[kictanet] (US) Government launches website to track IT spending

[Christopher Kiagiri]

 Remember last month when Obama's CIO announced data.gov (which has already
grown from 47 data sets to over 100,000)?  ... Well, VK didn't stop there.
Now there's USAspending.gov  (details below).
http://www.washingtonpost.com/<http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/06/30/AR2009063001370.html?hpid=moreheadlines>
wp-dyn/content/article/2009/<http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/06/30/AR2009063001370.html?hpid=moreheadlines>
06/30/AR2009063001370.html?<http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/06/30/AR2009063001370.html?hpid=moreheadlines>
hpid=moreheadlines<http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/06/30/AR2009063001370.html?hpid=moreheadlines>
Government Launches Web Site to Track IT Spending By Kim
Hart<http://projects.washingtonpost.com/staff/articles/kim+hart/>
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, June 30, 2009; 10:29 AM

NEW YORK, June 30 -- Vivek Kundra, the federal chief information officer, on
Tuesday announced a new Web site designed to track more than $70 billion in
government information technology spending, showing all contracts held by
major firms within every agency.

The revamped site, USAspending.gov <http://usaspending.gov/>, was launched
early this morning, and Kundra unveiled it at the Personal Democracy Forum
conference on technology and politics. The site shows detailed information
about whether IT contracts are being monitored and budgets being met.

"Everyone knows there have been spectacular failures when it comes to
technology investments," Kundra said. "Now for the first time the entire
country can see how we're spending money and give us input."

The site is the latest effort by Kundra and the Office of Management and
Budget to make data about the government's projects and performance visible
to the public. Citizens and Web developers can parse the data, combine it
with other data sets and publish the results on Web feeds or their Facebook
profiles. The data also show which contracts were won through a competitive
process or in a no-bid method, which has been criticized by good-government
advocates for excluding firms from business opportunities. Each prime
contractor is listed as well as the status of that project; sub-contractors
are not yet shown on the site.

Last month, Kundra launched Data.gov <http://data.gov/>, a repository for
data feeds that are publicly available but often hard to find. The site
started with 47 data sets. Kundra said there are now more than 100,000.

Kundra's announcement was met with cheers and a standing ovation from the
Twittering crowd at a Lincoln Center auditorium. The launch fulfills one of
the promises Kundra made to Congress, in which he pledged to develop a new
way of monitoring federal technology spending by the end of June.

Launching a site that makes spending practices open to the public met some
opposition from the agencies' chief information officers and government
contractors, some of whom were nervous about letting citizens who aren't
familiar with the contracting process and technology needs of the government
judge the spending decisions. Kundra said he met with every agency and
dozens of company executives over the past six weeks.

"I talked to the CIO Council and saw the data change overnight," Kundra
said. "It was cleaned up immediately when people realized it was going to be
made public."

A federal report last year found that $30 billion worth of IT projects were
not going smoothly or were in danger of failing. Kundra pointed to a $6
million project to use wireless devices in gathering information for the
U.S. Census. After two years, it was deemed unsuccessful and census takers
reverted to using the old paper-based system.

"We've seen this with system after system," he said. "Vendors over-promise
and budgets have run away in terms of excessive spending. We're trying to
provide you with the tools to let American people show us a better way."

Because the data change frequently as IT contracts change, the feeds run the
risk of containing inaccuracies. Maintaining and updating the databases is
also labor-intensive and some agencies say the initiative creates an
enormous workload for them.

"There is a good chance you'll go through this and find places where the
data is wrong, and that's okay," said Macon Phillips, new media director for
the White House. "I'd rather have this up and out there than not at all."
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