E-gov chief details accomplishments on eve of departure

The administration's e-government initiatives will continue to flourish, said their manager on the eve of his departure from those duties.

Mark Forman, associate director for information and e-government, fielded questions on e-gov and detailed highlights of his two-and-a-half year tenure at the Office of Management and Budget during a telephone "exit interview" Thursday. He said the e-gov initiatives will stay on track as they are driven by the president as an element of his management agenda.

"As in the business world, some executives get it, and some don't," he said. "The president really understands the management of government, and [the initiatives] will continue forward to the benefit of the taxpayer," he added.

"It was exciting to work with people at the highest levels of an organization who understand that we're not just buying computers, but putting together a better way to run an organization," he said. "I will miss working with them."

Forman said he is departing at this time for personal reasons. "I came from a much higher salary, and as you know, you get used to a certain lifestyle," he said. "I've run out of supplemental resources."

He highlighted three general accomplishments: developing a criteria to measure the quality of government IT investments, security improvements and cross-agency cooperation.

"Now we have tools we didn't have before to see if this or that was a good IT investment," said Forman. "These tools didn't exist two years ago."

Government network security is running 50 percent to 60 percent today, and OMB is on track to securing 80 percent in the near future, he said, adding: "We didn't even know how secure we were two years ago."

Forman acknowledged that the magnitude of change in government information technology has prompted high turnover rates among federal chief information officers, but he does not view this as a "negative" trend. Federal agencies will need top-notch CIOs to effectively manage their massive IT budgets, requiring increased compensation to draw top talent.

"Five to 10 years ago, most CIOs built their own applications," he said. "Now we hire contractors for that."

"Departments are spending billions of dollars each year on IT, and managing that requires a world-class CIO to be successful," Forman said. OMB addressed this "skills gap" in the fiscal 2004 budget, and he expects this to be an issue in the 2005 budget process.

"There are a lot of inter-relationships in many aspects of the President's Management Agenda," he said. "This is one area where e-government and human capital are intertwined."

Forman declined to comment on the search for his permanent replacement. The job was never about ideas, he said, noting that a great manager would be the best fit for the job.

"When I came in, we were all saying that government has to get with what's going on in e-business and e-commerce," he said. "When I talked to [OMB Director] Mitch Daniels, he hired me not to be a visionary but to put in place a governing structure, a framework, a set of priorities. None of that had been done before this administration," he said. "I consider that tactical. What people call visionary is up to them."