House and Senate at odds over funding for e-government projects
House votes to allocate fewer dollars than requested by the White House, while Senate approves full request.
Funding of the Bush administration's electronic government programs for fiscal 2006 hangs in limbo, with the House and Senate divided over how much money to allocate.
Senate appropriators appear satisfied with the projects that include efforts to consolidate agencies' payroll systems, travel booking procedures and agency grant giving. The Senate Appropriations Committee on Thursday unanimously passed the fiscal 2006 Transportation-Treasury bill (H.R. 3058), which fully funds President Bush's request for the electronic government office and places few restrictions on how the funds are used.
But House appropriators are irritated with the Office of Management and Budget's requirement that participating agencies pay for the projects out of their own budgets.
Language in the House version of the spending bill cuts $2 million out of the $5 million request and requires OMB to file a proposed spending report with the committee before the money is spent.
"OMB has gone around the congressional funding process and tried to tap agencies for participation, which is not something that we will tolerate," House Appropriations Committee spokesman John Scofield said. "If Congress decides to not fund something, you can't go revisit that decision."
Funding for 10 of the 25 OMB-sponsored e-gov initiatives is through agreements among agencies, but several agencies have failed to come up with the funds. The projects are run by select agencies and also rely on fee-for-service funding methods.
In a tight budget year, House appropriators are skeptical of the projects' estimated savings. OMB predicts they will save agencies millions of dollars through consolidating routine agency business processes.
"The notion of standardizing these processes, it sounds like a nice thing, but the thing is, agencies have different missions and different structures, and the one-side approach might not be the best idea," Scofield said. "The vaunted millions in savings…we haven't seen any evidence that they'll save any money."
Olga Grkavac, executive vice president of the Information Technology Association of America, said the House actions are disappointing.
"[Congress] says they need more cross-agency programs, but here are some really key programs that are cut drastically where their missions are sharing information and having common platforms," Grkavac said. "We were very discouraged."
The Senate version of the bill includes Bush's $5 million request and requires proposals that the funding meet capital planning guidelines and show sound business plans, attention to security and privacy. Also included in the Senate language is a provision that a "small portion of the money" is to be made available for the top e-gov project management teams.
If the bill is not altered on the Senate floor before the full chamber votes on the measure - a committee spokeswoman said that Senate leaders have signaled that the bill will not come up for a vote before September -- the differences will be worked out in conference committee.