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CENTRALIZATION REBORN -- Proponents of
centralizing
VA's information technology are gaining ground.
All information on VA data theft on this
page...
http://www.vawatchdog.org/va%20data%20theft%20news.htm
Story here...
http://www.govexec.com/dailyfed/0806/080906mm.htm
Story below:
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Centralization Reborn
By David Perera and Daniel Pulliam
dperera@govexec.com
In the long-running battle for control of
information technology at the Veterans Affairs Department, proponents of
centralization have gained ground as a result of the May 3 theft of a
laptop containing personal information on tens of millions of veterans
and military personnel.
But centralization won't take hold easily in a department that since the
early 1990s has managed technology principally at levels below
headquarters. For example, the Veterans Benefits Administration, one of
three that constitute the department, wrested control over data
processing facilities. "VBA was having trouble delivering benefits, and
the reason was the central organization was not paying attention to
them," says a former VBA official.
Today it's centralization advocates who hold the advantage and can claim
a martyr in Pedro Cadenas, the VA chief information security officer who
resigned June 29. He left saying he never had the authority he needed.
"If [VA] wants to hire security people, they need to let them do their
job," he said.
VA spokesman Matt Burns says Cadenas "was trying to deflect attention
from his own shortcomings." But Cadenas gained a bit more sympathy from
House Veterans Affairs Committee Chairman Steve Buyer, R-Ind., who said
at a June 29 hearing, "You know what - I can't blame the guy for
resigning." Buyer has been a persistent VA centralization proponent.
Cadenas was not among Secretary James Nicholson's inside circle.
According to Cadenas, he and Nicholson met only once, at a social event,
where Nicholson's reaction was to say he had heard that Cadenas' job was
important. Cadenas was not included in planning meetings the VA held to
prepare for Buyer's hearing, even though the result was a June 28 memo
giving added cybersecurity powers to the VA chief information officer,
to whom Cadenas reported. Among powers granted to the CIO was the
authority to cut off network access for employees at the three
administrations.
The June 28 memo extends unprecedented powers to the agency's CIO, but
the effort faces a fight in a culture resistant to centralization, say
many agency observers. "The VA had to react in some fashion in order to
look like they were aggressively mitigating and addressing the issue,"
says a House staffer who would speak only on background.
In October 2005, Nicholson signed a memo moving the IT function to a
compromise "federated" model whereby the CIO will own the entire
department's IT operations and maintenance functions but not application
development, which remains at the administrations. Critics of the shift
say the emphasis on reorganization is excessive. Supporters argue that
an ingrained culture of circumventing rules makes a hard realignment
necessary.
Although the CIO was empowered by the 2005 directive to oversee budgets
for application projects, that was not enough for former CIO Robert
McFarland, who left in late April amid bitter internal fighting.
Resistance to increasing the CIO's authority - even to the federated
model - extends to the highest executive levels, McFarland says. "I
really rubbed the culture wrong," he adds. "There were times when it was
so contentious that it was impossible to work effectively." Critics
complain of an abrasive management style and say McFarland tried to
effect change mostly by working with Rep. Buyer rather than VA
officials. Buyer sponsored legislation giving the CIO power over all IT
functions. Although his bill passed the House unanimously in November
2005, it has stalled in the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee. Sen.
Larry Craig, R-Idaho, chairman of the panel, wants VA to sort out for
itself its governing model, says committee spokesman Jeff Schrade.
Referring to centralization and decentralization, Schrade says, "These
kinds of tugs of war go back and forth in agencies and Congress."
Whether or not a more powerful CIO would have prevented the laptop theft
- which took an unexpected turn June 29 when federal officials announced
its recovery - is debatable. "It may have. But then again, it may not
have," says the House staffer, who supports centralization. The employee
whose laptop was stolen had written permission to install data analysis
software for use at home, and gained authorization to access Social
Security numbers, although he apparently did not follow a departmental
requirement to encrypt sensitive information. "The hard work is the
people in the organization," says a VA official.
The federated model's prospects are complicated by internal politics,
the official says. For example, during the data theft crisis, political
appointees mostly shut out civil servants, and now they are steering
four positions created by the federated model at the Veterans Health
Administration. The jobs appear to be wired for four people who were
appointed mostly as acting deputy executive directors within the
federated organization in April. They are based in Fresno, Calif.;
Brooklyn, N.Y.; Vancouver, Wash.; and Long Beach, Calif. Job
descriptions for permanent executive directors and the deputy CIO
correlate to those locations. "Yeah, funny that," says one who requested
anonymity. A former official calls the move a mistake because of the
appearance of impropriety.
The four officials in question are knowledgeable and experienced,
McFarland says. "I didn't write the job descriptions. Somebody in the HR
department is going to have to comment on that," he says.
Dispersing key executive positions of the new federated CIO shop across
the country is necessary, says McFarland. The department's IT
infrastructure is scattered nationwide; even as VA consolidates its
organization, it need not consolidate people, he says. "Managing a
nationwide infrastructure does not require any one particular place. . .
.That's part of the VA's problem," McFarland adds. "They're trying to
put in too many things focused on Washington management."
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Larry Scott
