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TURNING THE TORTOISE INTO THE HARE: HOW

THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT CAN TRANSITION

FROM OLD ECONOMY SPEED TO BECOME A

MODEL FOR ELECTRONIC GOVERNMENT

HEARING

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON TECHNOLOGY AND

PROCUREMENT POLICY

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON

GOVERNMENT REFORM

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

ONE HUNDRED SEVENTH CONGRESS

SECOND SESSION

MARCH 21, 2002

Serial No. 107–164

Printed for the use of the Committee on Government Reform

(

Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.gpo.gov/congress/house

http://www.house.gov/reform

(II)

COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT REFORM

DAN BURTON, Indiana, Chairman

BENJAMIN A. GILMAN, New York

CONSTANCE A. MORELLA, Maryland

CHRISTOPHER SHAYS, Connecticut

ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN, Florida

JOHN M. MCHUGH, New York

STEPHEN HORN, California

JOHN L. MICA, Florida

THOMAS M. DAVIS, Virginia

MARK E. SOUDER, Indiana

STEVEN C. LATOURETTE, Ohio

BOB BARR, Georgia

DAN MILLER, Florida

DOUG OSE, California

RON LEWIS, Kentucky

JO ANN DAVIS, Virginia

TODD RUSSELL PLATTS, Pennsylvania

DAVE WELDON, Florida

CHRIS CANNON, Utah

ADAM H. PUTNAM, Florida

C.L. ‘‘BUTCH’’ OTTER, Idaho

EDWARD L. SCHROCK, Virginia

JOHN J. DUNCAN, JR., Tennessee

——— ———

HENRY A. WAXMAN, California

TOM LANTOS, California

MAJOR R. OWENS, New York

EDOLPHUS TOWNS, New York

PAUL E. KANJORSKI, Pennsylvania

PATSY T. MINK, Hawaii

CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York

ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, Washington,

DC

ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland

DENNIS J. KUCINICH, Ohio

ROD R. BLAGOJEVICH, Illinois

DANNY K. DAVIS, Illinois

JOHN F. TIERNEY, Massachusetts

JIM TURNER, Texas

THOMAS H. ALLEN, Maine

JANICE D. SCHAKOWSKY, Illinois

WM. LACY CLAY, Missouri

DIANE E. WATSON, California

STEPHEN F. LYNCH, Massachusetts

———

BERNARD SANDERS, Vermont

(Independent)

KEVIN BINGER, Staff Director

DANIEL R. MOLL, Deputy Staff Director

JAMES C. WILSON, Chief Counsel

ROBERT A. BRIGGS, Chief Clerk

PHIL SCHILIRO, Minority Staff Director

SUBCOMMITTEE ON TECHNOLOGY AND PROCUREMENT POLICY

THOMAS M. DAVIS, Virginia, Chairman

JO ANN DAVIS, Virginia

STEPHEN HORN, California

DOUG OSE, California

EDWARD L. SCHROCK, Virginia

JIM TURNER, Texas

PAUL E. KANJORSKI, Pennsylvania

PATSY T. MINK, Hawaii

EX OFFICIO

DAN BURTON, Indiana HENRY A. WAXMAN, California

MELISSA WOJCIAK, Staff Director

VICTORIA PROCTOR, Professional Staff Member

JAMES DECHENE, Clerk

MARK STEPHENSON, Minority Professional Staff Member

(III)

C O N T E N T S

Page

Hearing held on March 21, 2002 ............................................................................ 1

Statement of:

Hite, Randy C., Director, Information Technology Systems Issues, U.S.

General Accounting Office, accompanied by Dave McClure, Director,

Information Technology Management Issues, U.S. General Accounting

Office; and Mark Forman, Associate Director for Information Technology and E-Government, Executive Office of the President, OMB ....... 12

Holcomb, Lee, CIO, Co-Chair, Federal Architecture and Infrastructure

Committee, Federal CIO Council, NASA; Debra Stouffer, Deputy Chief

Information Officer for IT Reform, Co-Chair, Best Practices Committee,

Federal CIO Council, HUD; Mayi Canales, Deputy CIO, E-Government

Portfolio Coordinator, Federal CIO Council, Department of Treasury;

Laura Callahan, Deputy CIO, Information Technology Center, CoChair, Workforce & Human Capital for IT, Federal CIO Council, Department of Labor; Janet Barnes, CIO, OPM; and Lloyd Blanchard,

Chief Operating Officer, Office of Management & Administration, Office of the Associate Deputy Administrator, Small Business Administration ................................................................................................................. 68

Letters, statements, etc., submitted for the record by:

Barnes, Janet, CIO, OPM, prepared statement of ......................................... 118

Blanchard, Lloyd, Chief Operating Officer, Office of Management & Administration, Office of the Associate Deputy Administrator, Small Business Administration, prepared statement of .............................................. 136

Callahan, Laura, Deputy CIO, Information Technology Center, Co-Chair,

Workforce & Human Capital for IT, Federal CIO Council, Department

of Labor, prepared statement of .................................................................. 108

Canales, Mayi, Deputy CIO, E-Government Portfolio Coordinator, Federal

CIO Council, Department of Treasury, prepared statement of ................. 88

Davis, Hon. Tom, a Representative in Congress from the State of Virginia, prepared statement of ........................................................................ 4

Forman, Mark, Associate Director for Information Technology and EGovernment, Executive Office of the President, OMB, prepared statement of ........................................................................................................... 46

Hite, Randy C., Director, Information Technology Systems Issues, U.S.

General Accounting Office, prepared statement of .................................... 15

Holcomb, Lee, CIO, Co-Chair, Federal Architecture and Infrastructure

Committee, Federal CIO Council, NASA, prepared statement of ............. 71

Stouffer, Debra, Deputy Chief Information Officer for IT Reform, CoChair, Best Practices Committee, Federal CIO Council, HUD, prepared

statement of ................................................................................................... 82

Turner, Hon. Jim, a Representative in Congress from the State of Texas,

prepared statement of ................................................................................... 10

(1)

TURNING THE TORTOISE INTO THE HARE:

HOW THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT CAN

TRANSITION FROM OLD ECONOMY SPEED

TO BECOME A MODEL FOR ELECTRONIC

GOVERNMENT

THURSDAY, MARCH 21, 2002

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, SUBCOMMITTEE ON TECHNOLOGY AND PROCUREMENT

POLICY, COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT REFORM, Washington, DC.

The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 2 p.m. in room

2154, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Tom Davis of Virginia

(chairman of the subcommittee) presiding.

Present: Representatives Davis and Turner.

Mr. DAVIS. Good afternoon and welcome to the Subcommittee on

Technology and Procurement Policies oversight hearing on Electronic Government in Enterprise Architecture.

Before I continue, I ask unanimous consent that all Members’

and witnesses’ written opening statements be included in the

record. Without objection, so ordered.

I ask unanimous consent that all articles, exhibits and extraneous or tabular material referred to be included in the record.

Without objection, so ordered.

After a number of years in which there have been so many calls

for the Federal Government to reinvent its delivery of services by

creating a digital government, this hearing will specifically examine both the context and the direction of electronic government at

the Federal level. We will do this by examining the e-government

and IT initiatives that are being developed at the direction of the

President by the Office of OMB through the newly created Office

of Associate Director for Information Technology and E-Government, a position currently held by Mr. Mark Forman. We will also

be hearing from GAO about the use of enterprise architecture

across the government and how enterprise architecture is being implemented by OMB and by the managing partner agencies charged

with carrying out the 24 e-government initiatives approved by the

President’s Management Council last fall.

In addition, the subcommittee will be hearing from the same

Federal agencies regarding their effort to streamline their respective information resources management infrastructure in order to

improve the effectiveness and efficiency of government processes in

support of electronic government.

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As electronic commerce and e-business transactions become commonplace, providing for end to end transactions, the demand for

electronic government has increased. In August 2000, a Harris/

Teeter Poll conducted for KPMG and the Council for Excellence in

Government found that 75 percent of the public expects the Internet to improve its ability to get information from Federal agencies

and 60 percent expect e-government to have a strong, positive effect on overall government operations.

In 2000, Mr. Turner and I each introduced legislation separately

that would have established a Chief Information Officer [CIO] for

the Federal Government as an independent Cabinet level office. In

considering that legislation in a hearing before the then-Subcommittee on Government Management, Information and Technology in September 2000, we learned about the problems the Federal Government is facing in transforming itself from an organization that manages information in a discrete, stovepipe fashion to

one that simplifies and unifies information agencies governmentwide. Those challenges potentially hinder the Government’s ability

to reap the cost of service benefits we hope to achieve through IT

modernization efforts and employment of electronic government.

Congressman Turner has introduced legislation in this Congress

to create the Office of CIO within OMB and establish an e-government fund. During his first year in office the President established

electronic government as one of the five key elements of his management and performance plan. As the administration’s leading

Federal e-government executive, Mr. Forman is responsible for carrying out the President’s goal of developing a citizen-centric government through the use of the Internet and for formulating the Federal Government’s IT policy.

To carry out this objective, Mr. Forman has led an interagency

task force since July 2001, whose purpose is to identify high payoff

e-gov opportunities to achieve strategic improvements in citizen access to information, reduce burdens on businesses, strengthen

intergovernmental relationships, and advance internal government

efficiency.

In that vein, Mr. Forman has moved forward with the administration’s Enterprise Information Management and Integration Initiative, using the principles of ‘‘unify and simplify’’ in identifying

e-government priorities. In October, the President’s Management

Council selected 23 cross-agency e-government initiatives for funding, and added a 24th payroll processing initiative this past January. Last month, OMB issued its E-Government Strategy Report,

which lays out the implementation road map for developing and deploying those 24 initiatives. In addition to gaining a better understanding about the e-government initiatives and plans for implementation, the subcommittee will also take this opportunity to hear

from GAO on its recent report on the use of enterprise architecture

by the Federal Government.

