Congress prepared to trim Defense business agency’s budget
Officials say the cuts are not likely to prevent the agency from reaching its goals.
Lawmakers are poised to cut $28.4 million from the 2007 funding requested by the agency overseeing the modernization of the Defense Department's back-end business systems.
The compromise version of the fiscal 2007 Defense Department appropriations bill agreed upon by House and Senate negotiators would provide $150.9 million in operations and maintenance funding for the Business Transformation Agency. This is a $21.7 million increase from the House recommendation, but a decrease of $1.4 million from the Senate proposal. The department originally requested $179.3 million.
The compromise language passed the full House Tuesday. The Senate had yet to vote on the measure as of Thursday afternoon.
Paul Brinkley, co-director of the BTA and Defense deputy undersecretary for business transformation, said he was pleased lawmakers did not slice more off the department's request.
"Congress wanted to set the bar a little higher in terms of what they wanted us to achieve," Brinkley said. "We don't anticipate any impact on any of our major milestones, but we've not had a chance yet to access how that will lay in across all the different initiatives."
The agency, which oversees 108 Defense business programs worth about $4.2 billion, also released Thursday its congressionally mandated biannual 2006 Enterprise Transition Plan to Congress. The plan outlines the business program's milestones.
Thomas Modly, Defense deputy undersecretary for financial management and co-director of the BTA, said the agency had once again achieved more than 80 percent of its goals.
BTA completely realigned the Defense Integrated Military Human Resources System, a militarywide system launched in 2001 to support personnel and pay operations, Modly said. It is scheduled to be deployed at the Army and Air Force in early 2008.
"This coming year is going to be a very important year for [the HR system] in terms of meeting its objectives to get this thing implemented," Modly said.
BTA included within the transition plan submitted to Congress a new framework for determining the value of the business programs placed under its authority, Modly added.
"We're able to find some redundancies through that process, and we're able to call some programs and say, 'If you're not contributing to these things, what value are you actually bringing to the business mission?'" he said.
The agency also has completed the initial test of a new acquisition review process known as the Enterprise Risk Assessment Model, Brinkley said. The process, launched in May, involves reviewing three large-scale business systems for gaps in the acquisition process.
Brinkley said two systems will go through the process, which has been refined based on lessons learned from the initial pilot assessments. Since the systems have yet to be formally announced, he declined to name them.
The House version of the fiscal 2007 Defense authorization bill, which is stalled in conference negotiations, praises the risk assessment model for attempting to improve the speed of delivery for departmentwide business systems.