IT budget invests heavily in homeland security, e-government

The Bush administration's fiscal 2003 budget will focus much of its proposed $52 billion in information technology spending on homeland security and electronic government. "[The] federal government is likely one of the few organizations planning double-digit percentage IT spending increases in the next year," the budget said. The budget earmarks a total of $38 billion for homeland security. Of that, $21 billion is set aside for five major homeland security goals: supporting "first responders" to emergencies, defending against biological attacks, protecting the nation's borders, improving information sharing among federal agencies and protecting critical infrastructures. The budget would support first responders-fire and police departments and other emergency workers-by designating funds to upgrade emergency communications systems nationwide, "enabling more first responders and their agencies to talk with one another in 'real time,'" the budget says. The Bush administration also wants to build a defense against biological attacks. It has included $591 million to upgrade hospitals with new communications systems and decontamination facilities. Another $392 million would be spent to strengthen the nation's ability to detect and react quickly to a biological attack. This includes $202 million "to create a national information management system that links emergency medical responders with public health officials, enables early warning information to be distributed quickly and permits emergency medical care and public health care providers to share diagnostic and treatment information and facilities." Another $157 million will be funneled to public health providers in states and localities to purchase "hardware and assistance to access this information." The administration would spend $380 million "to establish a reliable system to track the entry and exit of immigrants." Finally, the budget recognizes information-sharing and other IT projects as vital to homeland security. It includes $722 million for "improvements to information-sharing within the federal government and between the federal government and other jurisdictions." The administration will buy IT systems that link federal agencies with homeland security responsibilities to information about threats. The budget also proposes creating new systems for providing state and local officials with timely homeland security information. To prepare for cyberattacks, the budget seeks to "unify federal government security and critical infrastructure protection initiatives." To this end, the administration has requested money to hire "approximately 150 FBI special agents and investigative staff to the task of protecting [the nation's] banking, finance, energy, transportation, and other critical systems from disruption by terrorists, including by cyber attack." The budget provides the FBI and the Immigration and Naturalization Service with $155 million to "improve their intelligence-gathering and dissemination capabilities." The budget singles out the FBI for a massive technology upgrade, handing out $186 million for personal computer networks, databases and information-sharing initiatives. The FBI's outdated computer systems have been a longstanding managerial problem at the Justice Department. On the e-government front, the administration has chosen to invest in 24 projects aimed at eliminating redundant IT systems across the federal government. By concentrating on IT systems that can be built once and used by many agencies, the Bush administration is trying to "focus federal investments in technology to free up billions of dollars of wasteful federal spending, reduce government's burden on citizens and businesses and improve government operations," the budget states. The e-government projects include streamlining tax filing and providing access to the federal government's geographic information maps from one place. Furthermore, the budget asks the Office of Personnel Management to create a one-stop recruiting site, a single human resources system and a single electronic payroll system for the federal government.