs providing actual benefits, such as the Small 

Business Administration). 

The very aggressive target date for launching the coordinated system is December, 2008. 

OMB is continuing to provide coordination assistance to FEMA and will measure progress of 

all the participating agencies as part of OMB’s regular E-Government implementation 

reviews. 

20
SECTION II: HIGHLIGHTS OF INDIVIDUAL AGENCY INTERNAL EGOVERNMENT ACTIVITIES 

This section of the report summarizes and highlights agency specific E-Government activities. 

More detailed information and links to the agency’s Information Resources Management 

Strategic Plan and Freedom of Information Act primary website are located in each agency’s EGovernment Act Report and are available on agency websites. 

Department of Commerce 

The Department’s E-Government Act Report is located at: 

http://ocio.os.doc.gov/ITPolicyandPrograms/E-Government/PROD01_004147

Regional Input-Output Modeling System 

Commerce’s Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) recently redesigned a web site allowing users 

to access information about the economic impacts to States and local governments from federal 

projects and activities. The Regional Input-Output Modeling System (RIMS II) allows users to 

analyze the economic impact of projects such as military base closings, shopping mall 

development, tourism, and airport expansions, on State and local areas. The redesign of the 

website now referred to as RIMS II, reflects feedback RIMS staff has received from customers in 

the past. 

Prior to the rollout of RIMS II, customers were required to mail or fax their orders and received 

RIMS multipliers on CD. These regional multipliers indicate the amount of additional economic 

activity that may be generated in a region due to the increase in the output of a single industry or 

group of industries in the region. This process took a minimum of one week, and could take 

longer, depending on the size of the order and the backlog. Under the new web-enabled process, 

customers can download multipliers directly from BEA’s Web site, generally within two days of 

placing their order. The cost of purchasing multipliers was reduced by nearly 20 percent and 

BEA will realize hundreds of hours in staff time savings. The new system is much easier for 

customers to use which has resulted in a 40 percent increase in the number of orders processed. 

Customers can potentially save thousands of dollars each year because of BEA’s reduced 

processing times. 

 

Department of Defense 

The Department’s E-Government Act Report is located at: 

http://www.defenselink.mil/cio-nii/docs/DoDFY2007EGovernmentReport.pdf

Enterprise Software Initiative 

Commercially available software programs, such as word processing and office automation 

applications, are used extensively by many Federal, State and local government agencies. 

Typically each agency would buy software licenses for their system users, often paying vastly 

different prices and with different terms and conditions. The Department of Defense (DOD) 

21
implemented the Enterprise Software Initiative (ESI) in 1998 to leverage the collective 

purchasing power of DOD in order to save money through discounted pricing, volume 

purchasing, and preferred terms and conditions for various types of software. For this program, 

DOD negotiates favorable prices on widely used commercial software and information 

technology products and services, and makes those products and services available via blanket 

purchase agreements and other procurement vehicles. ESI is now partnered with the General 

Services Administration’s Federal SmartBUY Program to extend this methodology throughout 

the federal government, and (as needed) to State and local governments. One of the more recent 

additions to the products offered through this ESI/SmartBUY partnership (referred to as “cobranding”) are information security tools and encryption software used to protect sensitive data 

on laptops and mobile devices; a critical need for many Federal agencies as well as State and 

local governments. 

DOD enables ESI by using a public website to bring together the vendor and customer 

communities, highlighting products available and collecting information about customer 

requirements. In some cases, interagency teams are established to develop technical and 

functional requirements, common standards, and to identify solutions. In the case of the Data-AtRest encryption software now available through ESI, product discounts reached 85 percent for 

large volume purchases. Future savings for these products are estimated at over $70 million 

based on projected demand, average discounts, and competition among vendors. 

The DOD ESI team both holds and attends multiple conferences each year to advertise these 

discounted software applications to Federal, State and local agencies who could benefit from 

their use, and has a communications and outreach plan to ensure accessibility and availability to 

ESI information for people without access to the Internet and for those with disabilities. 

Department of Education 

The Department’s E-Government Act Report is located at: 

http://www.ed.gov/about/reports/annual/egov/status07.html

Federal Student Aid Integrated Partner Management 

The Federal Student Aid Integrated Partner Management (IPM) project integrates common 

functions within the Department and supports the delivery of under Title IV of the Higher 

Education Act of 1965 funds for financial assistance to college students. The IPM initiative, 

through process reengineering and process automation, will provide, in one solution, improved 

eligibility, enrollment, and oversight processes used to manage partner entities (e.g., schools, 

school servicers, lenders, lender servicers, guarantee agencies, private collection agencies, State 

agencies, Federal agencies, accrediting agencies, auditors, and owners) as they administer Title 

IV Financial Aid for Students resulting in a more cost-efficient process. 

In addition to the partner benefits, the IPM solution will result in significant business 

improvement and increased accountability of Financial Aid for Students. IPM will provide faster 

access and increased availability to monitoring data, and improve data quality and accuracy. IPM 

will also increase customer satisfaction by leveraging single (reduced) sign-on for partners. The 

22
Department expects to achieve tighter integration of partner-level data and enhanced utility for 

monitoring, service, technical assistance, and risk management. Additionally, IPM will improve 

controls through a single point of enrollment and access for partner systems. 

Benefits of IPM include improved decision-making, increased data availability to school and 

financial partner oversight staff, single identifier at the enterprise level to manage partner 

activities, improved customer service, reduced case management process times through the 

implementation of work-flow technology, reduced manual data entry, and automated risk 

triggers. 