As an essential tool for effectively and efficiently engineering

business processes and for implementing and evolving their supporting systems, enterprise architecture is regarded by many as a

fundamental component of IT modernization and, in turn, of the

implementation of electronic government. Transforming our government stovepipe information structure to a cost- and process-effiVerDate 11-MAY-2000 09:47 Mar 21, 2003 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00006 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 D:\DOCS\85123.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
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cient network is critical to the successful deployment of the administration’s 24 e-government initiatives, and IT modernization efforts overall. Yet, if these objectives are pursued without determining in advance the underlying architecture, we could be undermining our goal of better utilizing technology across the traditional

boundaries of bureaucracy.

We will be using this forum to learn from Mr. Forman, and the

lead agency managers, of the selection of the 24 e-government initiatives on how they are using EA principles to approach the creation and deployment of these initiatives. We will also learn how

agencies are using IT overall to retool their information management and architecture to achieve cross-functional integration that

results in efficiency and accountability enterprise-wide.

We will review how Federal agencies address enterprise-wide

issues that have traditionally been dealt with bureau by bureau or

department by department. We will hear how they are using EA

principles to guide their modernization efforts. In addition, information security is an essential component of any successful electronic government effort. The citizen and private sector confidence

in the protection and dissemination of information shared by the

Government is equally critical. Therefore, as part of this discussion,

we would like to understand the agencies’ processes for identifying

and implementing proper security and privacy policies for information systems, both overall and in respective systems that will be

used for e-government initiatives.

Throughout the past year, this subcommittee has been committed to exploring ways the Government can obtain the best value for

taxpayer dollars while providing the most efficient services to citizens. This hearing will be no different in asking how the Government is reforming itself with respect to IT investments in the information infrastructure that will support electronic government. We

will explore future legislative initiatives that will facilitate crossagency cooperation for simplifying and unifying redundant business

and architecture, particularly in support of e-government initiatives.

Today, the subcommittee will hear testimony from the following

witnesses: Mr. Randy Hite, Director, IT Systems Issues, GAO, accompanied by Mr. Dave McClure, Director, IT Management Issues,

GAO; Mr. Mark Forman, Associate Director, Information Technology and E-Government, OMB; Mr. Lee Holcomb, Co-Chair, Federal Architecture and Infrastructure Committee, Federal CIO

Council and CIO at NASA; Ms. Debra Stouffer, Federal Enterprise

Architecture Program Manager on detail to OMB and Deputy CIO

at HUD on temporary leave; Ms. Mayi Canales, Deputy CIO, Department of Treasury; Dr. Laura Callahan, Deputy CIO, Department of Labor; Ms. Janet Barnes, CIO, OPM; and Dr. Lloyd Blanchard, CIO, Small Business Administration.

I will yield to Representative Turner for his opening statement.

[The prepared statement of Hon. Tom Davis follows:]

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Mr. TURNER. Thank you.

I appreciate the hearing we are having today and I appreciate

your leadership in this particular area. I think all of us fully understand the information technology revolution has transformed our

society and that it has certainly transformed the way we do business in the private sector and in government. I also think we have

the commonly held view that in government, we have not moved

as rapidly in the transformation as has the private sector. It is important that we do so, not only because we can save millions of taxpayer dollars if we do, but we can make government more accessible and user friendly than it is today.

This committee had the opportunity to hear a witness in a previous hearing, Mr. Tom Siebel of the Siebel Corp. He presented a

bit of testimony that was quite interesting because he had reviewed

the information available to the various agencies of government regarding the terrorists who boarded those planes on September 11th

and had drawn at least the tentative conclusion that perhaps with

the better utilization of information technology that we would have

known enough to have prevented that terrible tragedy.

Not only are we now engaged in an effort to make government

more efficient, more user friendly, but perhaps to make government

better able to preserve and protect our own personal security. So

this is an important topic and one that I feel this committee has

a very important role in pursuing.

I think we all understand that we need to make some progress

and perhaps need legislation. As the chairman mentioned, I introduced what is known as the E-Government Act of 2001 which was

introduced in the Senate by Senator Lieberman. That bill as well

as the bill the chairman has introduced in the past are all designed

to try to bring us more quickly into the 21st century with regard

to our utilization of information technology.

The bill that I introduced with Senator Lieberman was heard

this morning in the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee and

reported out in an amended form. I haven’t had the opportunity to

take a look at it but I would say I hope we can all work together

to move that or something similar to it forward in the legislative

process.

I look forward to hearing from the witnesses today, particularly

Mr. Forman as he outlines for us the efforts that the administration is making. I know you are responsible for the administration

of the E-Government Fund established in the President’s budget.

You direct the CIO Council, advise on appointments of those CIOs

of various agencies and monitor and work with those CIOs. We will

look forward to hearing your report regarding the E-Government

Initiative which I understand was recently approved by the President’s Management Council.

I know on our second panel we have several chief information officers or deputy CIOs here as well. So this is a very timely hearing

and again, I thank the chairman for scheduling it for us.

[The prepared statement of Hon. Jim Turner follows:]

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Mr. DAVIS. Thank you, Mr. Turner.

I will call our first panel witnesses, Randy Hite and Mark

Forman. It is the policy of the committee that all witnesses be

sworn before you testify.

[Witnesses sworn.]

Mr. DAVIS. To afford sufficient time for questions, if the witnesses would try to limit themselves to no more than 5 minutes.

We have your testimony and have looked it over and have questions. All written statements will be a part of the permanent

record.

I will begin with Mr. Hite followed by Mr. Forman. Welcome, and

thank you for being here.

STATEMENTS OF RANDY C. HITE, DIRECTOR, INFORMATION

TECHNOLOGY SYSTEMS ISSUES, U.S. GENERAL ACCOUNTING

OFFICE, ACCOMPANIED BY DAVE MCCLURE, DIRECTOR, INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY MANAGEMENT ISSUES, U.S. GENERAL ACCOUNTING OFFICE; AND MARK FORMAN, ASSOCIATE DIRECTOR FOR INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY AND EGOVERNMENT, EXECUTIVE OFFICE OF THE PRESIDENT,

OMB

Mr. HITE. Thank you for the opportunity to participate in today’s

hearing.

My responsibilities at GAO include our work on enterprise architecture and accompanying me today is Dave McClure, whose responsibilities include e-government.

Before summarizing our statement, let me briefly describe what

enterprise architecture and e-government are in lay terms. In a

nutshell, enterprise architecture is a high level description of how

an entity operates today, how it intends to operate tomorrow and

how it plans to get from today to tomorrow. An entity can be an

organization such as a Federal agency or it can be a functional or

mission area that cuts across more than one agency such an e-government initiative.

Also, it is important to understand that this architecture is more

than merely a technical road map and, in fact, describes the entity’s operations in both business and technology terms. Metaphorically, an enterprise architecture can be compared to the plans,

models, construction blueprints, building codes and materials

standards that would be used to construct a modern skyscraper.

Federal e-government refers to a type of business asset or resource consisting of people, process and technology that leverages

the power of digital technologies, particular Web-based applications

so that Federal agencies can better serve their four customer bases,

those being citizens, private businesses, other levels of government

and other Federal agencies.

With these definitions as the backdrop, our testimony addresses

four questions: how can we define and measure the state of enterprise architecture and maturity; what is the state of maturity in

the Federal Government; what role should these architectures play

in implementing e-government; and what leadership steps can

OMB take to ensure needed progress is made in both of these

areas?

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The answer to the first two questions is summarized graphically

on the briefing board to my right. We also provided each of you a

handout on this as well. As represented on the horizontal axis, we

have defined five stages of architecture maturity beginning with

Stage 1, the lowest level, and progressing to Stage 5, the highest

level. We have also surveyed 116 Federal agencies on their architecture efforts and using their responses, have rated and aggregated agencies of like maturity levels as represented on the vertical

axis.

As you can see, the state of maturity can best be described as

work in progress with much left to be accomplished. In particular,

I would draw your attention to the fact that about one-half of the

agencies are only at Stage 1, meaning either there is no commitment to developing an architecture or the architecture efforts underway are ad hoc and do not provide a recipe for success. Why is

this the case? Our survey results point to four interrelated reasons,

all of which can be traced to a lack of agency head commitment

sponsorship.

These are: one, lack of funding; two, limited management understanding; three, parochialism; and four, a shortage of skilled staff.

Ironically, these are some of the very challenges that OMB faces

in implementing its portfolio of 24 initiatives being pursued under

the President’s management agenda to expand e-government.

Which brings me to the answer to the question to the third question our testimony addresses, the role of enterprise architecture in

implementing e-government. As we testified last year, past mistakes in implementing IT solutions remind us of the risk going forward. The key to successfully mitigating these risks is in employing

proven management practices. These practices can be viewed as

the horse that pulls the cart containing the e-government initiatives.

Historically, however, agencies have all too often put the cart before the horse, forging ahead on IT investments before putting

these management practices in place. OMB’s success in implementing its e-government initiatives depends in large part on not letting

this happen. One of these practices, and I underscore one, is using

enterprise architecture.

To its credit, OMB’s e-government strategy includes an architecture project. The real challenge, however, lies ahead in actually developing, validating and enforcing the architectures which brings

me to the answer to the final question addressed in our testimony,

OMB’s leadership steps. Clearly, OMB plays a critical leadership

role in achieving enterprise architecture and e-government

progress. Central to this role will be ensuring that both agency specific investments in IT and governmentwide investments in e-government are made within the context of these architectures.

To date, OMB has demonstrated leadership on both fronts but

the importance of these investments requires it to go further. Accordingly, we have made recommendations to OMB aimed at

strengthening its enterprise architecture leadership to the adoption

of the maturity framework we developed, use of the baseline agency architecture information that we collected, and periodic maturation reporting, all with the intent of bringing greater attention and

thus meaningful progress to this very important area.

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While these recommendations were made within the context of

agency specific architectures and investments, they have applicability to OMB-led e-government initiatives as well. We encourage

OMB to move swiftly in accepting and implementing these recommendations.

This concludes my statement. I will be happy to answer any

questions.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Hite follows:]

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Mr. DAVIS. Mr. Forman.

