Page 38 - FCW, April 2017

Management
Council, and Reed Cordish, who is assistant to the president for intergov- ernmental and technology initiatives. Other players on the innovation team include Dina Powell, deputy national security adviser for strategy; Andrew Bremberg, director of the Domestic Policy Council; and Chris Liddell, assis- tant to the president and director of strategic initiatives.
“It’s not clear exactly what the complete agenda is going to be, but I’m encouraged by some of the names that are involved,” said Scott, who was appointed by former President Barack Obama. Scott added that Liddell is “very good to work with.... He’s seen the big, hard problems.”
Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-Va.), rank- ing member of the House Oversight Committee’s Government Operations
Subcommittee, said he is encouraged by the team’s focus on IT.
“If Jared Kushner can prove to be an ally on the modernization of both the procurement and management of IT in the federal government, that would be a very welcome development,” Con- nolly told FCW.
“I see it as a potentially enormous opportunity, and I hope we have a chance to exploit that opportunity,” he added.
Connolly and Scott said they would like to see the Trump administration rally behind the Modernizing Govern- ment Technology Act, which provides funding mechanisms to move agency IT operations to the cloud.
At the same time, Connolly cautioned that “the portfolio given to [Kushner] looks a lot like the statutory responsibil-
ity of the deputy director for manage- ment” at OMB. “Are you supplanting the statutory position of DDM with an ad hoc appointment?” Connolly asked.
He also expressed concern that Kushner, who is also a senior domestic policy adviser and supposedly a lead- ing voice in the administration on the Middle East peace process, might have been assigned too many responsibili- ties to do any one of them effectively.
“That’s biting off more than a normal mortal can chew,” Connolly said.
Private-sector cooperation
There is already a great deal of activ- ity on IT procurement that is inspired by private-sector best practices, Chris Cummiskey, former acting undersec- retary for management at the Depart- ment of Homeland Security, told FCW.
Can career feds manageTrump’s big reorg?
Without confirmed sub-Cabinet officials, President Donald Trump’s executive order to reorganize the government will be managed by agency chiefs and career executives
BY ADAM MAZMANIAN
cautioned that there are risks to launching a massive reorganization process without having a team of confirmed sub-Cabinet officials.
“The agencies are at a disadvantage not having politicals in place to help manage this process,”
said Shea, who was
OMB’s associate director
for administration and government performance under President George W. Bush and is now a principal at GrantThornton. “That’s not to suggest that there are not politicals in place to offer guidance and advice, but it would be better to have a confirmed person to help oversee that process and negotiate it with OMB.”
Terry Gerton, president of the National Academy of Public Administration, said,
President DonaldTrump has not yet announced a formal management agenda, but the White House budget blueprint released in March explicitly links the freeze on civilian government hiring and a federal reorganization to larger plans that would dramatically cut civilian agency spending while refocusing government resources on defense and homeland security.
“Legislation will be required before major reorganization of the executive branch can take place,” the budget blueprint states, “but the White House
is best situated to review and recommend changes to the Congress.”
The document promises that the White House will deliver a comprehensive plan for reorganization proposals to Congress in about a year — after the 180-day process of gathering recommendations from agencies and
the public required by executive order and after
the Office of Management and Budget shapes those recommendations into legislation.
The relatively tight time frame for the process is sound policy, said former OMB
Controller Dave Mader, who also served as acting deputy director for management at OMB and is now the chief strategy officer for the civilian sector at Deloitte.
“I don’t think we lack for sources of information,” Mader said. “Within OMB, the budget examiners, working with departments, have ideas.There are [Government Accountability Office] reports on overlap and duplication. They’ve been issuing those for years. Now we have
180 days to pull all of this together.”
However, Robert Shea, another former OMB leader,
22 April 2017 FCW.COM