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Issue 8: August 22, 2006
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The DotGov Buzz is an e-mail newsletter published by the GSA Office of Citizen Services and Communications to reach opinion leaders, policy makers, IT professionals and others with the latest developments in e-government. Pass it along to your colleagues and let us know if you want to subscribe on your home e-mail. To SUBSCRIBE, submit a new e-mail to LISTSERV@LISTSERV.GSA.GOV, with SUBSCRIBE THEBUZZ in the body of the message, followed by your first name and your last name. This and previous issues of The DotGov Buzz are available at www.firstgov.gov/dotgovbuzz. |
 CIO Spotlight: David J. Molchany and Wanda M. Gibson, Fairfax County, VA
Fairfax County has one of the highest populations (more than 1 million), one of the most Internet-savvy (over 80% online) and one of the richest ($88,000+ median household income) of any local jurisdiction in the United States. So it is easy to understand why providing leading-edge technology-enabled services is a key priority of this County government. Together, Fairfax County's Dave Molchany and Wanda Gibson, are a model for the government CIO of the future. Between the two, they bring experience, skills and insight to the strategic and the operational, the external and the internal, the information and the technology aspects of the job. County Executive Anthony Griffin, quoted in a Governing magazine article a few years ago, described this two-person CIO well:
This year, in a bow to reality, the County recognized the broad nature of the CIO position, which Molchany has held for 9 years, and dropped the CIO portion of the title. The title he currently uses is Deputy County Executive for Information. He focuses on strategic information use, management and protection; Gibson, the Chief Technology Officer, is responsible for IT operations and constituent service. The move reflects Molchany and Gibson's ability to bring a techno-centric viewpoint to strategy discussions with County leaders and their corresponding skill in bringing a citizen-centric approach to the County's IT functions. "The County has a very strategic view of information that is directly aligned to the overall strategy and goals for the County government itself," Molchany said. "In the Deputy County Executive, we have a high-level champion for information and technology across the enterprise. The CTO is key to the consistent use of technology across the County government and works directly with staff and management to ensure that IT goals are met." As Deputy County Executive, Molchany is responsible for the Department of Information Technology, the Public Library and Archives, the Department of Cable Communications and Consumer Protection, HIPAA compliance and the County-wide Communications Strategy. He works closely with the Economic Development Agency and the Public Affairs office to promote the County and its services to citizens and businesses. In close alignment with Molchany's strategic approach, daily operations are led by Gibson, Molchany's collaborator since 1999, when he wooed her away from the CIO job in Arlington County, VA. As CTO and Director of the Fairfax County Department of Information Technology, she is responsible for the operation of the County's enterprise-wide IT environment for more than 200 facilities across 400 square miles of network, IT policies, applications, infrastructure, communications and e-government programs. She currently chairs the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments' CIO Technical Committee and its CIO Committee on Region Interoperability. Like Molchany, she participates in numerous State and regional professional organizations. Together, they were named Governing magazine's "Public Officials of the Year" in 2003, a prestigious designation awarded annually to governors, mayors, legislators and other government officials. The Molchany-Gibson teamwork was given credit for putting Fairfax County at the forefront of e-government. This system has worked well for the County as well as for them. In recent years, the County's IT program has racked up many honors, including:
Most impressively, the Bertelsmann Foundation of Germany, in 2002, recognized the County as one of the four top e-government pacesetters in the world. Molchany has been named to nearly every list of government IT leaders: Federal Computer Week's "Federal 100," Computerworld magazine's "100 Information Technology Leaders," Government Technology magazine's "25 Doers, Dreamers and Drivers of Information Technology" in U.S. Government; and Public Technology Incorporated's "Technology Leadership Award for Large Jurisdictions," among others. Molchany and Gibson credit their broad-based education with positioning them to be bold and innovative leaders in government information technology. A graduate of Juniata College, with a marketing and computer science degree, Molchany believes that "being exposed to creativity and new ideas in my education and career" helped prepare him for his current responsibilities. "My background is what allows me to look at ideas from other organizations and tailor them to what would work in mine." He previously worked for Sallie Mae, American Management Systems and EDS. Gibson earned a bachelor's in psychology and an MBA from Howard University, and professional certification in systems engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. In this and her previous positions as CIO of Arlington County and of Howard University, she sees the importance of "interpreting the mission of the enterprise in the context of technological innovation and opportunity." No doubt she also draws on her family's experience in raising and racing thoroughbred horses as she and Molchany continue to hold the leading edge in the information technology sweepstakes, strides ahead of the field as they continue to demonstrate the speed and agility of a world-class CIO. |
