Thomas R. Davies
From Governing.com
The heart of government decision making, as we all know, is the budget process. Policy goals are established, strategies are resourced and performance expectations are set. This is all well and good. When it comes to information technology, however, some budgeting practices stand in the way of IT and its potential to help improve government performance
One big liability stems from the widespread use of incremental budgeting. This budgeting practice puts requests for new technology resources under a microscope, imposing rigorous business-case standards to justify an investment. Meanwhile, relatively little scrutiny is given to expenses lodged in base technology operations. In effect, the base, which easily exceeds 70 percent of the typical technology budget, gets what amounts to a free pass.
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