Fear of Paperlessness

These are lofty goals, and agencies have only two years to achieve them. Under the 1998 Government Paperwork Elimination Act (GPEA), agencies must put their most important forms and processes online by Oct. 21, 2003. The law also requires agencies to learn how to accept electronic signatures on official documents and to figure out how to capture data once and then share it with other agencies. GPEA's goals are sweeping. Nearly every task the federal government performs that is still based on paper or supported by an outdated information technology system falls under the law. Forman and other top administration officials have made it clear that they view GPEA as a means to link e-government, IT modernization and government reform initiatives. This raises the stakes of the law, which was passed with little fanfare before e-government became a buzzword. It also raises questions about the many large federal agencies and departments that so far have made little progress in implementing GPEA's provisions.

Frenzied Hand-wringing

The 2003 GPEA deadline has caused frenzied hand-wringing across the federal government. Office of Management and Budget Director Mitch Daniels drew attention to it at a June hearing of the House Government Reform Committee. "A great deal more needs to be done in order to expand the potential of the Internet to fulfill the President's vision of a 'citizen-centered' government that transforms each agency's Web presence," said Daniels.

Close to 6,000 forms and processes covered by GPEA do not yet have electronic counterparts, Daniels pointed out. About 45 percent of agencies claim they will meet the 2003 deadline, he said, and of the remaining 55 percent, a little over half have compelling reasons for not making the deadline.

GPEA seeks to automate all forms and processes that serve citizens, businesses, federal employees and other government agencies. GPEA also seeks to streamline processes already automated by federal IT systems. Any process that can be altered to save an agency time and money falls under the law.

At the June hearing, committee chairman Dan Burton, R-Ind., said the problem with effective GPEA implementation is that "too many agencies are spending hundreds of millions of dollars maintaining outdated computer systems. Too many agencies are saddled with computer systems that can't talk to one another. And too many agencies haven't had the vision to break out of the old way of doing things." Much of the furor over GPEA did not begin until recently. Agencies were required to submit their plans for meeting the law's requirements to OMB in October 2000. The quality of the plans varied widely, said Burton. Some agencies simply provided a list of initiatives, while others integrated GPEA into their strategic plans. He pointed to the Treasury Department, which laid out a clear strategic plan that demonstrated high-level support, as an example of the right way of integrating GPEA into both short- and long-term planning. Daniels said the Environmental Protection Agency and the Housing and Urban Development Department also have solid plans for meeting GPEA's deadline.

The U.S. Mint received special attention from the committee for revolutionizing its information technology systems while keeping an eye on meeting GPEA's requirements. The Mint's well-publicized implementation of PeopleSoft Inc.'s enterprise resource planning software was held up as a prime example of how to serve the public via the Web while modernizing an agency's financial and supply chain management systems. The Mint sold $156 million in coins last year through its Web site and now closes its books electronically in 10 days or less every month-a process that until recently was handled with pencil and paper and was fraught with error.

On the flip side, Burton lambasted the Defense Department for simply providing OMB with a list of activities that lacked evidence of strategic planning. OMB officials say agencies with GPEA plans that list e-government initiatives transaction by transaction haven't taken the spirit of the law to heart. The federal government will not be transformed, they argue, unless agencies take a broader view and use GPEA as a lever to force redesigns of both IT and business processes.

The same officials concede that large portions of Defense-all systems relating directly to national security-are exempt from GPEA. However, Defense systems that support health care, family services, procurement and hiring all are covered by GPEA's mandates. In addition to the Pentagon, Burton said the Social Security Administration and the Veterans Affairs Department "are bogged down with outdated information systems and paper files." Daniels added the Health and Human Services Department to his list of significant concerns.

Building Business Cases

Agencies have been most effective when matching GPEA objectives with the goals of their IT capital planning process, Daniels told the committee. To facilitate this process, OMB officials say annual budget requests must reflect significant attention to GPEA initiatives as well as strategic and capital planning efforts. In order to win support for new projects, agency officials must now make strong business cases that link capital investments to GPEA requirements.

The General Accounting Office has endorsed this approach. "If agencies are going to go with an online strategy, they should be looking to decrease cost and increase productivity," says David McClure, GAO's director for information technology management issues. "We like to see a strong linkage between GPEA and strategic plans."

OMB officials stress that GPEA efforts must focus on the responsible use of IT, not merely putting processes online. To meet the spirit of GPEA, they say, agencies should redesign business processes and consider how they can cut costs for both the government and its customers.

Each agency, of course, has a unique IT infrastructure and set of customers. This means implementing GPEA across government will involve experimenting with a huge number of technologies. Some are more advanced than others. For example, numerous products on the market, from companies such as Adobe Systems Inc., JetForm Corp. and Cardiff Software, facilitate the process of putting federal forms online. Cardiff's LiquidForms takes scanned forms and turns them into PDF files that can be filled out on Web sites. LiquidForms' software requires that users have nothing more than a Web browser and a PDF reader.

Many agencies have yet to take advantage of such innovations. The General Services Administration, for example, requires users to download a special form reader to access and fill in its Web-posted forms online. It also posts forms in the standard PDF format, but users can't fill out these forms online. They must print them out and send them to the agency.

Another key component of GPEA is developing the ability to accept electronic signatures. OMB's GPEA guidance says "electronic records and their electronic signatures are not to be denied legal effect, validity or enforceability merely because they are in electronic form." E-signatures come in many shapes and sizes. Options for accepting them include using personal identification numbers, biometric identification, digitized signatures and cryptography. Each comes with widely varying costs. The online student financial aid application offered by the Education Department and the Internal Revenue Service's e-file initiative both rely on PINs, while the Patent and Trademark Office has decided patent attorneys should use digital signatures when submitting patent applications for inventors. The National Institute of Standards and Technology is using HandySoft Corp.'s BizFlow 2000 software to put forms online. The software also creates a system for routing and tracking documents, so workers can pass them to administrators and managers for approval. Systems integrator Materials, Communication and Computers Inc. is automating forms that NIST uses every day, such as expense forms and time and attendance sheets.

Fully implementing GPEA will require a great deal of back-end work at agencies. They must implement ways of checking citizen-entered information, validating forms filled out online and tracking them internally. Agencies must also have databases in place so that the Web does not turn into a remote entry vehicle from which federal workers simply print out forms filled out online.

As agencies collect information from the Web, they should look for new ways to share that information with other agencies, GPEA backers say. For example, Burton said he would like Defense and Veterans Affairs to work more closely together to help retiring service members make a smooth transition out of the military. "When a veteran goes to the VA to apply for benefits, the VA has to request his personnel records from [Defense]," he said. "But their computers can't talk to each other. It has to be done on paper. There's such a huge filing backlog at [Defense] that these cases sometimes get hung up for years."

OMB officials understand the budget process does not encourage cross-agency work. However, they say, agencies need to work together within the budget process to identify common areas in order to minimize duplication.

For all of GPEA's focus on providing new mechanisms for service, McClure says that in the end, they will augment, not replace, government's existing processes. "Traditional modes of service delivery are still going to be in place for many government services," he says. "We are going to have a click and mortar federal government."