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CIO Council: Federal Enterprise Architecture Security and Privacy Profile is released The CIO Council issued the third version of its Federal Enterprise Architecture Security and Privacy Profile (FEA SPP), which helps agencies protect information they share with others. The FEA SPP helps agencies take an enterprise view of security and privacy issues and establish processes to identify requirements, leverage capabilities, and manage investments effectively. It also provides opportunities to share resources and capabilities across domains, programs and agencies. The document addresses areas of information security and data privacy using a three-stage approach. The first stage is identifying requirements and capabilities, the second is evaluating requirement gaps and current capabilities, and the third stage is selecting which investments best support the enterprise. The CIO Council released two previous versions of the security and privacy profile in July of 2005 and 2004. |
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Kudos: FIrstGov.gov and TexasOnline top the 2006 Brown University E-Gov study
FirstGov.gov was the top-rated Federal website and the TexasOnline portal was the top State site in Brown University's seventh annual assessment of State and Federal E-Government in the United States. The FirstGov portal, up from 9th in 2005, was praised for being "clear, organized and user-friendly," and for displaying "a stunning" 254 online services for citizens, businesses, Federal employees and governments. "We can tell that the government is willing to speak to and help its citizens," the report concluded. TexasOnline was cited for having a "simple, effective navigation system and an exhaustive list of over 500 online services contained within the state's websites--the most of all sites assessed in this study." Texas ranked 18th in the 2005 study. Of the 51 Federal websites reviewed, the top five were:
Of the 1,503 State websites in the study, the top five were:
Websites were evaluated for the presence and number of online services, publications, databases, audio clips, video clips, foreign language or translation, advertisements, premium fees, user payments, disability access, privacy policy, security policy, digital signatures, credit card payments, e-mail addresses, comment forms, personalization, PDA accessibility and readability. |
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The Buzz: E-mails from fraud@firstgov.gov are phony
The GSA Office of Citizens Services and Communications (OCSC) is warning the public to avoid falling victim to a recent e-mail scheme that targets users by sending unsolicited e-mails, allegedly from FirstGov.gov, the Web portal operated by GSA. These scam e-mails tell recipients that because of recent fraudulent activities on Money Access Online, they need to confirm that their account has not been stolen or hacked. The e-mails then direct recipients to click on a link and enter information related to personal credit card accounts. These e-mails don't originate at FirstGov, GSA or OCSC. FirstGov doesn't send unsolicited e-mails to the public in this manner, nor does it solicit personal information of any kind. The e-mail appears to be sent from the following fraudulent e-mail address: MONEY ACCESS SERVICE (fraud@firstgov.gov). There may be other similarly styled addresses. The text of the e-mail includes "Dear Money Access Customer" and asks for certain private personal and financial data, but recipients shouldn't provide this information. GSA is investigating. Those who have received this fraudulent message may e-mail FirstGov to report the incident. Recipients of other fraudulent e-mails are encouraged to forward them to the U. S. Computer Emergency Readiness Team (US-CERT) at phishing-report@us-cert.gov. US-CERT is the operational arm of the National Cyber Security Division at the Department of Homeland Security. |
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Congress: Senate bill increases E-Gov Fund spending to $5 million
The Senate Appropriations Committee called for increasing the spending ceiling for the E-Gov Fund to $5 million for FY 2007, as requested in the president's budget. The funding was included in the Senate version of H.R. 5576, the Transportation, Treasury, Housing and Urban Development, the Judiciary, the District of Columbia and Independent Agencies Appropriations Act of 2007, which was sent to the Senate July 26. The House voted earlier to limit E-Gov funding to $3 million. If approved by the full Senate, the bill will go to a House-Senate conference committee to resolve the differences between the two versions. Among numerous projects funded, the bill provides full funding for the Office of Personnel Management's Retirement Systems Modernization (RSM) project, for which the House cut all funding. The project aims to remove the retirement application process from a lengthy paper-based review to a faster digital review process. Even after offering its support, the Senate committee has directed GAO to conduct a complete review of RSM to remove any lingering concerns of lawmakers. The bill also supports the E-Travel E-Gov initiative, which aims to automate the entire Federal travel process, digitizing and centralizing the travel process from request to voucher through a self-service system. The committee also directed GSA to ensure that at least 23 percent of all contracted dollars on the E-Travel initiative go to small businesses. |
