Digital Government
Reinventing for results
While the nation's attention was riveted this month on Mark McGwire leading the quest to break baseball's single-season home run record, Morley Winograd's attention was drawn to remarks made by Internal Revenue Service Commissioner Charles Rossotti regarding the possibility that the fan who caught the record-breaking homer would owe taxes.
Digital Government
IRS CIO lays out agenda
In his first public address as chief information officer for the Internal Revenue Service, Paul Cosgrave last week mapped out his plans to modernize the agency's computer systems and improve customer service at the embattled IRS.
Digital Government
Year 2000: Time to plan for the next crisis
The Office of Management and Budget recently reported that total federal spending on Year 2000 compliance has reached $5.4 billion. OMB's quarterly progress report on Year 2000 also stated that 15 agencies are behind on their projects.
Digital Government
EPA opens floodgates on water-quality data
For more than three decades, comprehensive data about water quality has been locked inside an Environmental Protection Agency mainframe, accessible only to researchers with the expertise to query it. But that will change as the EPA updates the systems, which are a major source of information about the condition of the nation's waterways.
Digital Government
Intercepts
Look for Scott Randall and the Global Information and Network System team at the Navy's Space and Naval Warfare Command to award the Information Technology for the 21st Century shipboard local-area network contract this week, not quite meeting its schedule, which called for an award last week. Vendors bidding on the $100 million-plus job -- Electronic Data Systems Corp., IBM Corp., GTE, Lucent Technologies and Science Applications International Corp. -- view the contract as an absolutely essential piece of business, an opinion that could lead to a lot of whining by the losers.
Digital Government
DOD to begin Iridium tests
The Defense Department plans to start operation of its gateway to the Iridium LLC mobile satellite system this week, despite glitches that will delay full commercial service until November.
Digital Government
DOD melds IT buying
Top Pentagon officials have put in motion a plan to replace a hodgepodge of information technology contracts scattered throughout the Defense Department with enterprise licensing agreements that could drastically cut DOD's software costs for all 2.2 million users in DOD.
Digital Government
GAO: Agencies ignoring IT in results plans
In a review of a governmentwide plan to squeeze greater performance out of the federal government, the General Accounting Office has cited problems in managing information technology as an obstacle to a more efficient government.
Digital Government
FMS brings Y2K-ready payment system online
The Treasury Department's Financial Management Service last week brought online two Year 2000-compliant systems for processing Social Security retirement and disability checks for 50 million beneficiaries. The agency plans to make its first payments using those systems early next month.
Digital Government
Satellite vendors line up for $4B DOD net buy
Satellite carriers jockeying for position to bid on the Defense Department's $4 billion procurement for wideband network service in the Pacific and Caribbean contend that satellite transmission, not fiber-optic cable, can best satisfy the Pentagon's requirements.
Digital Government
DOD reels in content on Web sites
Concerned about the security risks posed by the availability of some types of information on the World Wide Web, the Defense Department has begun to pull pages from its Web sites while top DOD officials carry out a department-wide review.
Digital Government
Feds vary Starr report packaging
Looking to avoid overwhelming traffic at any one federal World Wide Web site, more than half a dozen government offices have posted Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr's report on President Clinton. But not all the federal sites on Starr's report to Congress are the same, with agencies taking a variety of approaches to packaging the information and offering a variety of add-ons.
Digital Government
OPM unit fails in oversight role
According to a study by the Merit Systems Protection Board (MSPB), the organization within the Office of Personnel Management set up to gauge the effectiveness of agencies' human resources management efforts has largely been unable to achieve its mission.
Digital Government
Feds must secure e-mail gateways
A number of the federal government's mail gateways are not secure, according to a CIO Council review of the top 100 federal gateways. The survey, conducted by a workgroup on email issues from the interoperability committee of the CIO Council, identified vulnerabilities such as areas in mail progra
Digital Government
CBD Watch
Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. Agile information control environment. Sol. BAA 9826. (CBD, Sept. 8). The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency Information Systems Office is seeking research proposals for developing technologies that enable agile information control across military
Digital Government
FEC site emphasizes information, not presentation
Campaign fundraising has kicked into full gear with the passing of Labor Day, and the Federal Election Commission is doing its best to get information on election spending out on its World Wide Web site. The FEC site, www.fec.gov, provides all campaign reports on political action committee (PAC) c
Digital Government
Interoperability key to CIO plan
The CIO Council this month voted to adopt a plan for a governmentwide information technology architecture designed to help agencies meet a mandate to align computer systems with agency business and mission needs. The plan is identical to a draft plan the CIO Council floated earlier this summer in w
Digital Government
Fedwire
GAO hits DOD info superiority efforts The Defense Department's plan to develop a command, control, communications, computers, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (C4ISR) architecture capable of delivering 'information superiority' to the warfighter is a long way from becoming a reality a
Digital Government