Mr. FORMAN. Thank you. Thank you also for your leadership in

e-government, cyber security and IT work force issues.

This hearing is particularly important because we believe that

the e-government efforts are critical to our ability to run the government effectively and efficiently. We appreciate your commitment and support in moving forward to leverage the power of the

Internet for Americans.

Before I get into the substance of my testimony, I need to make

sure the subcommittee understands that I don’t serve in a confirmed position within OMB. As a general policy, OMB usually

does not send officials in unconfirmed political positions to testify.

However, in this case, because OMB does not yet have a Deputy

Director for Management, the OMB Director decided it was in the

best interest of the administration to have me appear on his behalf

as a witness.

As you know, electronic government is one of the key elements

of the President’s management and performance plan. It is integral

or integrated with, as we see it, the other management initiatives

because e-government facilitates performance based budgeting,

strategic management of human capital, and financial management. In fact, if you were to put those together, it is what corporations generally call enterprise resource management.

At the same time, competitive sourcing has become a key tool

used by companies to rapidly acquire and integrate information

technology. We believe the combined effect of all the initiatives pursued concurrently is far greater than the mere sum of work on any

independent initiatives.

For our e-government efforts, we have to keep in mind three relevant lessons learned from e-business efforts in the commercial

world. First, complex transactions can be collapsed and made simple using a combination of new business design and Internet technology. It is not simple enough to do the technology work. As was

discussed, the business design is in parallel.

Second, survival in the digital economy often requires restructuring into integrated customer centered operations that use both

physical and on-line environments.

Third, an organization’s most senior executives must manage

transformations strategically through commitments, setting priorities, expectation, focus and measurement. Therefore, the guiding

principles for achieving our e-government vision are about simplifying the process and unifying the operations to better serve citizen

needs and ultimately uncomplicating government.

In late February, the Council for Excellence released its updated

Teeter poll of what Americans want from e-government. As the

chairman noted, Americans view e-government as important. In

fact, more than three-quarters of Internet accessible Americans and

more than half of all Americans overall go on line today to interact

with their government. Moreover, the study found that 70 percent

of Americans want government to invest in making it easier to get

services and information.

Our strategy for doing this focuses on the four citizen center

groups, for individuals, what people wold call G to C, focused on

one-stop shops for citizens that create single, easy points of entry

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to access high quality information and services, for businesses what

people would call G to B, reducing the burden on business through

use of the Internet. This is not about building a government Web

site but rather being able to communicate with business in the language of e-business largely x amount. For intergovernment or what

people would refer to as G to G, we must make it easier for States

and localities to meet the reporting requirements, provide better

performance measurement and easier access to grants and other

vertical information sharing initiatives. As Congressman Turner

pointed out, it is these G to G initiatives that are homeland security related.

In intergovernmental, our internal efficiency and effectiveness

portfolio is using modern technology to rethink internal processes

and bringing modern e-business programs to government and approaches to government.

E-government uses IT to improve Federal productivity by enabling better interactions and coordination. Each opportunity requires substantial changes in current bureaucratic procedures.

Each e-government initiative in our portfolio needs to be based on

a valid business case. It has to clearly articulate the value both to

the citizen and to the government, has to provide for privacy and

security, and provide a real work plan for achieving the results.

We undertook an analysis of the opportunities in our e-government strategy project, what many would call the Quicksilver

Project, a nickname we gave it during last summer. That identified

the initiatives as you mentioned. In addition, we identified key barriers that have prevented successful implementation of e-government and those are listed in my testimony.

One of the key findings of the task force came from review of the

Federal enterprise architecture. Simply stated, the enterprise architecture, in our view, describes how the organization performs its

work using the people, the business processes, the data and the

technology. In essence, our view of the enterprise architecture that

we need from the agencies and to support the projects has to be

a modernization blueprint, the path as Mr. Hite said to get to

where we need to go.

A task force major finding was that there is a significant overlap

and redundancy in the Federal business architecture. With 19 out

of 24 Cabinet level departments and agencies reforming each major

function in line of business of the Federal Government. The task

force found that this business architecture redundancy creates excessive duplicative spending on staff, IT and administration. Moreover, the task force’s assessment determined that the redundancy

makes it hard to get service while generating duplicative reporting

and paperwork burdens. In general, today’s Federal Government

business architecture is expensive to operate and not customer centered. Basic management principles tell us that the government operating cost will go down and effectiveness will go up if we make

it simpler for citizens to get services. That is what we need to focus

on in the enterprise architecture.

Finally, I would like to call your attention to the government

structure we have put in my larger testimony and highlight the

fact that we have adopted modern portfolio management practices

to move forward in e-government, leveraging the steering group

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that comprises the CIO Council, CFO Council, Human Resources

Management Council, Procurement Executive Council members as

well as line of business membership. Norm Larenz, the newly

named Chief Technology Officer for the Federal Government, assists me in this regard and oversees the Portfolio Management Office as well as the enterprise architecture.

Also noted in my testimony what we are moving toward in the

Federal Government is the same best practice you will see in modern communications who are Web-enabled, these component-based

architecture tools and techniques to address these issues Mr. Hite

has described.

Ultimately, what gets measured gets done and I have included

in my testimony the criteria that we use to measure agency

progress. Included in that is how well they work together to support the integration across the silos in the area of e-government.

Thank you.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Forman follows:]

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Mr. DAVIS. Thank you. I have a few questions. Mr. Hite, let me

start with you.

According to the figures you gave, there are 1,413 e-government

initiatives underway as of January 2001 and OMB seems to be

really pursuing 24, which is a drop in the bucket when it comes

to overall IT spending, which in 2000 will exceed $48 billion according to OMB’s projections. Can you comment on the ability of one

agency with a multitude of management and budgetary responsibilities to effectively oversee these other e-gov investments?

Mr. HITE. Mr. Chairman, as Clint Eastwood said, a man has to

know his limitations and I would defer to my colleague who is our

expert on e-government to respond to that.

Mr. DAVIS. Mr. McClure, thank you for being with us. Let the

record know Mr. McClure was sworn earlier.

Mr. MCCLURE. I think you raise a good point, Mr. Chairman.

Mark has responsibilities that go beyond the 24 e-gov initiatives

being pursued under the President’s management agenda. There is

a relatively substantial IT budget for the Federal Government, $48

billion in 2002, going up to $53 billion in 2003. What we would like

to see is some of the things that have been done since Mark arrived

as the use of good oversight tools by OMB to determine whether

the agencies are pursuing best practices in some of the critical IT

management areas, including enterprise architecture, capital planning and investment control, security, IT human capital.

I think we have seen movement in that direction as exhibited

both by the scorecard he alluded to that the President is using to

rate agency performance, much of the IT being rated in the e-gov

area, and second, the comprehensive nature of the changes made

to the A11 budget exhibits that all the agencies use to submit their

major IT submissions. These require a level of detail that did not

exist before to get at some of the most vexing problems that we at

GAO encounter when we do our reviews, solid business cases, security requirements, human capital needs, risk assessments, things

that traditionally we have seen as weaknesses in many of the agencies we have reviewed.

I think the real answer is the resources and tools being made

available and analytical approaches being exercised by OMB give

frank feedback to the agencies on their performance in the IT area.

Mr. FORMAN. Mr. Chairman, if I could add something?

Mr. DAVIS. Please, Mr. Forman.

Mr FORMAN. When we did the work last summer, indeed we

found about 370 ideas or concepts. Many of those projects were already funded and out of the 24 we selected, on average I would say

there are 5 to 10 projects currently funded in that list of 400 and

some you mentioned that Mr. Hite identified.

We have a choice. We could let those 100 to 120 projects go forward, we could add in another cross agency project and then we

would have 24 plus 110 to 120. Our decision was to forge partnerships among the teams that were already investing in these

projects and adopt a component architecture type approach that allows not to pursue independent activities but to join their funding

or join their assets around these common initiatives.

I will give you a couple of examples. On-line rulemaking, one of

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vey is that people want more accountability in government. That

means they want to see the regulations and rules that are being

proposed and want to be able to comment on those.

The agencies heard that and so if we have five, we have 25. Actually, we have quite a bit more than that initiatives underway to

put rulemaking dockets on-line. There are five major projects that

we have identified with the business cases using the methodologies

Dr. McClure laid out. We don’t need to buy all those and the agencies don’t need to continue reinventing the wheel. So via the partnership for rulemaking on-line, we are figuring out essentially who

does what and we are not going to invest in reinventing the wheel.

We have to get control on that and these are the 24 priorities and

areas we are going to focus on now.

Mr. DAVIS. Let me ask also, what is your position on OMB’s

plans for component architecture for its e-government initiatives

versus a consolidated Federal architecture?

Mr. HITE. I would say it is difficult to answer that question because I have yet to have the conversation with OMB about the

meaning of the word component. If component means or equals egovernment initiative in which case it would be an architecture for

each of the e-government initiatives, that would be fully consistent

with our position as to what an enterprise represents. In fact, an

enterprise can represent a business area or mission area that transcends more than one organization.

If component means cost based components that would be integrated together to provide the e-government solution, I would fully

support using cost based solutions, cost based components as the

basis for introducing these e-government capabilities. That is the

wave of the future. There are important management practices

that go along with how you do that, one of which is having the context in which those cost applications will fit, that context is the architecture.

Mr. DAVIS. Mr. Forman, the President, OMB and you have demonstrated remarkable management progress in recognizing the

Federal Government’s IT challenges and implementing reforms

through the budget processes. In the future, probably way in the

future, when the President is no longer the head of the executive

branch, what statutory or executive branch mechanisms are or will

be in place to guarantee that these reforms will continue to be

managed effectively from one administration to the next?

