White House Said to Pull Plug on Tech Spending
By REUTERS


Filed at 0:45 a.m. ET

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The White House Office of Management and Budget
has ordered seven of the 22 agencies due to make up a proposed
Department of Homeland Security to temporarily halt spending on more
than $1 billion in information technology projects while it looks for
savings and compatible technology, The Washington Post said on Saturday.

"This is a temporary cease on spending" to make sure money is not wasted
on projects that will have a six-month shelf life if the agencies are
combined, Mark Forman, the OMB's associate director for information
technology and e-government, told the paper. "That includes looking at
redundancies and interoperability requirements."

The OMB said ongoing projects would not be affected, but new contracts
will have to be approved by a Homeland Security Investment Review Group,
the Post reported.

So far, the OMB suspects it can find about $300 million in savings among
the agencies it has targeted with this order, the Post said. More will
be examined later, it said. The OMB looked only at agencies that had
proposed information technology contracts worth more than $500,000.

The seven agencies had planned to spend $235 million to upgrade 21
financial management systems, according to OMB records cited by the
Post. That can be consolidated into three or four programs, potentially
saving $65 million to $85 million in the next two years, agency
officials told the paper.

"What's clear is that there are a lot of redundant investments," Forman
said. He could not immediately be reached for further comment.