Questions Swirl Around White House IT Responsibilities

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Christopher Dorobek, managing editor of Federal News Radio and author of DorobekInsider.com, is reporting that they’ve confirmed that President Obama is set to name the immensely talented Vivek Kundra, Washington, D.C., government’s CTO, as the next administrator of e-government and information technology within the Office of Management and Budget. Good news indeed.

But a whole lot of questions remain as to how the whole picture will be painted.

For instance, there are currently three White House IT-related positions, with a fourth being the proposed CTO. The administration has done little to explain what the various IT offices have responsibility over. Dorobek writes that he sees four pockets of government IT expertise: A Congressional Research Service report, published last month,  illustrates  how “murky” things remain and how the four key positions on this arena — the e-government administrator at OMB; OMB’s Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs; the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy; and the proposed Obama CTO will divide up responsibilities and work together.

Dorobek says: “Frankly, one of the problems has been that there hasn’t been enough of a coordinated, strategic approach to technology, information technology and data, and this seems like an opportune time to make all those lines clear.”

Dorobek points to NextGov’s Jill Atoro as suggesting that Virginia’s secretary of technology, Aneesh Chopra , might be Obama’s CTO pick.

Staying tuned here.