Mr. FORMAN. I think that is an excellent question. In fact, I and

some colleagues I worked with on the staff were remarking about

that. I am making extensive use of the Act and some of the vast

authorities endowed on the Director of OMB. Why that was not

done before, I don’t know. Clearly we are living in a confluence of

events now. The technology supports it, the interconnectivity of society has grown dramatically over the last 2 years, the whole notion of component based approaches in architectures, modular approaches, the battle that is going on between Microsoft and the

Java community right now becoming relevant to the business world

and the fact that government is increasing its investment when the

business world is decreasing creates unique opportunities but when

you get right down to it, using the authority that is laid out in the

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Act and that is at the heart of what I am finding to be the key to

success.

Mr. DAVIS. Let me yield to Mr. Turner.

Mr. TURNER. Mr. McClure, as you know, Mr. Davis and I met on

occasion with some State and local officials talking about what they

perceived to be barriers to the use of information technology and

implementing e-government. You are familiar, I know, with some

of those issues. It would be helpful to us if you could identify for

us what in your opinion are the existing Federal laws or regulations that do represent legitimate barriers to State and local governments’ ability to implement effective e-government policies?

Mr. MCCLURE. I can’t claim to speak for all the laws and their

impact in that area but I will tell you I think it requires a real

partnership between the CIO Council at the Federal level, OMB

and the Congress and State and local needs in the e-gov area so

that we can ensure that on-line government and services being delivered to citizens and businesses at any level of government are

as connected as possible.

There is work in this area that is underway. The Federal CIO

Council is working closely with the National Association of State

CIOs to try to identify and overcome some of the technical barriers,

managerial barriers, approaches, if you will, to how things are

being managed in an intergovernmental fashion to try to produce

more seamless service to the citizens regardless of where the service is being provided from. We have funding issues involved and

how the money appropriated by the Congress is to be used; we

have traditional cultural turf, ownership issues that have to be

dealt with, but in the long run, I think what we need is a real identification of not only the barriers but the opportunities in those

quick hit areas where services to citizens and businesses can be

done in an integrated fashion across government lines. Some of

that is proceeding. A lot of it has to do with resources, where the

resources will come from, to fund many of those initiatives.

Mr. TURNER. We have seen examples of progress in some States,

perhaps even progress exceeding our Federal Government. I know

Mr. Davis and I both have concerns that we want to give our

States flexibility to continue to move forward and not be a hindrance in what we put into law or policy.

Several members requested a report some months ago which the

GAO prepared regarding the Immigration and Naturalization Service. I don’t recall who prepared that report within the GAO. Are

you familiar with the report I am referring to?

Mr. MCCLURE. I think Mr. Hite actually prepared it.

Mr. HITE. There are a number of reports we prepared on INS.

The one in particular you are referring to, if you could give me a

clue as to the subject?

Mr. TURNER. I may have a copy of it in just a minute.

Mr. HITE. I personally have done reports recently dealing with

INS’ lack of an enterprise architecture and their lack of IT investment management capability.

Mr. TURNER. I may have a copy here. I will direct your attention

to it in a moment.

Mr. Forman, in the meantime, have you had an opportunity, particularly in light of the recent revelations, to take a look at the INS

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and its architecture, and what we might do to rapidly move to improve it?

Mr. FORMAN. My review is actually supposed to be reported to

me tomorrow with a set of recommendations. I don’t have detailed

analysis that I can answer that question with. Let me give you

some insight on the types of things we are looking at. First of all,

as Mr. Hite said, they are not one of the ones we would consider

as successful in enterprise architecture. I think the GAO review

lays out key insights and we are using those insights. I think that

is an important piece of work.

Let me also say that this issue is not unique or will not be solved

by just the INS. The issue of border security requires getting a

handle on our business architecture as it relates to border protection. That is something that extends beyond the INS, something

Governor Ridge and the Homeland Security Office is looking at as

well as the work that is going on in what is generally called the

information sharing initiatives as one of the four major areas reported in the budget for homeland security.

Mr. TURNER. I noticed the President’s budget requests $20 million for the E-Government Fund which as we know is the fund to

pay for interagency initiatives in e-government. Last year, the

same request was made and you received $5 million. Do you have

hope or prospects that maybe we can get that number up to the

$20 million this year in light of the circumstances we find ourselves in?

Mr. FORMAN. We actually requested $45 million this year. The

issue here, and the Director of OMB laid this out to the Appropriations Subcommittee last week, is all 24 of these initiatives, and indeed there are many more, represent multiple funded projects. So

the Congress has a choice and we too are working this issue, of

how many times do we want to fund the same e-government effort.

E-government forces us to look across agencies and focus on how

we are delivering that line of business or service to the citizen.

I believe this is the fundamental issue in the appropriations

process for e-government and I believe that just as you have a

focus across the agencies on e-government and other government

reform issues, similarly the Appropriations Committee has to look

across the subcommittees and take on essentially funding in e-government initiative once not agency by agency or department by department and that is essentially what we have laid out. Let us

fund the key components of these initiatives once and then deduct

up front, if you will, by not paying for five to ten times that many

initiatives subcommittee by subcommittee. It is a tradeoff that has

to be made at the full committee level.

Mr. TURNER. I suggested in my opening statement that the proper and efficient implementation of information technology in our

agencies is now a national security issue, a personal safety issue.

Heretofore, prior to September 11th, we always spoke of it in terms

of efficiency in government, making government user friendly, and

so forth. It seems to me in light of September 11th, there should

be a new urgency regarding information technology in government.

I am not sure that I have heard it expressed in those terms very

often.

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Mr. Chairman, you will have to forgive me for this, but it is almost like what Enron did for campaign finance reform. September

11th and the terrorist threat should give impetus to emphasis on

information technology. When I heard Mr. Siebel’s testimony a few

weeks ago, it caused me to realize that though the American people

have not blamed their government and the failure of government

for September 11th, the link between those events and the lack of

information coordination would tell us if that is ever repeated, the

American people may very well hold their government accountable

for that next incident.

I think it is very important for us to speak in terms of national

security, personal safety when we make the case to move forward

more rapidly through the proper application of information technology. I hope you will do that and carry that message forward and

the administration will carry that message forward and if you do

so, I feel much more confident that your budget request will be

honored by the Congress.

Mr. FORMAN. I appreciate that. Indeed, we view the government

and homeland security as very closely related. Even though the

government to government portfolio was defined before the events

of September 11th, four out of the five initiatives are homeland security and are embraced as such in the budget as what we call vertical information sharing.

If I can amplify your point and also embrace the chairman’s composition of the hearing today, I think one thing that is clear is this

as much an enterprise and business architecture issue as it is an

IT issue. I will give you some very simple concepts.

After the events of September 11th when Governor Ridge came

on board, the President and Governor Ridge said we need to leverage the technology to address this issue. They made that very clear

and about 1,000 vendors and multiple government agencies showed

up on my doorstep, everybody wanting to share information or having tools to share information.

One company showed up that said, we can make you do something with the information and that is the business process issue,

how do you work together, not just to share information, but to improve the quality of the process. So we adopted two very simple

measures of merit to look at these IT investments but they are

business process related metrics.

First is can you increase the response time? To me that is the

measure of success that we need to be held accountable for delivering things like e-government and homeland security. The other is

quality of the decisions—are we getting better decisions faster, are

we able to respond to threats faster?

Mr. TURNER. I have no doubt that we can make progress. The

chairman’s hearing we had a few weeks ago brought together many

folks from the private sector. We got just a taste of some of those

ideas that I am sure you have heard about many times over. I am

hopeful that this opportunity will not be lost and I think it is critical to our safety and our security.

Mr. DAVIS. Mr. Forman, can you comment on concerns raised by

some folks in the private sector that government is competing with

industry in developing and implementing e-government initiatives?

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Mr. FORMAN. I don’t see any competition at all. There is a

generational gap that I think we are getting through, hope we are

getting through. In the e-government space, there are so many different opportunities and ways to partner with industry but one

very simple way is to have people build a branded store for us. For

example, take the concept of Hot Jobs or Monster, they build a

branded storefront for recruitment for many large companies. You

would go to a company and apply for their job and the job part of

their portal never realizing that you are actually at Hot Jobs or

Monster.com. Then you can click back and look at the stock reports

or whatever. You are operating within what is called a branded

storefront or branded portal.

That is the type of thing we see. It is a faster way to get things,

proven, you can specify security, specify services but you don’t have

to build anything.

Mr. DAVIS. I want to thank you all for being here. I will dismiss

this panel at this point.

We will call our next panel: Mr. Holcomb, Ms. Stouffer, Ms.

Canales, Dr. Callahan, Ms. Barnes and Dr. Blanchard. We will

take a 2-minute break while you set up.

[Recess.]

Mr. DAVIS. The second panel is ready.

[Witnesses sworn.]

Mr. DAVIS. I will start with Mr. Holcomb and move straight

down the line. If you can keep your testimony to 5 minutes, we

have most of our questions pre-determined on this as we have gone

through your testimony and it will make it run a little more efficiently.

So, Mr. Holcomb, please proceed.

STATEMENTS OF LEE HOLCOMB, CIO, CO-CHAIR, FEDERAL ARCHITECTURE AND INFRASTRUCTURE COMMITTEE, FEDERAL CIO COUNCIL, NASA; DEBRA STOUFFER, DEPUTY

CHIEF INFORMATION OFFICER FOR IT REFORM, CO-CHAIR,

BEST PRACTICES COMMITTEE, FEDERAL CIO COUNCIL,

HUD; MAYI CANALES, DEPUTY CIO, E-GOVERNMENT PORTFOLIO COORDINATOR, FEDERAL CIO COUNCIL, DEPARTMENT OF TREASURY; LAURA CALLAHAN, DEPUTY CIO, INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY CENTER, CO-CHAIR, WORKFORCE & HUMAN CAPITAL FOR IT, FEDERAL CIO COUNCIL,

DEPARTMENT OF LABOR; JANET BARNES, CIO, OPM; AND

LLOYD BLANCHARD, CHIEF OPERATING OFFICER, OFFICE

OF MANAGEMENT & ADMINISTRATION, OFFICE OF THE ASSOCIATE DEPUTY ADMINISTRATOR, SMALL BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION

Mr. HOLCOMB. I am pleased to appear before the subcommittee

today to discuss enterprise architectures. I will briefly summarize

my written statement.

