OMB seeks e-gov ideas via e-mail

"Citizen-Centered E-Government: Developing the Action Plan"

The Office of Management and Budget wants federal employees to e-mail ideas for high-impact, e-government interagency initiatives so the Bush administration can pick the top 10 to complete within two years.

The idea spins off a move last month by OMB Director Mitchell Daniels Jr. to create an e-government task force charged with finding crossagency initiatives that could best improve federal services.

The group comprises e-government leaders designated by each agency and is headed by Mark Forman, OMB's associate director for information technology and e-government. During the next two weeks, the task force will interview key agency executives about their e-government activities and strategies.

To move past the administrative level at agencies, OMB and the General Services Administration's Office of Governmentwide Policy have set up an e-mail address (egov.taskforce@gsa.gov), to which anyone may send ideas and suggestions for the task force before the end of August, said Jennifer Wood, an OMB spokeswoman.

The information gathered from the interviews and e-mail messages will be sent to the President's Management Council, which will select about 10 "presidential initiatives" in September "to be funded and completed within the next 18 to 24 months," Wood said.

"It's important to us to get the ideas that are coming out of the people that are doing this work day-to-day at the front," Forman said.

Funding for the initiatives will come in part from the $20 million interagency e-government fund the administration is seeking in the fiscal 2002 budget, he said.