1. Retain a portion of agency information technology savings for reinvestment. By July 1994 the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) should instruct agencies to identify IT savings in agency budget submissions for potential reinvestment starting in fiscal year 1996. As part of its instructions, OMB should establish the reporting requirements by which agencies quantify IT savings and track reinvestment in successive fiscal years as part of agency budgets. The instructions to initiate this budget process must be available to agencies no later than July 1994, to accommodate the fiscal year 1996 budget cycle. Another NPR accompanying report proposes that up to 50 percent of agency appropriations unobligated at the end of a fiscal year be identified for carryover to the next fiscal year.[12] For IT savings, this could be accomplished in two ways. During the current fiscal year, recognized savings could be transferred to an agency's WCF to support IT innovation.[13] In future years, recognized savings could be identified within the annual budget and appropriations process and included in agency appropriations. Through these two mechanisms, a percentage of recognized savings would effectively be carried forward to fund credible programs for IT innovation and experimentation. Such programs would specifically take advantage of new IT technology, demonstrate measurable improvements in agency services, and realize additional savings. OMB should also collaborate annually with the General Accounting Office to identify the minimum agency accounting procedures and performance measurement criteria required to support agency claims of IT savings. This will facilitate agreement between OMB and congressional appropriations committees on the specific agency savings that will be considered for reinvestment. Results of the collaboration should be reflected in the OMB instructions recommended earlier. Success-based funding must be grounded in an auditable baseline of agency performance in terms of outcomes and costs in order to attribute specific savings to IT innovation. Only those agencies that meet the challenge of demonstrating auditable results would receive the benefits of success-based funding. Consistent accounting procedures and performance measurement criteria must be employed across agencies to clearly identify those savings resulting from IT innovations. The close relationship between documented agency savings from IT innovation, agency budgets, and the appropriations process point to the central role of OMB in implementing success-based funding. Endnotes 12. National Performance Review Accompanying Report, Mission-Driven, Results-Oriented Budgeting (Washington, D.C.: U.S. GPO, September 1993). 13. Working capital funds have been authorized for a number of agencies. For example, the Departments of Transportation and the Treasury have long-established funds.
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