Department of Energy 

The Department’s E-Government Act Report is located at: 

http://cio.energy.gov/documents/DOE_E-Government_Act_Report_FINAL.pdf

The Savannah River Mission Support System 

The Department of Energy’s (DOE) Savannah River Mission Support System (SR-MSS) 

initiative is transforming and improving agency operations through its support of the Federal 

Enterprise Architecture (FEA), particularly the application of elements of the FEA Performance 

Reference Model, which is leading to improved management of government resources. SR-MSS 

assists with managing clean up of legacy nuclear waste and facilities, and helps to coordinate the 

supplying of nuclear materials for nationwide programs. SR-MSS also offers support for the 

nation’s non-proliferation policies, provides security controls to subcontracted systems, and 

helps to monitor and control technical performance. 

SR-MSS helps to ensure cost efficient performance in the areas it supports by automating 

nuclear facility maintenance activities and ensuring compliance with specific technical and 

nuclear safety requirements per site. 

Department of Homeland Security 

The Department’s E-Government Act Report is located at: 

 http://www.dhs.gov/xabout/compliance/index.shtm

US-VISIT 

The Department of Homeland Security manages the United States Visitor and Immigrant Status 

Indicator Technology (US-VISIT) Program to enhance the security of our citizens and visitors, 

facilitate legitimate travel and trade, ensure the integrity of our immigration system, and protect 

the privacy of our visitors. The project integrates many immigration and border control 

processes and data, and supports identity management through the use of biometrics (finger 

scans and digital photos). US-VISIT is available to DHS components responsible for border 

security and immigration management, as well as the Department of State, FBI, and U.S. 

intelligence community. US-VISIT’s biometric identity verification capabilities support U.S. 

visa issuance, U.S. port of entry inspection, application of immigration benefits (such as 

23
naturalization), and interior enforcement of alien overstays, among other processes both inside 

and outside of the Department. 

US-VISIT also helps the Department efficiently utilize related personnel and resources in 

support of their components’ missions. A project team comprising agency representatives 

ensures that the needs of all users are addressed and works to improve the performance of the 

project. The Department’s investment review board oversees the project to ensure that it is 

effectively planned and implemented, reviews barriers impeding the project’s success, and 

designs methods to overcome them. 

Department of Health and Human Services 

The Department’s E-Government Act Report is located at: 

http://www.hhs.gov/ocio/egov/annualreport/egovanrprt2007.html

Hospital Compare 

Hospitals can vary in the quality of care they provide. The Hospital Compare website was 

created to help the public see how well the hospitals in their area care for their patients and to 

allow consumers to compare the quality of care hospitals provide. The quality of care 

information comes from hospitals that submit their data voluntarily from their patient records. 

The data is converted to rates that measure how well the hospitals care for their patients. In 

September 2003, the predecessor to Hospital Compare (National Voluntary Hospital Reporting 

Initiative), included information from only 415 hospitals. In less than four years, with the 

Hospital Compare website, the number of hospitals participating has increased to 4,416. 

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) launched Hospital Compare on March 

31, 2005, to provide quality of care information in four areas: heart attack, heart failure, 

pneumonia, and surgical infection prevention. As of June 2007, information is now available on 

24 different process-of-care measures, and two mortality measures. During the 12 month period 

of July 2006 through June 2007, there were 22 quality measures reported on Hospital Compare. 

All but two of these measures had overall improvement rates of 1 to 13 percent at the National 

level. CMS will add Patient Satisfaction measures in March 2008 to make available even more 

information that consumers need for health care decision making. 

The Hospital Compare website enables CMS to transform agency operations by empowering 

beneficiaries to use health quality information to make decisions about their health care. These 

quality compare tools help CMS to achieve goals to make health information more transparent, 

and more accessible to the public. Additionally, Hospital Compare was tested for compliance 

with Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act, as amended, and was found to be compatible with 

assistive technologies, such as screen readers. All future enhancements or changes to the tool are 

tested in the same manner. In addition, the Access Board website is frequently consulted for any 

changes or innovative implementations of Section 508. 

24
Department of Housing and Urban Development 

The Department’s E-Government Act Report is located at: 

http://www.hud.gov/offices/cio/egov/fy07_egovrpt092007.pdf

National Housing Locator Service 

When disaster occurs, emergency response agencies and staff need flexible, innovative tools to 

quickly address basic human needs such as housing, food, and medical services. The 

Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), in support of FEMA, State and local 

housing authorities, and other first responders, launched the intergovernmental National Housing 

Locator Service (NHLS) website in January 2007. The NHLS is an accessible, searchable, webbased clearinghouse of over 200,000 rental housing vacancies available nationwide for 

emergency use. 

In less than a year, the NHLS has come to represent a new model for quickly developing 

information applications to address HUD’s strategic requirements and allow HUD to interoperate 

easily with other government organizations. Prior to this solution, government housing agencies 

and first responders would manually, over the course of weeks, collect, compile, and verify 

vacancy information from multiple agency legacy systems and online sources one by one. With 

NHLS, there is now one streamlined business process supported by state-of-the-art technology to 

deliver quality data, day or night. 

The move to the NHLS citizen-centric, one-stop portal is transforming the housing locator 

process and is realizing cost savings through the efficiencies achieved by reducing the housing 

locator process from weeks to seconds. This modern approach to application development 

allows HUD to invest incrementally in the program, in response to real-world requirements that 

evolve quickly in step with the nation’s disaster-response capabilities. 

