Legislation approved June 16 by a House Appropriations subcommittee would restore, in part, fiscal 2012 funding for the General Services Administration's e-Government Fund.

According to a fiscal 2012 appropriations bill (.pdf) for Financial Services and General Government, GSA's Office of Citizen Services and Innovative Technologies would receive $50 million fiscal 2012. The appropriation is $7.8 million more than the combined fiscal 2011 budgets for OCSIT, at $34.2 million, and the E-Gov fund, at $8 million. 

Daniel Schuman, policy counsel at the Sunlight Foundation estimates the E-Gov fund would get $13 million, somewhat more than the $8 million appropriated in fiscal 2011. This number is still far from the $34 million available in fiscal 2010, said Schuman in a blog post. He arrives at the figure by assuming that OCSIT's fiscal 2012 budget will be funded at $37 million, leaving $13 million for E-Gov.

The fiscal $50 million appropriation falls $20.5 million short of a combined, enacted fiscal 2010 budgets for OCSIT and E-Gov and is $23.9 million less than the president's request of $73.9 million for both funds.

The bill was introduced in subcommittee June 15 and will be presented to the full committee for markup at some point the week of June 20, according to the House Appropriations Committee.

The bill has other federal information technology implications, as well. The Internal Revenue Service would receive $2.2 billion for operating expenses under the proposed fiscal 2012 appropriation. Of that, $330 million would remain available until Sept. 30, 2014 for costs associated with the IRS Business Systems Modernization program.

The bill limits the amount of money the Federal Reserve can move to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to $200 million. The CFPB has been busy with Gov 2.0 projects since it was enacted by the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, but has yet to take on its full role as a consumer watchdog focused on investigation and enforcement.

Under the bill, the National Archives and Records Administration would receive $36.1 million which allows for, among other things, library renovations, maintenance and cleaning of facilities, but fails to mention the Electronic Records Archives or digitizing paper records.

The Financial Services and General Government bill provides $19.9 billion in funding for the Treasury Department, the Executive Office of the President, the Judiciary, the Small Business Administration, the GSA, the Securities and Exchange Commission, and some independent agencies. The funding level is nearly $2 billion, or nine percent, less than funding enacted in fiscal 2011 and nearly $6 billion below the president's fiscal 2012 request.

For more:
- see the fiscal 2012 appropriations bill (.pdf)
- see a chart comparing the fiscal 2012 Financial Services Appropriations bill with last year's enacted level and the president's request

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