IfG.CC -
Institute for eGovernment

County Executive Kathleen Donovan outlined her vision to cut spending by pushing for greater cooperation between county and municipal government Thursday in her state of the county address.

From exploring cooperative electric and gas purchases to sharing county police services, Donovan touted her administration's record of working with local government to trim costs at both levels.

Building on the Federal Information Technology Shared Services Strategy (as well as OMB’s review of financial systems from June 2010), the memo from federal controller Danny Werfel explains that “the cost, quality and performance of Federal financial systems can be improved by focusing government resources on fewer, more standardized solutions that are implemented and operated by experienced staff.” In addition to streamlining the variety of solutions currently deployed across the government, the use of FSSPs will help to reduce the time it takes to implement systems and to improve data quality. As part of this guidance, OMB is encouraging agencies complete market research to evaluate solutions and complete analysis of alternatives from both FSSPs and commercial SSPs. Werfel suggests taking vendor past performance and advantages of existing partnerships into consideration when assessing solutions.

Speaking at a May 17 luncheon organized by the Association for Federal Information Resources Management, Bernard said the language in the strategy reflects the Office of Management and Budget's recognition that agency situations are often different and wouldn’t fare well with a rigid directive.

The Chief Information Officer's Council launched the new database as part of the administration's strategy for to get more agencies to use existing services instead of buying new ones.

"Uncle Sam's List (USL) is an internal community within the MAX.gov internal government collaboration site that is maintained by the CIO Council's Shared Services subcommittee," wrote an OMB official in an email in response to questions. "USL provides information on IT shared service areas, providers, and related existing contract vehicles. There are listings for approximately a dozen commodity IT service areas and a dozen support IT service areas. The Shared Services subcommittee determines which areas, providers and contracts get listed."

Shared services succeeds when local governments follow certain best practices and focus on the right technologies.

The lack of shared IT resources at the local level stems from several factors. Common roadblocks often center around concerns with liability, accountability and autonomy, according to a report written by Tim Hoefer and Michael Wright of the Empire Center, a think tank based in Albany, N.Y. The result is that local governments may be only willing to enter low-risk agreements, which likely will result in modest cost savings.

While the site specifies that local government data sets aren’t subject to federal data policies, the idea is that comparative data from different levels of government can be useful in informing the work of software developers. Civic hackathons and other organized efforts are using open data from government agencies to drive tech-based improvements that are helping improve the quality of life in local communities.

Tony Trenkle, the CMS chief information officer, said as the agency and its parent, the Department of Health and Human Services, were analyzing the provisions of the law and found at least four near term opportunities to create enterprisewide shared services.

Trenkle said CMS is leading an effort to develop the foundation for identity management, an enterprise portal, a master data management scheme and a business rules engine.

"You can never discount the cultural resistance factor," said Tombe, who along with several others discussed shared services on May 20 at the ACT-IAC Management of Change Conference. "You have to account for it, and plan for how you're going to manage it."

Tombe's bureau is the largest user of the Department of Homeland Security's shared email service, and he said his office is pushing a wide range of shared services for other IT needs. But every time a service is proposed, he said, there are those in his agency who swear that they "will never use that new service."

Shared services were common in the early days of commercial computing. Time sharing on mainframes became popular in the 1960s, when service bureaus offered the ability to rent access to expensive computing resources. But owning and operating computers in-house eventually became the norm in the public sector. Agency- and application-specific systems proliferated.

Even though agency leaders are interested in moving to shared services they are worried about the high level of risk and a long, drawn out process, according to a new report and agency officials.

While agency leaders recognize the opportunities and potential savings of moving to a shared services model many do not see it as a high priority, according to the Partnership for Public Service report on shared services released March 12.

But a funny thing happened on the way to developing the goals: the CIOs asked for them.

So as agency technology managers redo their 12-month plans to incorporate the Digital Management Strategy released Wednesday, or the Shared Services Strategy released in early May, don't feel too bad for them as they are trying to fix agency shortcomings.

The Department of Housing and Urban Development became the first cabinet agency to migrate its financial management systems to a federal shared services provider. HUD moved two major parts of its financial system to the Treasury Department’s Administrative Resource Center on Oct. 1. Six or seven Homeland Security Department components are in discussions to move their financial management systems to a federal provider.

Agencies must begin to share at least two Office of Management and Budget-approved services by December, OMB announced Wednesday in a final version of the Federal IT Shared Services Strategy. And they must update those plans annually with details about ongoing consolidation efforts and their inventories of IT assets, including systems and services.

By October, OMB will launch and maintain an online IT services catalog of services and contracts that agencies can share governmentwide.

On Wednesday the Las Vegas City Council discussed progress on a shared services agreement with North Las Vegas that’s supposed to save both cities money.

But on the heels of a revelation from North Las Vegas Mayor John Lee that his predecessors were “looting” special funds to make ends meet, the stakes for the shared services deal are higher than ever.

During what was called the “Shared Services Summit” at Hermosa Beach City Council Chambers on Thursday night, the flow of information and PowerPoint presentations, at times, resembled a graduate school seminar on city finances.

But in the end, the tone was more pragmatic than academic—and there was no mistaking the urgent message of the evening: it’s time to seriously explore consolidating municipal services among the Beach Cities.

In an unassuming building near McCarran International Airport in Las Vegas, 14 different agencies from federal, state and local government work together toward one goal: to keep residents and tourists safe. One of three fusion centers in the state, the SNCTC stands out because it’s an all-hours operation that focuses not only on terrorism, but also on all crimes and hazards.

Officials in the recession-racked city of North Las Vegas hope a preliminary agreement announced with the much larger city of Las Vegas on Thursday will lead to permanently shared services at a dozen municipal agencies, a move that could save the city millions of dollars in annual staff and administrative costs.

It's not the first time two cities are coming together, to share services on the Central Coast. We're finding out how the change could affect public safety in both cities. On Thursday, we sat down with Seaside and Pacific Grove Police Chief Vicki Myers who assured us, the only way officers will travel between either city, is if it's mutually beneficial.

The six-month exploratory arrangement OK’d by both city councils on Nov. 6 aims to dig up efficiency measures and cost savings in each municipality, citing city court, traffic and economic development services as possible jumping-off points for a longer-term shared services deal.

We're learning there's a new united effort between the four biggest cities in South Monterey County, including Gonzales, Soledad, Greenfield and King City. All four have agreed to start brainstorming and come up with ways to make shared services work for everyone.