Department of the Interior 

The Department’s E-Government Act Report is located at: 

http://www.doi.gov/e-government/FY2007AnnualReport.pdf

Enterprise Licensing Agreements 

The Department of the Interior’s Enterprise Licensing Agreement (ELA) initiative for hardware 

and software purchases is transforming Departmental operations. ELAs are improving internal 

collaboration, asset management, product standardization, and compliance with regulatory 

requirements. The creation and maintenance of ELAs require coordination among various teams 

within the Department to ensure that the agreements meet the the majority of the 

Department’s hardware and software purchasing needs. Additionally, the Department closely 

coordinates with external groups, such as the General Services Administration (GSA) SmartBUY 

program, the Federal Electronics Stewardship Working Group, and industry partners. 

Through ELAs, the Department is promoting technical standards and efficiencies consistent with 

the Department’s overall strategic goals by coordinating and consolidating the acquisition and 

management of hardware and software products, ensuring acquired products and services comply 

25
with required standards and specifications, and ensuring Departmental users can easily obtain the 

products they need. By committing to set quantities of select products up-front, the DOI is 

realizing $68.72 million in total cost avoidance over five years. 

The implementation of the ELA initiative has made the Department think more strategically 

about hardware and software purchases and has enhanced the Department’s capital planning and 

investment control coordination and collaboration efforts. 

Department of Justice 

The Department’s E-Government Act Report is located at: 

www.usdoj.gov/jmd/ocio/egovactreport2007.pdf

Law Enforcement National Data Exchange 

The Law Enforcement National Data Exchange project promotes the sharing of law enforcement 

information among other Federal law enforcement programs, as well as State and local law 

enforcement agencies. The project provides a powerful new investigative tool to search, link, 

analyze and share law enforcement information, including incident reports, arrest reports, 

criminal histories, and warrants. These linking and analysis tools help agencies identify 

relationships between people, places, things and crime characteristics. Additionally, the project 

helps link information across jurisdictions and coordinate law enforcement activities. 

The project follows a structured deployment schedule to ensure services and capabilities are built 

and deployed incrementally to meet users’ needs. The schedule ensures senior management 

maintains oversight of the project’s implementation, and project work groups systematically 

analyze how to maximize the benefits of the project with other agencies and entities. As a result, 

new services and capabilities leverage existing capabilities at the Department to minimize new 

costs. 

Department of Labor 

The Department’s E-Government Act Report is located at: 

http://www.dol.gov/cio/programs/E-Gov/EGov2007.htm

Safety and Health Information Management System 

The Safety and Health Information Management System (SHIMS) is a web-based system for 

reporting on-the-job injuries and illnesses of Federal workers as required by Federal Worker 

2000, a Presidential initiative to reduce Federal worker occupational injury and illness. SHIMS 

replaced the manual, paper-based process for filing claims through the Office of Workers’ 

Compensation Programs (OWCP) with an electronic filing option available via the Internet. 

Claimants can file claims online, and receive certain email notifications about the processing of 

their claims. Within the Department, SHIMS simplifies workflow and provides more accurate 

reporting and trend analysis than the prior processes. In addition to the Department of Labor, 

26
four other agencies use SHIMS and at least one additional agency is in the process of 

implementing the system at this time. 

SHIMS has significantly improved claims filing by reducing the amount of time it takes injured 

employees to file claims, which must be filed within 14 days. In 2000, 57 percent of claims were 

filed on time. With SHIMS, over 95 percent of DOL claims are filed on time, and the timely 

filing rate for all current SHIMS users, including DOL, is 88 percent for First Quarter 2008. 

SHIMS also saves the government money in two ways. First, by allowing multiple agencies to 

use one system instead of each agency designing, building, maintaining and operating their own 

system, and second, by eliminating the time and labor-intensive manual processes to file, track 

and submit a claim. In terms of SHIMS' cost savings for information technology infrastructure, 

over a three year period an agency could save approximately $2.1M by not having to design, 

develop, maintain and operate a system of their own. 

The SHIMS program has been designed to easily accommodate individuals without access to the 

Internet by allowing them to submit forms via postal mail, and offering telephone support. 

SHIMS also considers the needs of people with disabilities, such as providing alternative 

keyboard navigation, animated displays, color and contrast setting, and other means of making 

the system usable to people with vision impairment. The process provides for public 

accessibility by phone, mail or other technology without decreasing an individual’s ability to 

obtain and use information quickly and easily. 

Department of Transportation 

The Department’s E-Government Act Report is located at: 

http://www.dot.gov/webpoliciesnotices/dotegovactreport2007.htm

Intermodal Hazardous Materials Database 

The Department of Transportation is developing the Intermodal Hazmat Intelligence Portal, for 

better coordination of hazardous materials inspection and enforcement data collected by agencies 

within the Department. The Portal is scheduled for implementation in FY 2009, and will enable 

the Department to identify and target high risk/consequence companies, increase safety 

performance through risk-based enforcement, maximize limited resources by prioritizing 

inspection activities, strengthen cross modal, State, and local collaboration, and increase the 

effectiveness of outreach, training and emergency preparedness. 

By employing risk reduction strategies, the Department will strengthen safety performance and 

leverage data to drive business decisions providing for the safe, secure, and reliable transport of 

hazardous materials. Through data sharing and business intelligence tools, the Department will 

make strategic and operational decisions based upon capabilities not available in the past such as 

pattern matching to identify trends, and leading indicators to potentially identify and prevent 

incidents from occurring. 

Through partnerships, the investment will produce a Department-wide risk rating for each 

regulated company and complete inspection histories by using data from Federal, State and 

27
commercial sources. It will reduce time required to plan inspections through automated 

scorecards and itinerary planning. Collaboration tools will limit duplicate inspections and 

coordinate outreach to industry and the public. 