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E-Gov Initiatives: OMB seeks to calculate E-Gov and Lines-of-Business savings
Lawmakers on Capitol Hill want to see how much money the E-Government and Lines of Business (LoB) Initiatives are saving agencies--and OMB is going to find out. By September 30, agencies must begin measuring cost savings by developing baseline cost estimates and identifying projects that are due to be replaced, shut down, or modified because of an e-government or LoB consolidation initiative, according to a memo from Karen Evans, OMB Administrator for E-Gov and IT. OMB is requiring agencies to perform three tasks:
After the initial reporting period, OMB expects to collect updated cost information twice a year. |
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E-Gov Initiatives: USA Services surveys how agencies respond to citizens
USA Services, the presidential E-Gov initiative created to simplify access to federal information and services, is surveying more than 300 federal bureaus and agencies to compile information about the ways they provide information and services to citizens. The survey, conducted by DPRA, Inc. of Rosslyn, VA, will gather information from more than 300 federal agencies and bureaus about how they use e-mail, telephone, interactive voice response (IVR) technology, and walk-in services to respond to inquiries. It will also seek information about how agencies measure their service performance and customer satisfaction and the challenges they face when improving citizen services. A follow-up to a 2004 assessment made jointly with OMB, the survey is scheduled for completion by September 30. USA Services hopes to use the survey results to identify trends, strategies and tools for improving the effectiveness of the government's response to citizens. The 2004 findings led to development of a citizen services cost calculator to help agencies estimate the cost of establishing a contact center. |
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Policy: OPM releases telework guidance on pandemic flu
New telework guidance from the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) suggests that one of the keys to success and continuity of operations during any emergency, especially a pandemic health crisis, is an effective teleworking program that is just a matter of routine to employees. The report states that when agencies permit as many employees as possible to telework as often as possible, they are on the right track under Public Law 106-346. Frequent teleworking permits employees to constantly test the teleworking arrangement, connectivity, and other areas, according to the 16-page document. The report breaks down the responsibilities for managers and teleworkers:
OPM's telework training site carries up-to-date pandemic health crisis information for both managers and employees. |
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GAO Report: Agencies are falling behind on IPv6 upgrades
With only 22 months remaining before the deadline specified by OMB, several agencies have not met critical milestones toward their transition to the next generation Internet Protocol version 6 (IPv6), according to a Government Accountability Office report. Agencies should have finished writing transition policies and identified enforcement mechanisms by last February. Of the 24 agencies being tracked on this project, 10 missed this deadline. Only 13 of the 24 have developed an IPv6 compatibility testing plan, while only nine agencies provided cost estimates for the transition, which ranged from $960,000 to more than $20 million. All agencies are required to transition to IPv6 by June 2008. The move to IPv6 will increase the number of available IP addresses from about 4.3 billion to 340 trillion trillion trillion. This will be important in the future when all ordinary appliances--from cellphones to microwave ovens--will have their own IP addresses. |
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International: CIOs of Australia, Canada, U.K., and U.S. compare notes on shared services
Top information technology officials of the United States, Australia, Canada and the United Kingdom met by teleconference August 1 for their first regular quarterly "quadrilateral" discussion of issues of mutual interest. It was attended by the chief information officers of Australia (Ann Steward), Canada (Ken Cochrane) and the U.S. (Karen Evans). The U.K. was represented by Deputy CIO, Andrew Stott. Subject-matter experts from each country also participated. John Sindelar, Acting Associate Administrator, GSA Office of Governmentwide Policy, presented the Lines of Business initiative for the U.S. The discussion focused on "shared services," which refers to the consolidation and sharing of back-office services--primarily human resources and financial management--across different organizations within a government, at a cost, quality and timeliness that is competitive with alternatives such as outsourcing. The four countries are all in the process of consolidating their financial and human resources processes. None of them have made use of these shared services mandatory but all strongly encourage their agencies to use common services to achieve significant efficiencies. All will continue seeking other good candidates for consolidation. Canada has been developing shared services since 2001. This has required "sustained top-down leadership." The initial four areas of consolidation are administrative services: human resources, financial management, materiel services and IT services. Australia has consolidated its human resources and financial management systems, going from 35 down to 12. Savings have been identified and services have been outsourced where possible. Australia will consider consolidation of functions that:
