Tech in Obama's 2013 Budget Proposal: Still High Hopes for Gov 2.0

The White House on Monday announced a 2013 budget proposal of $16.7 million for its e-government operations, and an additional $5 million for a government-wide fund that will enable agencies to reap the knowledge gained from lab-testing emerging technologies without having to conduct duplicative tests themselves.

The federal E-Government Fund, administered by the General Services Administration, pays for transparency and technology initiatives like Data.gov, Performance.gov, and USASpending.gov. The additional $5 million pot of money pays for cross agency, government-wide initiatives, like the Information Technology Dashboard, privacy and security testing of new tech platforms, and data center consolidation efforts.

The $16.7 million is far lower than the $34 million per year that the administration had allocated for e-government initiatives in 2009 and 2010, but it’s more than the $12.4 million that congressional appropriators approved late last year for fiscal 2012. The administration and open government advocates had to vigorously fight off appropriators’ efforts to slash the funds for e-government initiatives during last year's budget battles.