Department of the Treasury 

The Department’s E-Government Act Report is located at: 

http://www.treas.gov/offices/cio/egov/ea/2007_egov_report.pdf 

Modernized Electronic File 

Modernized Electronic File (MeF) is the Internal Revenue Service’s (IRS) e-Filing platform for 

the future. MeF is web-based and provides a means for corporate, nonprofit, and partnership tax 

returns to be filed electronically via the Internet. It is transforming how the IRS completes its tax 

processing and compliance functions. The IRS has formed strategic alliances with a number of 

professional organizations and tax practitioners, including the Federation of Tax Administrators 

(FTA), the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA), the National 

Association of Computerized Tax Processors (NACTP), Council for Electronic Revenue 

Communication Advancement (CERCA), and the Tax Information Group for Electronic Data 

Interchange Requirements Standardization (TIGERS). Through outreach sessions, technical 

seminars, and working level meetings, this partnership has helped set the direction for e-Filing 

and improved its utility. 

MeF’s outcome measures directly support the Department’s Strategic Goal to achieve 

“Management and Organizational Excellence.” Since 2003, MeF has processed over 4 million 

corporate, nonprofit, and partnership tax returns, reducing the cost to process these returns by 

over $8 million. Electronic filing by the taxpayer population supported by MeF has increased by 

over 38 percent since MeF was implemented. Finally, the extensive error checking and data 

validation resident within MeF has reduced the error rate associated with processing tax returns. 

While MeF is expected to cost the government $657.7 million, it is expected to return nearly 

$2.9 billion in benefits throughout its life cycle. Across all return types, electronically filed 

returns have a less than one percent error rate compared to a five percent error rate for paper filed 

returns. A reduction in errors speeds the processing time and reduces the amount of interaction 

that is required between IRS and the taxpayer. Incorporating additional forms and schedules into 

the MeF platform will allow IRS to retire legacy e-File applications in FY 2015, saving more 

than $8 million a year in operating and maintenance costs. 

Department of State

The Department’s E-Government Act Report is available at: 

http://www.state.gov/m/irm/rls/92584.htm

Virtual Presence Posts 

The Department of State’s Virtual Presence Posts (VPPs) are an innovative approach to extend 

the reach of State Department diplomatic services and consular information to cities and 

28
populations not served by physical embassies and consulates. The VPPs use information 

technology to deliver services cost-effectively, without the risks and challenges of staffing 

additional overseas posts. Currently, 41 VPPs are in operation in all regions of the world. 

These VPP web sites are designed to serve both local country residents and US citizens. VPP 

sites connect Americans and foreign nationals at the government to government, government to 

foreign national, and American citizen to foreign national levels. They provide a variety of 

services tailored to local requirements by the country team. These services usually include 

consular information, web-based engagement (through web chats and online forums) and other 

services. 

The Department regularly tracks the activities of VPP and tracks the number of visits to each of 

these sites. The VPPs are a highly leveraged and cost-effective mechanism for promoting US 

interests and engaging local populations around the world. 

The VPPs use web technologies to assist those with disabilities to access pertinent State 

Department information. VPP websites are compliant with section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act 

and are easily accessible from anywhere internet access is available such as homes, public 

locations, and internet cafes. This wide availability can be especially helpful to those who face 

difficulties in traveling to the nearest embassy or consulate. 

Department of Veterans Affairs 

The Department’s E-Government Act Report is available at: 

http://www.va.gov/oit/docs/FY_2007_EGov_Report_Final.pdf

Web-Enabled Approval Management System 

The Web-Enabled Approval Management System (WEAMS) helps the Department of Veterans 

Affairs (VA) administer educational benefits using the Internet. Veterans and eligible 

beneficiaries can use their benefits (GI Bill) only for educational programs which have been 

approved by VA. With WEAMS, users can search for approved educational programs through 

VA's website. The website allows the user to conduct nationwide searches for any approved 

programs, colleges, non-college degree granting institutions, licensing & certification granting 

providers, and national testing providers at anytime or any place in the world. This online 

capability provides a useful tool for veterans to quickly find educational sources, and to help in 

planning their future educational goals. 

Previously, VA beneficiaries would most likely have had to call the VA Education telephone line 

or the Education Service to get information on approved programs. Now, this capability is 

provided online. WEAMS’ public website has been averaging 8,799 daily and 228,794 monthly 

visitors to the site.

To make sure WEAMS continues to provide a useful service, the WEAMS mailbox allows 

veterans and their dependents to comment on WEAMS and to provide VA with ideas to improve 

and enhance the application according to user preferences. To serve disabled veterans, WEAMS 

continues to meet Section 508 standards by routine testing to ensure compliance and 

29
accessibility. Those who do not have access to the Internet can continue to access information 

about VA education benefits by calling. 

Environmental Protection Agency 

The Agency’s E-Government Act Report is available at:

http://epa.gov/oei/policies.htm

NEPAssist 

The National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) requires federal agencies to integrate 

environmental values into their decision making processes by considering the environmental 

impacts of their proposed actions and reasonable alternatives to those actions. NEPAssist is a 

Web-based environmental assessment tool developed to facilitate project planning and 

information sharing in relation to environmental considerations, as well as assist with the 

environmental review process. NEPAssist enables users to delineate a proposed project footprint 

on a map as a point, line or boundary, input background information about the project, and view 

information on critical environmental features in the locale of that delineated footprint. 

