Information Technology Savings for Reinvestment

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.