I want to thank the chairman and Mr. Turner for your continued

support and encouragement toward electronic government.

Development and use of enterprise architectures at the individual agency and Federal levels is a key component in the effective

management of information technology investments. I have serve

as the CIO for NASA since November 1997 and since February

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1999, I have also served as the Co-Chair of the Architecture Infrastructure Committee of the Federal CIO Council. Mr. John

Gilligan, the CIO from the Air Force, is my Co-Chair.

In the context of an individual agency, an enterprise architecture

establishes the agencywide road map to achieve the agency’s mission through optimal performance of its core business processes

within an efficient information technology framework. The history

of Federal IT investments provides many examples of failed

projects which lack linkage between business needs and the underlying IT technical solutions. These failed IT projects in most cases

did not benefit from an enterprise architecture to guide the IT investment.

In my remarks today I plan to speak briefly about how the Federal CIO Council has sought to avoid those consequences through

enterprise architecture related products and through education and

training efforts.

The Federal Architecture Working Group of the Architecture and

Infrastructure Committee is one of the most productive working

groups in the Federal IT community. The working group has significantly influenced the enterprise architecture efforts of governmental and private entities, especially through their publications.

The Federal Architecture Working Group has partnered with

OMB and the General Accounting Office to produce the Federal

Enterprise Architecture Framework. This framework is available at

the CIO Web site, www.cio.gov.

The framework provides agencies with definitive guidance on creating and using enterprise architectures. It can be used by anyone

considering or actively developing an enterprise architecture. The

Federal Enterprise Architecture Framework provides a road map

for agencies seeking to transition from a current architecture to a

target architecture. Mr. Hite did an excellent job of defining an enterprise architecture in the prior panel.

In addition to publishing formal guidance, the Architecture and

Infrastructure Committee provides and supports education and

training initiatives addressing enterprise architectures in general,

as well as specific subtopics such as Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, public key infrastructure and extensive mark-up

language or XMl.

Reflective of the positive momentum which enterprise architecture efforts have achieved in the Federal sector, the private has

begun offering Federal enterprise architecture training courses.

These programs recognize that Federal agencies require qualified

staff to implement enterprise architecture. One example of this is

the certification program in enterprise architectures that is being

offered by the California State University system. The Federal Architecture Working Group has been asked to support that certification by acting as a forum for setting certification standards and

assisting in updating the content of the certification program.

In conclusion, as we heard in the first panel, the Federal Government remains in the early stages of the development and use of enterprise architectures. One would not build a building or an aerospace vehicle without architectural drawings. Similarly, the Government should set as a goal establishing an enterprise architecture prior to investing in a major IT program.

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I would like to offer four observations and recommendations for

your consideration. First, the Federal CIO Council’s Architecture

Working Group with the participation of GAO and OMB has laid

a strong technical foundation in the discipline or enterprise architectures as applied to the public sector.

Second, the OMB should continue to assess and report on agency

level development and use of enterprise architectures.

Third, Federal agencies should address the natural tendency for

internal bureaus to become compartmentalized and stovepiped.

Often the largest impediment to enterprise architecture efforts is

the tension between program managers who are trying to achieve

a specific task and CIOs who are trying to build a more cohesive

and strategic IT foundation. The OMB could play a role in encouraging these broader attitudes which are crucial to the successful

application of enterprise architectures at both the agency and Federal Government levels.

Fourth, we should collectively work to achieve the proper balance

of resources allocated to enterprise architecture at the agency and

cross agency levels. There is clearly evidence of a positive momentum in Federal agency use of enterprise architectures. With the

support of OMB and Congress, this momentum can be sustained to

ensure enterprise architectures play a major role in improving the

performance and accountability of IT investments at both the agency and governmentwide levels.

I would welcome any questions you might have.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Holcomb follows:]

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Mr. DAVIS. Thank you.

Ms. Stouffer.

Ms. STOUFFER. On behalf of Secretary Mel Martinez, thank you

for the opportunity to discuss HUD’s effort to improve the effectiveness and cost efficiency of departmental programs, to the development and deployment of a HUD enterprise-wide architecture.

I am going to limit my remarks to enterprise architecture at

HUD and the need for continued congressional and OMB support

for enterprise architecture development.

I serve as HUD’s Deputy CIO for IT Reform and I co-chair the

Federal CIO Council’s Committee on Best Practices. In early February 2002, I accepted a temporary detail as the Federal Enterprise Architecture Program Manager.

Let me first discuss HUD’s approach to enterprise architecture.

At one time, HUD’s IT environment consisted of more than 200

stovepipe systems, many of which were very independent of one another and didn’t talk to one another. The systems carried out redundant processes and relied on obsolete technology, contained incompatible data and were incapable of supporting enterprisewide

decisionmaking.

HUD completed the initial development of an enterprise architecture and a baseline architecture and target architectures in the

areas of grants and financial management in January 2001. HUD

also developed a dynamic Web-based tool to track and analyze the

layers of its enterprise architecture and the relationships between

those layers.

This enterprise architecture management system is helping to

identify opportunities where collaboration, data sharing and process simplification can lead to improved productivity, efficiency, effectiveness and service delivery. Because of HUD’s success, EAMS

is currently being used and evaluated by approximately ten other

Federal organizations.

HUD’s enterprise architecture is beginning to drive its IT capital

planning and investment management process. The selection of initiatives to be included in the Department’s IT portfolio is based

upon a thorough business case that includes several architectural

related considerations. As a result, its enterprisewide approach to

IT investment management, HUD is now pursuing several cross

program enterprisewide or cross governmental initiatives.

Let me now discuss HUD’s leadership in the area of e-gov. Two

examples of HUD’s e-gov success stories include FHA connection

and the capability to conduct on-line loan auctions. FHA connection

was developed by HUD to support electronic commerce between

FHA and the community of approved FHA lenders and service providers. Using a single user ID a business partner can submit official business transactions to a variety of automated systems.

In the area of FHA single family loan origination, more than 90

percent of the business transactions processed by HUD come from

business partners using FHA connection. There are currently 9,000

lenders and 100,000 users of the system.

In addition, last April, HUD conducted its first Web-based loan

sale. The $111 million auction was the largest Internet loan sale

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hoods at below market rates. By empowering bidders through an

advanced loan trading system, HUD increased bidder interest in

the sale and maximized its sale proceeds. Because of its leadership

in the area of enterprise architecture and e-gov, HUD is the

partnering agency on 15 of the President’s e-gov initiatives.

With regard to the security of its IT investments, HUD is also

implementing a methodology to comprehensively assess the current

HUD security landscape through its enterprise architecture. With

respect to security and privacy, HUD will make no distinction between e-gov and non-e-gov systems. The methodology will guide the

Department in identifying sensitive information being collected and

the processes and policies for handling this information.

Finally, let me comment on how the Federal budget process can

support enterprise architecture development. Based on my experience at HUD and as Co-Chair of the Best Practices Committee, I

believe it is critical that OMB and Congress continue to encourage

agencies to make progress in this area. Establishing an enterprise

architecture requires participation from all agency organizations.

Providing, verifying, updating and analyzing the enormous amount

of information takes a significant amount of time and requires a

widespread, multidisciplined effort. Continued improvement requires perseverance and the support of critical oversight organizations such as Congress and OMB.

Thank you for the opportunity to share my thoughts.

[The prepared statement of Ms. Stouffer follows:]

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Mr. DAVIS. Thank you very much.

Ms. Canales.

Ms. CANALES. I would like to thank the chairman and the other

members of the subcommittee for your continued support and interest in the improvement of information technology performance and

accountability in the Federal Government. I will briefly summarize

my written testimony.

I serve as the Deputy CIO for the Treasury Department. In this

role I provide strategic direction, oversight and management of all

information technology programs within the Treasury Department

and its bureaus. I also serve on the Federal CIO Council Executive

Committee as the E-Government Coordinator.

In the Treasury Department, forums such as the Treasury Chief

Information Officer’s Council, the Capital Investment Review

Board and the newly formed Chief Officer’s Council, address

enterprisewide issues facing the Department and its bureaus. I

have provided a handout with my testimony of the structure within

the Treasury Department to address enterprise decisions and strategic planning.

The Treasury CIO Council provides the strategic technical direction and evaluation technical solutions considered on an enterprise

basis. Business cases for enterprise solutions are evaluated and approved by the Capital Investment Review Board. The Chief Officer’s Council is designed to act as a steering group adopting initiatives and developing high level departmental benchmarks. Its

membership is comprised of chief information and financial officers,

human resource officers and procurement executives.

Treasury has more direct contact with the public than most Federal agencies. To mention a few initiatives that are in my written

submission, Treasury is implementing an enterprise human resource system, the Treasury communications enterprise, the IRS

business systems modernization, the automated commercial environment with customs, the savings bond connection and the payment application modernization under Financial Management

Service. These are just a few of the success stories we have in the

department.

The task at hand now is to continue the growth of e-government

and to manage the transfer as a team across government. At Treasury we are using enterprise architecture, EA, to create a unified

approach to business solutions. We are leveraging EA to align technology to the business needs to allow sound business decisions,

making IT more accountable to the business management.

We have a Department EA Working Group that reports directly

to the CIO Council. Treasury also has the lead project, Safe COM.

Safe COM will accelerate the implementation of interoperable public safety, wireless communications at all levels of government

throughout the Nation. The goals of the program are to save lives

through immediate public safety communications and coordination.

By addressing local, State and Federal interoperability, we will be

able to provide effective public safety and emergency support communications.

Any legislation considered should focus on improving the coordination and implementation of IT efforts across functional boundaries. Any legislation that would reduce the burden on citizens to

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provide information is a positive step. The Government programs

that share common elements of information could be vastly improved with stronger authority to enforce interagency and intergovernmental cooperation.

OMB’s memorandum funding information systems investments

establishes eight decision criteria OMB uses to evaluate all major

information systems investments. These rules initiated fundamental changes in the management of IT resources and provided the

underpinning in the promotion of enterprise solutions.

