As we begin the New Year and head into full implementation of the President's E-Gov initiatives I would like to reflect on the numerous successes we have had over the past two years in E-Gov. On December 17, we celebrated the one-year anniversary of the signing of the E-Gov Act, which codified much of the work we have been doing through policy and Executive Orders and through the leadership of the CIO Council. Since the QuickSilver project launched the E-Gov initiatives we have seen the Federal government become significantly more citizen-centered and results oriented. With many of the E-Gov initiatives declaring success, citizens and government are beginning to see a real difference.

Recent successes in E-Gov include:

FirstGov.gov: Attracting almost 6 million visitors a month, FirstGov.gov is America's Gateway to more than 180million web pages from federal and state governments, the District of Columbia, and U.S. territories. FirstGov.gov's latest achievement is "FirstGov en Español," the first on-line gateway to the entire spectrum of Spanish-language Web pages offered by the government.
www.firstgov.gov	Managing Agency: GSA

Disaster Management: Provides federal, state, and local emergency managers on-line access to disaster management related information, planning, and response tools. Since its inception in November 2002, DisasterHelp.gov has registered over 11,440 user accounts from 46 states and 4 countries and the site has been used in 39 instances during actual emergencies and 89 disaster preparedness exercises.
www.disasterhelp.gov	Managing Agency: DHS

GovBenefits.gov: Representing more than $2 trillion in federal benefit dollars, GovBenefits.gov provides on-line access to all known citizen- focused federal benefit programs and 48 state level benefit programs. The most recent version of GovBenefits.gov also includes state benefit programs from: Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Georgia, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Michigan, Minnesota, New Mexico, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, South Dakota and Utah.

www.govbenefits.gov

Managing Agency: DOL

IRS Free File: Provides a single-point of access to free on-line preparation and electronic tax filing services. At least 60% of all Americans were eligible to use IRS Free File during the 2003 filing season through a partnership agreement between the IRS and the Free File Alliance. This past tax season, 2.8 million taxpayers, representing 23.5% of all returns, filed electronically with the IRS using the Free File Service. In addition, more than 8.3 million computer users visited the Free File content area as of April 15th, making it the most visited page on the heavily used IRS web site. The IRS recently launched the second year of Free File tax filing.

www.irs.gov/app/freeFile/welcome.jsp

Managing Agency: TREAS

E-Payroll: E-Payroll continues to move forward with the migration of agency payroll services to one of two payroll provider partnerships (Department of Defense/General Services Administration and Department of Agriculture/Department of Interior). Recently, the Surface Transportation Board, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, and the American Battle Monuments Commission successfully completed migrations. Ultimately, the E-Payroll initiative is estimated to save $1.1 billion over its lifetime through the consolidation and standardization of payroll services government-wide.

www.opm.gov/egov

Managing Agency: OPM

Integrated Acquisition Environment: The IAE initiative creates a secure business environment that facilitates and supports cost-effective acquisition of goods and services by agencies, while eliminating inefficiencies in the current acquisition environment. IAE's most recent successes included a cross-agency initiative with the SBA, OMB, GSA and DOD to integrate the Pro-Net and CCR database to simplify the contracting process for small businesses by creating a single point of registration for business data. Additionally, IAE launched the Wage Determinations Online (WDOL) portal and began the processing of rent transactions thru the Intra-Governmental Transactions Exchange portal.

http://egov.gsa.gov

Managing Agency: GSA

As we see full implementation and adoption of the E-Gov initiatives we will continue to drive for results and better delivery of Federal government services to citizens, businesses and the government. Over the next few months we will begin to focus on the Lines of Business initiatives.

Lines of Business: We originally identified six areas for the next set of cross-agency projects. But based on an analysis we have decided to continue forward with only five areas that offer the best opportunities for cost savings and improved efficiency are: public-health monitoring, case management, human resources administration, financial management, and the next phase of E-Grants.

Additionally, the Expanding Electronic Government initiative is making progress in a number of other areas, including:

Federal Enterprise Architecture: A draft of the Data Reference Model is nearing completion and will be distributed to agencies for comment during the next quarter. The Federal CIO Council is also going to complete work on a new security profile to be embedded within the FEA reference frameworks. We are initiating our preparations for the '06 budget cycle by gathering feedback and adjusting the FEA models and data requirements.

IT Security: Many Federal agencies continue to demonstrate progress toward meeting their IT security goals outlined in the E-Government Scorecard. In particular, the number of Federal systems that have been appropriately secured through a certification and accreditation process increased from last quarter. Additionally, remediation of long-standing IT security weaknesses has improved. Continued monitoring through the President's Management Agenda is essential to identify this type of progress as well as highlight remaining challenges.

Further information on Expanded Electronic Government, the E-Gov Strategy, or other E-Gov topics of interest can be found at www.egov.gov, the official web site of the President's E-Government Initiatives. The web site is an up-to-date, public source of information about the E-Gov Initiatives and their accomplishments. Additionally, information on the FEA can be found at www.feapmo.gov.

Sincerely,
Karen Evans



The Five Initatives:

• Strategic Management of Human Capital - Kay Coles James
• Commercial Services Management
• Improving Financial Performance - Linda Springer
• Expanded Electronic Government - Karen Evans
• Budget & Performance Integration - Robert Shea