 NEPAssist is used to provide specific scoping comments, assist with environmental assessment 

of the project's proposed alternatives, and identify areas where impacts should be avoided or 

minimized, as well as potential areas where mitigation might be most beneficial. NEPAssist was 

developed to better enable environmental screening of proposed projects using consistent data 

sets by EPA staff, other Federal, State, and local agencies, NGOs, and the public. With its 

reliance on automated features and use of geospatially accurate information, NEPAssist enhances 

a data-driven electronic NEPA review that maximizes the efficient use of staff resources. 

NEPAssist is a joint project between EPA’s Office of Federal Activities (OFA) in the Office of 

Enforcement and Compliance Assistance (OECA) and the Office of Environmental Information 

(OEI). 

General Services Administration 

The Agency’s E-Government Act Report is available at: 

http://www.gsa.gov/egovreport

Catalog of Federal Domestic Assistance 

The Catalog of Federal Domestic Assistance (CFDA) is a database compendium of governmentwide Federal assistance programs available to individuals, State and local governments, profit 

and nonprofit organizations, and other eligible entities. Federal assistance includes grants, loans, 

and other types of assistance. The database is free to use and search, is available via the web, 

and is updated bi-weekly. Users can search the database to find assistance programs for which 

they are eligible, and can then contact the office administering the program to find out how to 

apply. Currently, the database includes over 1,700 assistance programs administered by 58 

Federal agencies and departments. 

30
Prior to the creation of CFDA’s online database, this information was only available by one of 

three ways: by purchasing an annual catalog printed by the Government Printing Office, by 

visiting a State or local library where GSA distributed copies, or by obtaining one of a limited 

number of free copies GSA distributed to the general public each year. Due to the amount of 

time it took to print and bind the books, the information was often out-of-date by the time the 

publications were finally distributed. By eliminating the print media, GSA has achieved a cost 

avoidance of $200,000 annually. Given that applicants for Federal Assistance used to pay 

$75.00 for each hard copy of the printed catalog, GSA estimates that the CFDA has saved 

applicants at least $1.5 million dollars annually. 

The CFDA Portal & Website adhere to Section 508 standards and have implemented 

accessibility technologies to include compatibility with JAWS screen reader, Dragon Naturally 

Speaking voice recognition software, and short-cut or alternate keys. 

National Aeronautics and Space Administration 

The Agency’s E-Government Act Report is available at: 

http://www.nasa.gov/offices/ocio/home/index.html

Contract Management Module 

The Contract Management Module (CMM), deployed at the National Aeronautical and Space 

Administration (NASA) centers in November 2006, provides a comprehensive contract-writing 

tool integrated within NASA’s financial management system. CMM has resulted in less 

paperwork, a standardized business process, a platform for E-Government initiatives, and an 

overall improvement in the way NASA does business. Further, CMM provides a foundation for 

continual integration and enhancement of agency business processes, and for cross-functional 

collaboration within NASA and across the Federal procurement system. 

Key benefits of the CMM include providing a collaborative and efficient procurement process to 

better manage procurement and related financial reporting. This includes leveraging the 

expertise of a trained procurement workforce, supporting informed decision making and 

improving procurement data quality, and maximizing the budget for mission expenditures by 

reducing life cycle costs through the utilization of procurement and project management data 

fields. In quantifying the cost savings and cost avoidance achieved through implementing this 

initiative, NASA estimates cost avoidance of $67 million over a 10 year lifecycle. 

NASA maintains an ongoing dialogue both internally across agency stakeholders and externally 

through user groups to bring together interested parties from across the Federal government to 

identify innovative ways to continually develop and use CMM in the procurement community. 

31
Nuclear Regulatory Commission 

The Agency’s E-Government Act Report is available at: 

http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/e-gov/

Document Intake and Review Project 

The Document Intake and Review Project (DIRP) is an enhancement to an existing Nuclear 

Regulatory Commission (NRC) investment and supports the efficient receipt, management of, 

and access to license application information, thereby improving the efficiency of the regulatory 

processes. This project helps companies compose and submit their license applications for new 

power reactors electronically and makes it easier for NRC employees to acquire, access, and use 

the information needed to perform their review of the applications. It also enhances the manner 

in which the NRC provides services to licensees and improves the NRC's ability to conduct 

business electronically with the industry for license application submittals. 

For this project, NRC coordinated working group sessions with industry representatives. For 

example, NRC worked with Westinghouse as a pilot user and continues to collaborate with the 

NRG Energy South Texas Project and Amarillo Power to create electronic license applications 

for submission through the DIRP process. Through 2012, this initiative has an estimated savings 

of at least $5.5 million dollars. 

National Science Foundation 

The Agency’s E-Government Act Report is available at: 

http://www.nsf.gov/oirm/dis/

The Public Access to Research Results Initiative

The Public Access to Research Results Initiative directly links information on NSF-funded 

science and research awards, to citations of journal articles which have been published as a result 

of an award. These results are provided in the form of citations entered into a web-based grants 

management system used by scientists, educators, technology experts, and administrators, to 

conduct business with NSF. 

The Public Access to Research Results Initiative has transformed agency operations by 

improving internal processes and providing the public with information on the outcomes of NSF 

funded research. This initiative increases the availability of publication information pertaining to 

agency awards. Since its implementation in June 2007, over 50,000 publication citations have 

already been linked to awards and made available via the Award Search feature on the NSF 

website. Additionally, NSF maintains a regular dialogue with constituents, such as through 

customer surveys, to ensure tools provided are meeting stakeholders’ needs. 