Legislative guidelines such as Klinger-Cohen Act further underscore the importance for the effective management of IT resources.

The next step is to the capital planning process across agency

boundary and into citizen-centered investments.

The Treasury CIO Council has identified security, privacy and

critical infrastructure protection as a key initiative. The Council established several committees with cross bureau representation to

address security issues for the Department.

Policies and practices are shared and implemented across the Department. The committees have established enterprise performance

metrics to ensure that effective security controls are developed for

every major system or application within the Department. There is

a plan in place to certify and accredit all major systems. We have

established a computer security incident response capability. Periodic system security reviews are performed by the Office of Information Security.

The Treasury CIO Council approved and adopted the IRS’ security assessment framework as a standard for Treasury. Treasury

also developed a Web-enabled, agencywide information security

awareness course.

I would like to thank the subcommittee for the support it has

given to e-government. Without your support, we would not have

been able to achieve the national success we enjoy today.

Thank you for the opportunity to appear before you this afternoon. This concludes my formal remarks and I would be happy to

respond to any questions.

[The prepared statement of Ms. Canales follows:]

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Mr. DAVIS. Dr. Callahan.

Ms. CALLAHAN. I appreciate you inviting me here today to be

able to describe how the Department of Labor is streamlining and

strengthening its information resources infrastructure for the purpose of improving the effectiveness and efficiency of our operations

and our programs.

As you are aware, the Department of Labor is a decentralized organization. Therefore, taking an enterprisewide management approach is critical to making sure that our information infrastructure is not only efficient and responsive but most importantly ensuring that we have the appropriate infrastructure in place to improve service delivery to our customers. In this way, the Department of Labor can truly become a digital department.

The specifics pertaining to the Department’s accomplishments

and progress have been detailed in my written testimony and I

would like to summarize some of the key highlights.

In May 2001, the Department of Labor created an e-government

strategy that articulates a vision of guiding principles and provides

the framework in order for us to manage through this time of

change and transformation. We focus on four key programmatic

areas as far as managing change with that strategy: customer relationship management to truly ensure we have a citizen-centered

government, in addition to organizational capabilities which is

where we deal with our people policies and procedures, as well as

another key focus area enterprise architecture; and most importantly, something that crosses through all aspects and focus areas,

security and privacy to ensure that we maintain the citizens’ trust

in the work we perform and the information we process and handle.

To implement the vision, the Department has established a several pronged strategy to include the management and budgetary

framework necessary in order to govern enterprisewide issues. The

structure that we have in place includes a multi-tiered investment

review board that is led through the Secretary and her strong leadership. In addition, we have a capital planning and investment control process as well as we have established a central IT crosscut

fund which allows us to focus into portfolio management areas. The

portfolio management areas include enterprise architecture, common office administration suites, common management systems

that are enterprisewide as well as security and privacy. Those initiatives and security and privacy cut across all aspects of our investment portfolios.

When an initiative is being considered for investment it undergoes a very rigorous process as part of the capital planning and investment control activities. Once it is selected, we then monitor it

very rigorously through a quarterly review process to ensure that

not only the investment itself but the portfolio as a whole is achieving our objectives in accordance with cost, schedule and performance goals.

As a result of these efforts, we have been able to realize cost

avoidance savings. Particularly, we have been able to achieve a 40

percent reduction in our potential enterprise architecture expenditures. In one particular example is our common office administration suite in which the initial cost if each agency were to handle

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this in a traditional stovepiped approach, it would have been an expenditure of $33.7 million. By consolidating the efforts at the enterprise level and managing it through the Investment Review Board

structure under the leadership of the Secretary, we have been able

to reduce the cost down to $26 million. This essentially is a $7.3

million savings or a 21 percent reduction in cost avoidance.

Building on our initiatives, we have established a very strong enterprise architecture program in which we handle our enterprise

architecture activities in a phased approach. The Department of

Labor is the only department in the Federal Government that has

a federated enterprise architecture model, one that is designed to

work in a decentralized environment. With that, we have established our functional levels of business, our data architecture, a

mission critical applications architecture and a technology baseline.

We also function under nine enterprise architecture guiding principles, 37 standards and a technical reference model to ensure investments are closing the gap and moving us toward the target of

where we want to be. In order to manage our enterprise architecture technology reference model, we also have a standards life cycle

process in place to ensure that we are dynamic and flexible and can

take advantage of industry revolutions and novel and emerging

technologies in a way that makes sense to a minor business with

our technology.

Our enterprisewide initiatives at the Department level have enabled us to be positioned to be able to lead a very important e-government initiative, one of the 24. The eligibility assistance on-line

initiative which is now called Gov Benefits, is an initiative in which

the Department of Labor is a managing partner.

We are looking at the opportunity of not only employing enterprise architecture activities at our department level, but across the

Federal Government through this particular initiative, in particular the eligibility assistance on-line initiative is being hosted at

First Gov, not at the Department of Labor. This management decision enables us to take advantage of the technological advances

that have been realized through the First Gov Initiative without

creating a duplication of effort.

This allows us to establish the fundamental processes and foundation in place to support the administration’s goal of unification

and simplification and mostly importantly, to collect information

once we use it rather than place additional burden on the public.

As we manage our change and as we continue to transform ourselves, we are looking forward to incentives in the appropriations

process to ensure that agencies are encouraged to collaborate

across traditional boundaries and with that, an entire business

transaction receives the resource requirements necessary to ensure

that it is successful across traditional agency boundaries.

These activities coupled with an industry best practice as far as

a self sustaining enterprise architecture will encourage more

entrpreneurialship within the Federal Government and enable us

to continue to foster collaboration across agencies which will be key

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to our success as we move forward during this exciting time of

transformation.

This concludes my comments and I look forward to answering

your questions.

[The prepared statement of Ms. Callahan follows:]

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Mr. DAVIS. Thank you.

Ms. Barnes.

Ms. BARNES. I appreciate the opportunity to be here today to update yo on our e-government initiative and the application of enterprise architecture at the Office of Personnel Management.

As you know, the President has a bold focus management agenda

designed to deliver citizen centered, results oriented, market driven

government to the American people and the Director of OPM is

committed to reorienting the focus of our agency to achieve those

goals.

OPM is the managing partner for five e-government initiatives.

All of them focus on improving internal efficiency and effectiveness

of the Federal Government. Our initiatives, which include e-training, e-clearance, recruitment one stop, enterprise human resources

integration, and e-HR payroll affect all agencies cutting across the

entire Federal Government. Accordingly, we need to be concerned

with two levels of enterprise architecture, the one guiding information technology investment supporting OPM, and the governmentwide enterprise architecture being developed by OMB.

In addition to high level views of our business processes and information flows, OPM’s enterprise architecture includes the concept

of a single enterprise network for all of OPM, one consolidated data

center, technical standards, a planned agencywide technology refreshment cycle and a structured system development methodology.

Our enterprise architecture has played a critical role in helping

us evolve technology in a cost effective direction. It has been a driving force in establishing our quality assurance program, implementing infrastructure upgrades and addressing the importance of

security and privacy.

Capitalizing on the strengths in our enterprise architecture,

OPM’s e-government initiatives will play an integral role in

streamlining and improving procedures for moving Federal employees through their employment life cycle. In each phase of that life

cycle, OPM will use these initiatives to remove redundancy, reduce

response time, eliminate paperwork and improve coordination

among Federal agencies.

To achieve OPM’s vision, its e-government initiatives will

seamlessly integrate with each other. OPM’s vision for its e-government initiatives is in fact based on that employee life cycle, beginning with recruitment, continuing through all aspects of employment, and culminating with retirement.

The core of this process is the enterprise human resources integration initiative or E-HRI which will provide for the electronic

movement of H.R. data across the Federal Government. E-HRI will

act as a central hub connecting all of the OPM initiatives and

streamlining government processes. In addition, a two-way communication process between E-HRI and agency H.R. systems will

allow E-HRI to share its data among the agencies and augment its

information through data entered through the various agency systems.

The employee life cycle begins with the recruitment and hiring

process. Recruitment one-stop will serve as the initial collection

point for a variety of personnel data that subsequently will be used

in all of the OPM e-government initiatives. Once the employment

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phase begins, the recruitment one-stop system will pass relevant

data to the E-HRI system as the foundation for an official personnel folder.

E-clearance will offer support during this phase by facilitating

the clearance request process for providing electronic access to

clearance information we already have. After applications are

hired, during the employment phase of the life cycle, the systems

supporting E-HRI will be updated with the latest clearance status

of employees through the E-clearance system.

The E-training system will be able to share data with E-HRI to

help formulate employee training plans and track their progress.

Additionally, the product of the payroll consolidation effort or EHR-Payroll will share appropriate data with E-HRI to ensure up to

date and accurate information.

OPM’s initiatives will facilitate a smooth transition to retirement

when employees decide to leave the Federal Government. E-HRI

will forward appropriate information to the retirement processing

system to ensure that Federal Government retirees get paid

promptly and accurately.

Clearly OPM has a vision for how these initiatives will work together but because these are interagency initiatives, we will be

guided by the governmentwide enterprise architecture being developed by OMB as we move forward.

In closing, we are pleased to be leading the Federal Government’s efforts to unify and simplify a number of human resources

functions through the wise use of technology. However, we understand this is not just a technology challenge. Change management,

the willingness to look for and use best of breed examples in the

public and private sector and creative approaches to resolving longstanding process complexities will be equally important if we are

to fully achieve our objectives.

Thank you for inviting me to be here today and I would be happy

to respond to any questions.

[The prepared statement of Ms. Barnes follows:]

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Mr. DAVIS. Thank you.

Mr. Blanchard.

Mr. BLANCHARD. Thank you for inviting the Small Business Administration to testify on its role as the managing partner for the

Business Compliance, Assistance One Stop Initiative.

I am the Chief Operating Officer for the SBA, charged with the

responsibility of implementing the President’s management agenda

at SBA. Joining me is Larry Barrett, SBA CIO and Dr. Jim Van

Wert, SBA Senior Advisor for Policy Planning and the E-Government Project Manager for creating the Business Compliance OneStop.

