President Bush’s fiscal year 2007 budget, released by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), will favor information technology (IT) requests in support of the war on terror and homeland security. The Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) IT budget increase is the most significant, with an increase of 21% to more than $4.4 billion. The President’s budget adds $772 million to the DHS fiscal ’07 budget, which represents 44% of the new money added to federal IT spending overall.
Federal agencies plan to spend $64.3 billion on IT in fiscal ’07, which represents a 3% increase from the fiscal ’06 budget. “The message delivered by OMB is that performance and measurement will play critical roles in the review and approval of budgeted spending, especially the close review of agency-by-agency progress reports on meeting administration goals for managing IT projects and developing effective business cases,” said James Krouse, acting director, public sector market analysis for INPUT.
Overall, 21 of 27 civilian agencies received an IT budget increase. Other significant agency winners in the President’s budget request include the Department of Labor, with a more than 13% increase, and the Department of the Interior, with a nearly 9% increase. Cybersecurity has also been elevated as a priority area with a budget increase to $5.2 billion.
