Agencies' e-gov grades slump

More than one-third of the federal agencies graded on the Bush administration's quarterly management score card saw their e-government marks drop in the latest round of evaluations, released Thursday.

The drop in nine e-government marks on the traffic-light-style President's Management Agenda score card reflecting accomplishments for the second-quarter of fiscal 2006 can be traced to a lack of funding, according to the Office of Management and Budget.

Agencies' failure to communicate the benefits of the multiagency e-government projects to congressional appropriators is reflected in their inability to gain the necessary approval needed to reprogram the funds covering the cost of the initiatives, OMB said.

Only the Social Security Administration improved in the e-government area -- from yellow to green -- while the Office of Personnel Management and the departments of Commerce, Defense, Justice and Transportation were downgraded to the failing mark of red.

The Environmental Protection Agency, the Housing and Urban Development Department, NASA and the Small Business Administration dropped from green to yellow.

"This lack of progress highlights the need for agencies and OMB to work more closely with Congress to communicate the benefits and improved service provided by the e-government initiative's governmentwide solutions," an OMB release on the score card stated.

E-government initiatives receive limited direct funding from Congress and are supposed to be financed with payments from the participating agencies. But opposition in Congress, particularly from the House Appropriations Committee, is fueled by the uncertainties of OMB-directed agency-to-agency money transfers.

Clay Johnson, OMB's deputy director for management, said the administration will "continue to reach out to Congress on e-gov and work with them to ensure that e-gov projects are able to provide the greater levels of services demanded by our citizens."

In last quarter's score card, eight agencies improved their e-government grades.

Fred Thompson, vice president for management and technology at the Council for Excellence and Government, said the e-government downgrades in the latest round indicate that agencies "cannot run in place and stay green."

"The bar is being constantly raised," Thompson said. "Despite the fact that they might be doing well, if they don't advance along the planned the schedule, they will drop."

Thompson said the structure of appropriations committees that focus on individual agencies is responsible for creating the funding issues.

The score card results show that more agencies are effectively incorporating program performance information into their management and budget decisions, according to OMB, which cited the Justice Department's achieving green status for the budget-performance integration category.

OMB said it wants to increase the number of agencies achieving green in this category from 10 to 14 by the end of the year.

The only other movement this quarter was the Agency for International Development's financial management grade, which moved up from red to yellow.