Small businesses repeatedly stress their concerns about the burden of laws and regulations. SBA’s Office of Advocacy estimates

that complying with laws and regulations costs small firms nearly

half a trillion dollars in the year 2000 or $7,000 per employee for

firms with less than 20 employees.

Few electronic tools exist to enable small businesses to cope with

the myriad of laws and regulations that affect them at all levels

of government. With this in mind, SBA launched businesslaw.gov

in December 2001. We are leading the effort to build a governmentwide business compliance assistance one-stop to present a single

face of government to small businesses making it easier for all 25

million businesses to find, understand and comply with these laws

and regulations. The President’s fiscal year 2003 budget for SBA includes $5 million to support the project activities of its eight participating Federal partners and other State and local government partners.

As the managing partner on this project, SBA will be accountable

for project management, developing the enterprise architecture and

locating private sector consultants who will develop the modules

and assist in overseeing the effort.

SBA will begin by targeting several industries across four compliance functional areas: the environment, workplace health and safety, employment and taxation. The goal is to enable all businesses

to electronically register their businesses, receive tax ID numbers,

and do licensing and permitting on-line. SBA will buildupon

businesslaw.gov which today is a library of legal and regulatory

business information. The Business Compliance One-Stop can be

thought of as the librarian. It goes beyond simply providing information; it offers services and solutions through interactive guides

and on-line transactions.

SBA is well positioned internally as it is already made significant

strides in creating an open systems technology environment supporting the interoperability of technologies and systems within and

outside the SBA. SBA has also been a leader i providing crossagency information and services via the Internet as exemplified by

the CIO Council Award for Government to Business announced

just yesterday.

Nevertheless, SBA must confront a number of technical issues to

successfully implement the Business Compliance One-Stop. For example, a cross agency platform must be developed without dictating the data bases and applications that Federal, State and local

agencies use. This platform must work with existing technologies

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mizes system development. It must be open and secure while providing maximum flexibility for participating agencies.

The Business Compliance One-Stop will save businesses time

and money by reducing their legal and regulatory burden. this will

improve compliance with laws and regulations affecting their operations and thereby reducing Government’s cost for enforcement and

compliance activities.

Finally and most importantly, the Business Compliance One-Stop

will make the Federal Government more accessible to its citizens,

unifying and simplifying the delivery of needed services will result

in a more cost effective government that is citizen-centered, market-based and results-driven. With leadership resources, the right

industry partners and a lot of persistence, we can transform our

public institutions into more accessible and responsible organizations.

This is what Congress asks, the President demands and citizens

expect.

Thank you for the opportunity to appear here today and I will

be happy to answer your questions.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Blanchard follows:]

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Mr. DAVIS. Let me start with Ms. Canales. In your testimony,

you mentioned that many government programs that share common elements could be vastly improved with stronger authority to

enforce inter-agency and inter-governmental cooperation. Do you

think the Federal Government needs a Federal CIO?

Ms. CANALES. I think what we have done to date with Mark

Forman as the Associate Director for IT and E-Government has

come a long way toward what the Federal Government needs. We

need somebody at the Presidential level taking responsibility and

accountability for the movement toward e-government and technology issues across the Government. We need somebody with authority at OMB to help agencies deal with budget issues. Budget

issues were the mechanisms for us to fund cross-agency projects

are not there for a single agency. If Labor and HUD and Treasury

and OPM need to do a project together, we need help pooling our

resources, pooling existing structures that we have built and funded, pooling resources for future development cross projects that are

not just 1 year but 5 years.

I think that what we have done to date has come a long way.

I think we should learn from what we have done to date and possibly exist under this current situation for a while before we go

much further and create new structures within government.

Mr. DAVIS. Anybody else want to answer that?

Ms. Callahan, let me ask you. You note in your testimony that

Labor is the only department with government-wide IT financing.

Can you comment on why other agencies and departments haven’t

pursued the same IT financial management structure and why, do

you think, it has worked at DOL?

Ms. CALLAHAN. I am not able to comment on the other departments and their decisionmaking but I can articulate how it has

helped us at the Department of Labor. Basically creating a central

IT fund has enabled us to break down the traditional appropriations stovepiped approaches within the Department, within our respective agencies by putting a central fund at the department level

that is managed through our Investment Review Board and strictly

through our capital planning process and its rigors.

It allows us to have the flexibility and the dynamic capability to

respond to changes in the environment around us to be able to basically invest in a more strategic way to enable us to pick those initiatives that are going to be most beneficial the Department in

achieving its mission and make sure those investments are proceeding ahead to benefit the whole Department and leverage that

benefit across the organization instead of within a particular organization, within a particular program.

Mr. DAVIS. Mr. Blanchard, in developing the Business Compliance Assistance One-Stop Initiative, to what extent are State and

local government organizations participating up front in formulating the enterprise architecture?

Mr. BLANCHARD. They have participated to a large extent up

front. We are working with the National Governors Association as

well as the States of Illinois, Washington and Mississippi to develop the concept at least as it will relate to some of their needs.

To answer your question, they have participated significantly up

front. I couldn’t speak to the cost they have incurred but surely

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they have incurred some in their previous efforts in this area and

in the attempt to integrate with this particular initiative.

Mr. HOLCOMB. If I might add to that question from the Federal

Council’s Architecture Committee, there has been cooperation between NACO, the Federal and State CIOs on trying to harmonize

the Federal architecture guidance with that which the States offer

through NACO, so there has been some formal, higher level, architectural collaboration between NACO and the Federal CIO Council.

Mr. DAVIS. Mr. Holcomb, can you put into context how GAO’s EA

maturity framework might fit in with the work of the Architecture

and Infrastructure Committee and also, would you agree with

GAO’s recommendation that it be implemented throughout the

Federal Government?

Mr. HOLCOMB. First of all, we have piloted on a voluntary basis

the use of that framework within the committee structure. We

think it is a good framework. The one area I think we have had

some discussion about is at what level do you apply that framework. You can apply it at the bureau level, you can apply it at the

full agency level and it becomes more powerful as you raise it to

the full agency level. I think it is a good framework, that we can

use it on a voluntary basis to do self assessments, and I think it

is a nice structure to use and potentially OMB might want to consider using aspects of that.

Mr. DAVIS. Ms. Stouffer, what other factors besides EA do you

consider essential to IT management reforms?

Ms. STOUFFER. Certainly enterprise architecture gives you an understanding of what your business looks like and what the aggregate businesses of the government look like. That enables you to

identify opportunities for reform and improvement. I think also important is an exploration of the processes and the people that contribute to the critical success factors that are important to those

lines of business and that not only information technology but processes and organizations or people are all considered in any solution

that is proposed to close performance gaps, to improve productivity

and to improve the service we deliver to the customer.

Mr. DAVIS. Ms. Barnes, OPM is supporting, I believe, five of the

President’s Management Council selected e-gov initiatives, which

together are designed to streamline the employment life cycle of

the everyday Federal employee. How are you working as an agency

to ensure that all these initiatives will be seamlessly interoperable

with every other agency or department in the Federal Government?

Ms. BARNES. We have an extremely active partner and stakeholder group that has been involved from the beginning when we

started these initiatives. They are all contributing from the very

beginning of defining the vision for each of these initiatives

through the goals and objectives. Even though work is proceeding

because we understand where all of these are headed, we continue

to make sure the phrasing of this vision, the goals and objectives

really does reflect the work that is being done. I think they are active and are very concerned about the results of these efforts really

going to improve the whole H.R. process in the Federal Government.

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I think with the active involvement with our partners, both in

the initial stages and as we continue through this process, that we

will ensure it meets the needs of all our agencies.

Mr. DAVIS. Just a general question to you all. What obstacles do

you anticipate in completing the initiatives by the project deadlines

in the E-Government Strategy Report?

Ms. CALLAHAN. One of the challenges that we are facing is from

a management perspective dealing with cultural changes and particularly the incentives necessary for cross agency collaboration

which I think has been echoed in a couple of instances here today.

Incentives through the appropriations process would be extremely beneficial to help break down some of the existing barriers

that promote the continued behavior and the cultural environment

to do things within a program within a particular subcomponent,

within a particular agency inside a department.

One of our challenges is elevating that type of activity to an

enterprisewide level so that we can all take benefit from it and be

able to enjoy the rewards the particular effort brings forward and

leverage the technology solutions and the lessons learned universally instead of reinventing the wheel over and over.

Mr. BLANCHARD. I would echo Ms. Callahan’s comments related

to the institutional and cultural barriers that are probably the

most transient. Surely there are some technical barriers that we

face but the technology is there, whether it is in the private sector

of across government and it has been applied, so we are continuing

to draw on those best practices to overcome some of the technical

barriers.

With regard to the interagency organization, I think the key for

us in developing our business compliance portal is to focus on businesses, not to create an ownership of this portal that is agencybased but that is government-based and with the focus being on

the businesses that the portal serves. With us simply being the

managing partner and not the ownership or the owner of this

project, I think we are able to make sure the participating partners

all have a shared ownership in this project.

Ms. BARNES. I think what the e-gov initiatives are really about

is transformational change which means not just an enhancement

to what we have today but thinking about new ways of doing business. That can be a daunting task when you think about doing it

especially in my area across the Federal Government. I think what

is really important is that we understand how to deliver some results that we can see and appreciate the benefits they provide as

a way of gaining momentum into the change process.

I believe that starting and getting moving with some quick wins,

especially in this 18 to 24 month timeframe is particularly important to establish momentum and get everyone understanding

where this can go and how powerful it can be.

Mr. DAVIS. Those are all the questions I have.

Mr. Turner.

Mr. TURNER. One of the projects that was mentioned by Ms.

Canales, I believe, is the Project SAFE COM. That is an effort to

improve communications capability between Federal, State and

local agencies, law enforcement agencies, to enhance public safety.

It is a wireless system, as I understand?

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Ms. CANALES. Yes.