32
The Office of Management and Budget 

The Agency’s E-Government Act Report is available at: 

http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/organization/

ExpectMore.gov 

ExpectMore.gov is a website that provides the public with information on how Federal programs 

perform. ExpectMore.gov was launched in February 2006, and includes information about every 

Federal program assessed, what its purpose is, how it performs, and what it is doing to perform 

better. There are over 1000 assessment summaries and detailed assessments available on 

ExpectMore.gov. By making candid assessments of programs more accessible to the public, 

ExpectMore.gov raises awareness of what Federal programs are doing to improve performance 

and results. The site allows the public to easily browse for program assessments by either their 

rating or topic, or conduct a keyword search on ExpectMore.gov. Each assessment summary 

provides a brief program overview, some of the key findings of the assessment, and the followup actions agencies are taking to address those findings. Each summary includes links to the 

program’s website and the search results for similar Federal programs. 

The Office of Personnel Management 

The Agency’s E-Government Act Report is available at: 

https://www.opm.gov/About_opm/reports/egov.asp

Retirement System Modernization 

The Retirement System Modernization (RSM) will transform the Federal government’s 

retirement system to an automated, virtually paperless system. In addition to improving data 

timeliness and accuracy, the system will give the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) staff 

new capabilities to perform real-time analysis of retirement data, aggregate and analyze benefits 

data, and offer custom, downloadable, reports. The system will also add the ability for Federal 

employees and annuitants to access their accounts and perform retirement planning. The system 

will be used by all current and former civilian Federal employees, annuitants, and survivors. 

 

While the system’s greatest benefit will be improved service delivery and new functionality, the 

system will yield real savings through reduced improper payments. The system is expected to 

eliminate some of the improper payment errors. The performance target for correctly processing 

claims is 90 percent in Fiscal Year 2008, 93 percent in Fiscal Year 2009 and is expected to 

further improve once fully implemented. 

 

OPM will receive user feedback about the system through a call center, e-mail, and online 

polling. Inquiries about retirement accounts will be handled by the customer service 

representatives, whereas feedback, comments, or complaints about the functionality of the site 

will be forwarded to the program management office at OPM. Additionally, the OPM led 

Retirement System Modernization Group (RSMG) has regularly scheduled meetings to ensure 

continuous dialogue between OPM and the five payroll providers, including Federal agencies, as 

33
part of its implementation strategy. The payroll providers are the General Services 

Administration (GSA), U.S. Postal Service (USPS), National Business Center (NBC), National 

Finance Center (NFC) and Defense Finance and Accounting Service (DFAS). OPM will 

continue to provide access to all users through an Interactive Voice Response system, which will 

enhance the telephone self-service functions currently provided. This guarantees convenient 

access to those who would prefer not to, or are unable to use a computer, and provides the best 

possible access to all participants. 

Small Business Administration 

The Agency’s E-Government Act Report is available at: 

http://www.sba.gov/aboutsba/budgetsplans/

Internet-based loan Application, Certification, and Management Solutions 

The SBA is transforming agency operations by implementing Internet-based loan application, 

certification, and management solutions. These initiatives are increasing the Agency’s efficiency 

by streamlining functions to reduce the response and processing times, improve the quality of the 

data, and decrease costs. 

Specifically, the SBA’s E-Tran loan guaranty solution provides the Agency with quality and 

timely loan data. E-Tran is now regarded as an Industry Best Practice and its success has led 

other agencies to contact the SBA to use this application as a model. 

The SBA’s Disaster Credit Management System (DCMS) has also been successful in supporting 

E-Government initiatives. DCMS facilitated the processing of over 480,000 applications leading 

to more than 180,000 approvals. DCMS Electronic Loan Application (ELA) which is still under 

development, will allow those affected by a disaster to electronically submit applications for 

disaster relief, providing greater efficiency in the delivery of Office for Disaster Assistance 

services. 

Social Security Administration 

The Agency’s E-Government Act Report is available at: 

http://www.ssa.gov/irm/

Electronics Records Express 

The Social Security Administration’s (SSA) notable accomplishment during 2007 is the 

continued growth in the area of electronic Disability processing (eDib) which expands options 

for submission of medical evidence electronically through our Electronic Records Express (ERE) 

website and by fax. While there are still some paper based claims in SSA’s backlog, virtually all 

new claims are electronic. The fax and website options for submitting documents related to 

disability claims were also enhanced in 2007. SSA estimates that ERE substantially reduced FY 

2007 scanning costs. Other enhancements to ERE include new administrative features for 

Consultative Examination (CE) providers’ staffs, and electronic Outbound Requests (eOR) to 

34
medical and other providers of evidence. eOR permits SSA to request CE reports and some 

medical evidence of record (MER) via electronic means and dramatically increases the capability 

for enacting quick electronic responses. In addition, ERE includes accommodation based on 

Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act. This includes access capabilities through the use of 

commonly available assistive technologies, such as voice recognition software. 

Ultimately, SSA’s goal is to be able to receive and maintain all MER and CE reports 

electronically. This will minimize the need for costly contract scanning services as well as 

reduce the need for scanning by SSA personnel. 

U.S. Agency for International Development 

The Agency’s E-Government Act Report is available at: 

http://www.usaid.gov/policy/egov/

Food For Peace Information System 

The Food for Peace (FFP) program helps build and sustain a more democratic, secure and 

prosperous world through humanitarian aid. It provides the people of recipient nations with 

sufficient food to meet their needs so that they can lead healthy and productive lives. It serves 

the citizens of the United States through the goodwill it fosters. 

