Digital Government

Hill demands feds defend IT spending

In many of the fiscal 1999 appropriations bills Congress still hopes to pass before it adjourns Oct. 9, legislators tied funding to performance and have pushed agencies for detailed plans on information technology projects under development before any more money is distributed. Eben Townes, senior

Digital Government

Army major, FTC team win annual IRMCO awards

The General Services Administration and the Chief Information Officers Council last week presented the annual IRMCO award to an Army major responsible for developing a Defense Department network management system and to a team of developers who worked on a Federal Trade Commission system to help ba

Digital Government

CIOs address brain drain

Members of the Education and Training Committee of the CIO Council have begun work on recommendations to address the information technology 'brain drain' facing the federal government in the coming years. Committee member Emory Miller, director of professional development at the General Services Ad

Digital Government

FSS to run financial software sked

The General Services Administration plans to move responsibility for its financial management software from the Federal Technology Service into the general information technology products and services schedule managed by the Federal Supply Service (FSS). FTS officials had been working for months wi

Digital Government

NSA award for switches faces protest

The National Security Agency late last week was poised to award a contract for thousands of highspeed network switches to Fore Systems Inc., even as the deal becomes tangled in a lawsuit between Fore and another bidder. Fore late last month filed a complaint at the U.S. District Court in Pittsburg

Digital Government

Boeing protests GSA Seat shutout

Boeing Information Services last week protested the General Services Administration's decision to disqualify the company from its $9 billion Seat Management program earlier this month. Boeing is just one of several vendors claiming that agency procurement officials misled them into believing pricin

Digital Government

New group backs existing financial schedule

A group of vendors and public interest groups banded together this month in opposition to the government's attempts to change the way it purchases financial management system software (FMSS). Michael Canning, executive director of the Coalition for Federal Financial Accountability, said the softwar

Digital Government

Local exchange carrier lands AF contract

In a rare case of a competitive local exchange carrier (CLEC) beating out a major regional service provider, GST Government Systems Inc. late last month announced it defeated GTE Government Systems Corp. for a contract to provide local dialtone service to March Air Reserve Base, Riverside County,

Digital Government

PBS to outsource systems development

The General Services Administration's Public Buildings Service (PBS) plans to award in September one or more blanket purchase agreements for software development services serving its regional offices throughout the country. Paul Wohlleben, chief information officer at PBS, said the program, known a

Digital Government

Survey: Feds undecided about seat management

Few federal informationtechnology managers say they plan to use two recently awarded, highprofile desktop outsourcing contracts, according to a survey released last week. About 15 percent of federal managers said they planned to use desktop outsourcing contracts specifically the General Service

Digital Government

FTS to form services centers

Officials at the General Services Administration's Federal Technology Service will restructure the organization this fall in response to their concerns about the proliferation of contracts in the agency's 11 regional offices, many of which duplicate each other. FTS Deputy Commissioner Sandy Bates s

Digital Government

IRMCO issues annual call for nominations

The General Services Administration is soliciting nominations for its annual Information Resources Management Conference (IRMCO) award, which is presented each year to an individual or a team of federal information technology professionals who has improved service to the public. Joan Steyaert, depu

Digital Government

Treasury CIO in FTS 2001 talks

The chief information officer at the Treasury Department is contemplating sending a letter to the General Services Administration expressing his reluctance to participate in the governmentwide FTS 2001 longdistance network before 2000. Jim Flyzik said last week that his primary concern for the ne

Digital Government

HHS mulls health care ID system

The Department of Health and Human Services last week issued a white paper on a plan to create a standard identification code for health care patients so that patient records could be stored in a central database, a project that critics fear could result in a new nationwide ID card that could compr

Digital Government

GSA to test commercial/federal smart-card apps

The General Services Administration this fall will begin a pilot program to put government applications on the same smart cards that are used for commercial applications. Marty Wagner, associate administrator for GSA's Office of Governmentwide Policy, said the pilot represents one way that credit c

Digital Government

Bell Atlantic tests voice-based tech for call routing

Bell Atlantic Federal Systems has begun beta tests of a new voice recognition system that will automatically connect callers to specific employees within federal agencies by prompting the caller to say the employee's name. Alexander McAllister, a member of the technical staff at Bell Atlantic Feder

Digital Government

GSA picks 8 for seat management

The General Services Administration last week tapped eight vendors for a desktop outsourcing contract estimated to be worth $9 billion. Wang Government Services, Multimax, Litton/PRC Inc., EER Systems, IBM Global, Federal Data Corp., Tech Services (previously DynCorp) and Science Applications Inter

Digital Government

GAO to consider FSS, FTS privatization

Rep. Tom Davis (RVa.) plans to ask the General Accounting Office to report on the pros and cons of merging the General Services Administration's Federal Supply Service and Federal Technology Service into a quasigovernmental organization operating along the lines of the U.S. Postal Service. Davis

Digital Government

Feds question Seat Management

Despite the buzz surrounding the General Services Administration's award of the Seat Management contract expected this week, some agency representatives said they have doubts they would use the contract. The Seat Management contract, like the Outsourcing Desktop Initiative for NASA contract awarded

Digital Government

Council plans to offer high-level IT training to CIOs

The federal Chief Information Officers Council plans to issue a solicitation late this year to colleges and universities to establish a curriculum geared to the education requirements of highlevel information technology executives and managers in the federal government. The new program, dubbed the