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GCN Home > 02/10/03 issue

What the ’04 IT budget means for each agency

The Agriculture Department plans to continue developing its enterprise architecture, including a project to connect field offices via a virtual private network. USDA would receive $2.25 billion for IT next year, up from $2.14 billion this year.

The IT budget for the Commerce Department would jump to $1.54 billion, up from $1.36 billion this year. The department would receive a $70 million increase in funding for the Patent and Trademark Office’s modernization. The National Institute of Standards and Technology would get $12 million to develop standards for biometric identification and threat detection.

The president’s proposal earmarks $427 million for IT projects at the Education Department.

The IT budget at the Energy Department would decrease from $2.53 billion this year to $2.51 billion next. DOE plans to spend $751 million on its Advanced Simulation and Computing Campaign to provide improved systems for weapons design. The budget also includes $173.5 million for the Advanced Scientific Computing Research Program for computing and networking research.

The Environmental Protection Agency plans to spend $455 million on IT next year, up from $432 million this year. It would allot $228.3 million to environmental information programs, a boost of $29.2 million. EPA also wants to increase by $32.5 million its spending on systems infrastructure and security initiatives.

The Executive Office of the President is seeking $25 million for organizations in the Office of Management and Budget. This is an increase of $3 million over last year. The Office of Federal Procurement Policy would receive $3 million, a decrease of $1 million from this year, and the Office of Science and Technology Policy would get $7 million, a $2 million increase over the 2003 request.

The General Accounting Office’s IT program office would receive $20 million for next year, up from $19 million for this year.

The president’s proposal identifies $45 million for an E-Government Fund at the General Services Administration to support the 25 Quicksilver initiatives. The agency requested the same amount of money for 2003. The budget tagged $2.5 million for federal enterprise architecture work and $2.1 million for an Extensible Markup Language registry to let agencies share data, structure and business processes. GSA plans to put $2.8 million into E-Travel project management and $4.4 million toward firstgov.gov. The agency also wants to spend $7 million—down from $44.7 million this year—from the Federal Supply Service revolving fund on the Integrated Acquisition Environment, E-Travel and E-Authentication projects.

The Health and Human Services Department plans to spend $4.85 billion on IT next year, part of which will go to consolidating systems at its bureaus. Another major focus will be the E-Grants project to create a federal grants portal.

The budget would allot $371 million for IT projects at the Housing and Urban Development Department, including plans to strengthen financial systems.

The budget would dole out $853 million for IT at the Interior Department. The department would push up by $168 million to $481 million spending on its project to correct the flawed Indian Trust accounting systems. The Geological Survey plans to spend funds on enhancing the geospatial data available through the National Biological Information Infrastructure.