Mr. TURNER. Is the Treasury the lead on that?

Ms. CANALES. Yes, sir, we are the managing partner for the

Wireless Public Safety Initiative. We had our first pilot test of the

wireless initiative with the 2002 Olympics where for the first time

in Olympic history we had just two networks that all the various

local, State and Federal enforcement and public safety communities

use to share information. Normally there are hundreds of wireless

networks up there, none of which talk to each other, none of which

communicate, no interoperability, so we had a very successful run

at the Olympics. We hope to proceed further.

We are working out the goals with Mr. Forman and his team as

we speak but the basic goal is to provide communication between

local, State and Federal entities so that they can share case information.

Mr. TURNER. What are the Federal agencies working with you on

that project?

Ms. CANALES. There are several. Treasury has several bureaus

on the team, then we have the Department of Justice, FEMA, the

Homeland Security team is on there. Those are our strongest partners right now.

Mr. TURNER. How do you share the cost of that project?

Ms. CANALES. That is the challenge. It is interesting that the

technology seems to be the easy part in a lot of these instances.

Several of the agencies have funding in their 2002–2003 appropriations for wireless initiatives, however, we have to find ways to create program management offices where we share responsibility and

funding. The sharing of resources has been the critical issue for the

wireless initiative.

Some agencies have more funding in their appropriations than

others. Should they bear the brunt of the cost because they have

the most funding, is that fair? Those are the types of questions we

have to answer. Some agencies have structures, frequencies and

staff that they have built for specific services to the public and

what happens when we pool our resources and don’t need as many

people, products, services and resources. Those are some of the

issues that we are tackling right now and we are in the midst of

tackling those issues.

Mr. TURNER. Would that be the kind of project that could be

funded through the E-Government Fund if there were actually

money there to do so?

Ms. CANALES. Certainly. I think all of the 24 initiatives would

qualify. I think in light of September 11th we are focusing on some

more of the public safety type initiatives but in a way the E-Government Fund also should take a look at the underlying architecture and infrastructure and tools that we all use and we all need

in order to progress.

So there is value in funding the tools and standards we all need

to use across government because a lot of us don’t have them. We

need those capabilities before we can expand to actually provide

the services and products. Certainly public safety initiatives would

be very high on the priority list.

Mr. TURNER. If you are trying to get cooperation say with the Department of Justice and you feel they are not willing to carry their

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fair share of this project and pay for their share of it but you know

obviously they have to be a partner, who do you go to for help to

encourage another agency to step forward and carry out their fair

share, and who makes the final decision regarding the sharing that

should and will take place?

Ms. CANALES. At the highest levels, we have cooperation. The

Secretary of the Department of Treasury and the Attorney General

for Justice fully support the sharing of resources. When the rubber

meets the road is where we get into the trouble.

We start with the program managers and we try to work it out

at those levels. If that doesn’t work, we have several methods in

place. One, through my role in the Federal CIO Council, E-Government Coordination, we have a facilitation task order in place that

the program managers and agencies can use for facilitation.

It is a task order that helps program managers deal with the

change management and the cultural issues. They do 2 and 3 day

sessions and get the various agencies in a room, focus on the goals

and business requirements and try to get away from the ownership

issues and cultural issues and focus on the right answer and how

to get there.

That has helped many of the initiatives move from that initial

phase of this is what we want to do to this is how we do it. That

is where we are with the wireless program right now. We have had

two 1 day sessions of change management, cultural change, getting

the partners together.

A lot of the issues are simply learning to work together, crossing

our agency boundaries, developing trust, figuring out how to share

information securely, who owns what, who is responsible for what,

data quality, those types of issues. So that mechanism seems to

work well because it allows the team members to work it out as

a team rather than having OMB and the Secretaries come in and

you must, you must, you must. I think it helps for the team members to work it out on their own.

Mr. TURNER. Ms. Callahan, you mentioned the eligibility assistance on-line or gov benefits I guess it is called. How many agencies

are involved in that?

Ms. CALLAHAN. We have a total of 11 partners who work with

us. They range from the Veterans Administration to HUD, Agriculture, and a variety of others including Energy, not to leave anyone out.

Mr. TURNER. How do you get all those agencies to cooperate and

work together?

Ms. CALLAHAN. Extensive facilitation. What we have done is establish through the business case our strategy and then working

with the individual agencies that are all partners to identify their

strengths. Some agencies have in-kind contributions where they

may not have appropriation funding available but they have an expertise, a particular skill that we need for accomplishment of the

objective, in which case they provide that resource to the project

itself to achieve the goal.

In other cases, it can be something as simple as in one instance

we had a partner provide office equipment and some particular

supplies that we didn’t have. So we are leveraging it across the

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sources to in-kind contributions through IT work force related activities and general management principles for program management efforts as a whole.

Mr. TURNER. I understand that effort was originally at the Department of Labor and now it is hosted on First Gov. Could you

tell us how that change took place, what were the reasons for it

and what benefits have been derived?

Ms. CALLAHAN. One point of clarification. With eligibility assistance on-line, the initial emphasis to do it at the e-government level,

architecturally speaking the early on business case planned it initially right up front to be hosted through First Gov. With that, we

have been able to take advantage of the recent redesign and some

of the new infrastructure investments that GSA has put in place

for the current First Gov environment and as such, leveraging

those resources and have been able to take advantage of their

hosting facilities and plan to continue to build on their lessons

learned and build on their investment through the Web content

management services they are currently working on.

Mr. TURNER. You said there are 11 different agencies that have

participated with this on-line portal. Do you find it difficult to get

this done in a timely fashion when you have to work out agreements with 11 different agencies? Is this the type of project that

if the funds were placed in the E-Government Fund, this project

could be carried out more efficiently than is being done with the

sharing of resources that have to be agreed upon by the 11 agencies that participate?

Ms. CALLAHAN. Definitely the focus on being able to achieve the

objectives of the initiative would be more streamlined if we could

put our attention on accomplishing the goals of the initiative versus the facilitation of resources to be able to do the work.

A central funding resource I think would help all initiatives, including eligibility assistance on-line in order to allow us to focus on

getting the job done and basically break down the barriers we currently have in trying to identify resources to perform the work.

Mr. TURNER. Ms. Barnes, one of your initiatives you mentioned

in your testimony is e-training. As I understand, it is designed to

provide e-training services across government, correct?

Ms. BARNES. I think it is designed to improve access to e-training

services across government. This is really not an attempt to recreate the wheel and go out and identify new training opportunities.

What we are really trying to do is establish a one-stop so there is

a common place all Federal Government workers can go to access

some of the best training programs already in existence. To the extent we need to, we can create new ones but we believe there are

a lot of good training programs already available. We are trying to

simplify access to it, improve registration possibilities, and also establish the Federal Government as a single point of negotiating

training, registration, licenses so that we are not paying for the

same courses many times over.

Mr. TURNER. So your effort is really to collect in one place the

e-training programs of the various agencies?

Ms. BARNES. Yes, and make them available.

Mr. TURNER. Do you have any initiative to actively promote information technology training for Federal workers?

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Ms. BARNES. Absolutely. If we do not promote and do training,

if you establish the best portal in the world and there is no one

using it, it is not worth anything, it is meaningless.

Mr. TURNER. How are you accomplishing that?

Ms. BARNES. It is part of our task plan. We are developing our

road maps and detailed task plans to deliver each one of our initiatives. Part of every one of our initiatives is a communication, education and training module. In fact the approach we are using in

all our initiatives is to come up with discrete pieces that will be delivered in phases so we can achieve earlier results for chunks of investment so we do not have to buy into the whole thing at once.

Each one of these modules we are developing, we call usable modules. There is the education, training, communication and sales

part of that.

Mr. TURNER. Do you envision your agency as being the central

place where training of Federal workers for information technology

will take place? Is that the way you view this effort?

Ms. BARNES. I believe that training in the IT disciplines will be

part of this, yes.

Mr. TURNER. Do you find that all other agencies of our government are looking to you to carry out this responsibility or do we

have the various agencies of government with their own independent programs in this area?

Ms. BARNES. Some have their programs and we have looked at

them and are anxious to take advantage of them and provide the

opportunities they have to other smaller agencies perhaps who do

not have well developed e-training programs. That is the power of

the initiative. Our partner group is very engaged in this and very

supportive. There is really no conflict in that partner group about

the idea of a one-stop training portal for the Federal Government.

Mr. TURNER. In your opinion, are we devoting sufficient resources to training in the information technology field for Federal

workers?

Ms. BARNES. I can only speak for my agency and we have that

as a priority and we devote the resources we need to training people both in the IT community as well as in our program offices with

the people we need to interact with to deliver business capability.

Sometimes there is an awareness issue, especially in the IT security area. It is a well known fact that the IT security programs in

the agencies rest on the program people to deliver it. The program

people have to certify and accredit their systems. They have to be

the ones that can say, yes, we have the right level of security for

these systems.

There is training throughout the organization in IT areas that

has to occur. We are sensitive to that and we are actually trying

to buildup that part of our program internally.

Mr. TURNER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. DAVIS. Anyone want to add anything?

Mr. HOLCOMB. Just a comment on training. We use an on-line

training program for our IT security folks, 18,000 employees, and

we have about 25,000 contractors, about 43,000 people use the online site today to do training. It is very efficient, you know who is

taking the training, you know they have been certified. It is a very

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effective tool, particularly in IT security. I think it will benefit the

agencies to use on-line training.

Mr. DAVIS. Before we close, let me thank everybody again for attending this hearing. I want to thank our distinguished panel of

witnesses and Mr. Turner for participating. I would also like to

thank my staff for organizing it. I think we have learned a great

deal and I look forward to continuing our work on these issues with

my colleagues on this subcommittee.

I am going to enter into the record the briefing memo distributed

to subcommittee members. We will hold the record open for 2

weeks from this date for anyone who might want to forward submissions for possible inclusion.

This hearing is closed.

[Whereupon, at 4:12 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned, to

reconvene at the call of the Chair.]

[Additional information submitted for the hearing record follows:]

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