The Food For Peace Information System (FFPIS) is one of the tools used to manage the FFP 

program. FFPIS is a database that contains cost, financial and programmatic data. It captures 

information about commodity prices, vendor proposals, funding allocations and cooperative 

agreements. In correlating the data, it provides Senior Management with a firm basis for 

decision-making and estimating future aid and funding requirements. In fact, recent program 

estimates have been within three percent of actual costs. The system’s ongoing cost-effective 

performance saves taxpayers money. It also delivers more goods and commodities per dollar in 

keeping with the Agency’s goal of providing transformational diplomacy through humanitarian 

aid. 

The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) has reached out to the FFPIS 

community, which includes the Department of Agriculture (USDA) along with Private and 

Voluntary Organizations (PVO’s). FFPIS solicited input on ways to improve the system. The 

dialogue and collaborative analysis that resulted holds the promise of an even better, more 

integrated FFPIS. 

35
U.S. Department of Agriculture 

The Department’s E-Government Act Report is available at: 

http://www.ocio.usda.gov/FY_2007_E-Government_Act_Report.pdf

PartnerWeb 

In February 2006, United States Secretary of Agriculture Mike Johanns announced “Twelve 

Action Steps” to be taken by the Department in response to an extensive investigation into an 

ineligible shipment of U.S. beef to Japan. Based on this response, the Agricultural Marketing 

Service (AMS) was directed to maintain a list of products approved for export to each country by 

each plant participating in Export Verification (EV) programs on an internal website. As a 

result, a technology team using existing shared technology services worked to create 

PartnerWeb, a critical component utilized to aid in the resolution of this and future problematic 

international trade situations. PartnerWeb connects AMS and FSIS to ensure that all EV 

programs are regularly updated, and FSIS inspectors have access to the current information while 

performing export re-inspections on site. 

PartnerWeb now includes standards for EV Programs with other foreign trade partners. The NonHormone Treated Cattle (NHTC) Program uses PartnerWeb to maintain a list of farms, ranches, 

feedlots, and cattle management approved by AMS to supply European countries. PartnerWeb 

recently helped avert a potential trade disagreement through the inclusion of a list of eligible 

products approved for export to Korea. Initially seeking to close the communication gaps 

between the export verification and inspection arms of USDA, PartnerWeb has proven versatile 

by allowing for expansions while also serving as a problem-solving tool for USDA export 

regulation and inspection. PartnerWeb represents a cross-agency collaboration created in 

response to the Secretary’s promise to enhance service delivery and use technology to improve 

internal efficiencies. 

36
SECTION III: OPERATIONS OF THE E-GOVERNMENT FUND 

GSA manages the E-Government Fund to support innovative interagency projects led by OMB. These 

initiatives transform internal operations necessary to secure and disseminate Federal information while 

improving Federal program and services delivered to the public. 

The following table describes the projects for which OMB approved funding appropriated in FY 2007 

($2,970,000), as well as the results achieved for those projects. In addition, FY 2007 GSA’s spending 

plan detailed $1,930,898 in prior year (PY) balances that would be applied to different E-Government 

initiatives than initially planned. These changes are detailed below. A total of $1,272,000 was 

obligated from the E-Government Fund in FY 2007. 

Fiscal Year 2007 E-Government Fund Initiatives 

Agency Initiative Funding Description and Results 

OMB E-Government and Lines 

of Business (LoB) 

Refinement and Support 

$1,200,000 Refinement and support of E-Government 

initiatives to further maximize the benefits to 

citizens and efficiencies for the government. 

This is accomplished through managing and 

monitoring the ways agencies deploy 

information technology investments. OMB 

works with agencies so their annual information 

technology budget requests are linked to the 

Federal Enterprise Architecture (FEA) to better 

identify investments which are redundant or 

should be part of an existing initiative. 

OMB Architecture 

Development for the 

LoBs 

$800,000 Continued development of the FEA by OMB to 

identify opportunities to simplify processes and 

unify work within the E-Government initiatives 

and LoBs. This includes development of 

standardized architectures and interfaces 

between business lines so agencies can better 

plan for incorporation of the E-Government and 

LoB initiatives into their own enterprise 

architecture programs. Some examples of 

supported efforts include the Federal Transition 

Framework, Internet Protocol Version 6 (IPv6), 

and other government-wide standards and 

protocols. 

OMB Development and 

Monitoring of Costs 

Savings Efforts 

$500,000 Adoption of standards and solutions to increase 

program effectiveness by increasing 

competition during acquisitions and lowering 

the overall life cycle costs of programs 

government-wide. 

A methodology for this was adopted in 2006 via 

37
Fiscal Year 2007 E-Government Fund Initiatives 

Agency Initiative Funding Description and Results 

OMB Memoranda M-06-22, "Cost Savings 

Achieved Through E-Government and Line of 

Business Initiatives." As part of the FY 2009 

President's Budget, OMB released the FY 2007 

agency cost savings associated with the EGovernment initiatives. 

OMB Improvement and 

Monitoring of 

Performance Results 

$470,000 The E-Government initiatives are tracked in 

order to provide a complete, timely, and 

accurate assessment of the usage of, and 

benefits delivered to citizens, businesses, and 

government agencies alike. 

On December 18, 2006, OMB started posting 

performance information on 18 E-Government 

initiatives to provide insight into the progress of 

these initiatives in three key areas: 

• Adoption/Participation – The degree to 

which the relevant community entities 

participate in the initiatives; 

• Usage – The level of use by the targeted 

end user; and 

• Customer Satisfaction – End user 

satisfaction with the initiative’s products 

and/or services. 

OMB continues to update the website on a 

quarterly basis which is located at: 

http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/egov/c-7-

index.html. 

OMB Architecture 

Development for the 

Lines of Businesses 

$386,343 

from PY 

balances 

The purpose of this effort is to develop 

standardized operations, architectures, and 

interfaces between business lines. 