The U.K. is consolidating its corporate services, chiefly human resources, financial management and some IT. It expects to reduce headcount by 20%, achieve a "major gain" in effectiveness and improve the employee experience, according to Jo Clift, Deputy Director for Shared Services. The U.K. has grouped all public services into nine sectors (such as Health, Defense, Local Government, Education), each of which is developing plans for shared HR, Finance and IT services to meet the needs of all the departments and agencies within the sector. Plans completed so far forecast savings of 30-40% of current costs. The U.S. is adopting a shared services approach through its Lines of Business initiatives, which are intended to:
The group will meet again November 1 to discuss data security and personally identifiable information. The group's membership will be expanded to include the CIO of New Zealand, Laurence Millar. |
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States: NASCIO takes two calls-to-action to Washington Fly-in; Jarrett testifies on cyber-security
Representatives of the National Association of State CIOs (NASCIO) flew into Washington, DC, July 12 to make the states' case for policy and legislative changes with Congressional and Executive Branch leaders. Twelve State CIOs attended the 2006 fly-in, along with several NASCIO representatives. The State CIOs' Federal affairs agenda focused on NASCIO's calls-to-action on cyber-security planning and reforms in Federal funding for State IT projects. They also discussed telecommunications reform, health IT, privacy and the Real ID Act. They met with, among others, Rep. Tom Davis (R-VA), chairman of the House Government Reform Committee; Rep. Nancy Johnson (R-CT), sponsor of the Health IT Promotion Act of 2005; Rep. Chris Cannon (R-UT), chairman of the Judiciary Subcommittee on Courts, the Internet and Intellectual Property; Rep. Ralph Regula (D-OH) and Sen. Tom Harkin (D-IA), of the House and Senate Appropriations Committees; and House Homeland Security Committee staff. In testimony July 19 and written remarks submitted to a Senate subcommittee, NASCIO Past President Tom Jarrett described the severe impact on the ability of State governments to function in the event of a massive Internet disruption and prolonged outage and called for "action to determine the appropriate roles and responsibilities of the federal government, State government and the private sector." He urged the Department of Homeland Security to require a cyber-security preparedness plan from each state to close the "cyber-security planning gap." Jarrett, Delaware CIO and Secretary of Technology and Information, described the urgent need for a "clear and concise communication system within and throughout all levels of government and with critical private sector entities such as telecommunication carriers, Internet service providers, financial institutions and major IT vendors." He testified before the Subcommittee on Federal Financial Management, Government Information and International Security of the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Government Affairs. |
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Training: Web Manager University Fall Registration Opens
Classes begin September 18 for the fall session of Web Manager University. The university offers three types of training: seminars, courses, and webinars. Its aim is to help employees improve government websites by providing affordable, targeted training for all levels of government. Seminars are introductory sessions that usually last two hours. Courses offer more in-depth development for professionals and typically last one or two days. Webinars, also called "web conferencing," are live, short seminars broadcast on the Web. Participants view a presentation online and call in to interact. Registration is conducted through a secure online form. Some registration guidance from the site includes:
Fees range from $30 to $600. In certain circumstances, government employees will be given priority over non-government employees. Web Manager University is jointly sponsored by FirstGov.gov, the GSA Office of Citizen Services and Communications, and the inter-agency Web Managers Advisory Council. |
Transitions: Changes in the IT Community Also available in pdf 868 kb |
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Upcoming Events Calendar
International City/County Management Association Conference Webcontent.gov Workshop and Awards Luncheon Expedition Workshop: Networking Financial Management Communities National Association of Government Webmasters Conference E-Gov Institute Program Management Summit National Association of State CIOs (NASCIO) Annual Conference Executive Leadership Conference FCW Government CIO Summit National Electronic Commerce Coordinating Council Annual Conference |
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Please send your comments, concerns, complaints and questions to dotgovbuzz@gsa.gov. Check out our previous editions at www.firstgov.gov/dotgovbuzz.html. The DotGov Buzz is produced by the following individuals in the GSA Office of Citizen Services and Communications: |