38
Fiscal Year 2007 E-Government Fund Initiatives 

Agency Initiative Funding Description and Results 

OMB Federal Accountability 

and Transparency 

Website Development 

$400,000 

from PY 

balances 

The Federal Funding Accountability and 

Transparency Act of 2006 (PL 109-282) 

requires OMB to oversee the development of a 

website through which the public can readily 

access information about grants and contracts 

provided by Federal Government agencies. 

These funds supported OMBs work with 

agencies through an inter-agency task force to 

ensure the milestones for developing and 

maintaining www.USASpending.gov were 

achieved in accordance with plans and statute. 

This new website utilizes existing sources of 

data to prevent redundant data collection where 

possible. 

OMB Lines of Business (LoB) 

Support 

$448,555 

from PY 

balances 

As a part of its commitment to help create a 

Federal Government to meet the needs of 

the American people, OMB works with the 

GSA to develop initiatives with potential 

benefits and savings for taxpayers. Some 

examples of supported initiatives include: 

Geospatial – Sharing of geospatial processes 

and capabilities across the 25 Federal agencies 

producing or collecting geospatial data; 

Information Technology Infrastructure 

Optimization - Reducing the cost and increasing 

the effectiveness of information technology 

management across the government; and 

Budget Formulation - Standardizing and 

streamlining the development and submission 

of agency budgets. 

In several areas, the common solutions are 

market-driven approaches where service 

providers competing for government business 

are driven to provide the best services and most 

innovative solutions at the lowest cost. Several 

initiatives will establish government-wide 

shared Service Centers to provide technology 

solutions to support multiple agencies. 

39
Fiscal Year 2007 E-Government Fund Initiatives 

Agency Initiative Funding Description and Results 

OMB Support for Governmentwide Solutions $696,000 

from PY 

balances 

To strengthen the E-Government programs and 

LoBs, there are a number of government-wide 

solutions needed to provide integration of the 

program and comparable use adoption metrics. 

Each individual E-Government initiative and 

LoB is responsible for projecting cost savings 

before projects are launched and providing cost 

tracking reports monthly. The actual cost 

savings depends heavily on citizen adoption and 

use. This effort provides support for the 

initiatives to determine cost savings for the 

government based on actual customer 

utilization. 

40
SECTION IV: LISTING OF REPORTS AND POLICIES USED 

IN THIS REPORT 

Page 3 

 Chapter 9 of the President’s Fiscal Year 2009 Budget of the U.S. Government: 

http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/ 

 

 Expanding E-Government: Making a Difference for the American People Using 

 Information Technology: 

http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/egov/documents/expanding_egov_2006.pdf

Page 4 

 Report to Congress on the Benefits of the E-Government Initiatives: 

http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/egov/

 

 OMB’s FY 2007 report, “Federal Information Security Management Act: 

 http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/inforeg/infopoltech.html

 Prior Reports with Information on compliance with Sections 203, 210, 211, and 215 of 

 the E-Government Act: 

http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/inforeg/infopoltech.html

Page 5 

 OMB Memorandum M-06-02: 

http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/memoranda/fy2006/m06-02.pdf

Page 7 

 Executive Order 13392: 

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2005/12/20051214-4.html

 

 The Attorney General’s Report to the President pursuant to Executive Order 13392: 

http://www.usdoj.gov/oip/ag_report_to_president06012007.pdf

Page 8 

 The Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act: 

http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-

 bin/getdoc.cgi?dbname=109_cong_public_laws&docid=f:publ282.109.pdf

Page 9 

 Organizations Complementing Federal Agency Information Dissemination Programs: 

http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/inforeg/section_213_report_04-2005.pdf

41
Page 10 

 Records Management Profile: 

http://www.cio.gov/documents/RM_Profile_v1.pdf

 OMB Circular A-11, Section 300: 

http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/circulars/a11/current_year/s300.pdf

Page 12 

 The President's New Freedom Initiative: The 2007 Progress Report: 

http://www.whitehouse.gov/infocus/newfreedom/newfreedom-report-2007.html

 OMB memo, “Ensuring the Accessibility of Federal Electronic and Information 

 Technologies Procured by Federal Agencies:” 

 http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/procurement/508/electronic_info_technologies.pdf

Page 13 

 The FGDC 2006 Annual Report: 

http://www.fgdc.gov/library/whitepapers-reports/annual%20reports/2006-

 report/index_html

Page 14 

 OFPP memo, ” The Federal Acquisition Certification for Program and Project 

 Managers:” 

http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/procurement/workforce/fed_acq_cert_042507.pdf

 

 OPM ITEP guidance: 

http://www.opm.gov/leader/hrd/lead/itep/overview.asp

 Federal Enterprise Architecture: 

http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/egov/a-1-fea.html

 OMB 2007 EA Assessment Results: 

http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/egov/a-2-EAAssessment.html

Page 15 

 Improving Disaster Management: The Role of IT in Mitigation, Preparedness, Response, 

 and Recovery: 

http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=11824

Page 16 

 SAFECOM Statement of Requirements Volumes I and II: 

http://www.safecomprogram.gov/SAFECOM/library/technology/1258_Statementof.htm

Page 17 

 2006 National Interoperability Baseline Survey Findings: 

http://www.safecomprogram.gov/SAFECOM/library/background/1295_2006national.htm

42
43

Page 18 

 Statewide Interoperability Planning Guidebook: 

http://www.safecomprogram.gov/SAFECOM/statewideplanning/

 All SAFECOM tools and guidance documents: 

http://www.safecomprogram.gov