The Office of Management and Budget hopes the Financial Management Line of Business initiative will improve the cost, quality and performance of agency financial systems.

And last week, OMB made progress on establishing the financial LOBs. GCN.com reports, four finalists have been named as Financial Management Centers of Excellence: the Treasury Department's Bureau of Public Debt, the General Services Administration, the Transportation Department and the Interior Department's National Business Center.

Other departments are still trying to achieve the COE status. When they do, they can solicit business from other agencies.

Several agencies are moving their financial operations to the centers of excellence. OMB will monitor how well the shared service arrangements work. And it will issue guidelines in the next few months to help other agencies move to the centers.

For more, visit Government Computer News online at GCN.com.

As the administration nears the midpoint of the second term, industry executives are moving in and out of plum appointed jobs.

Last week, Bruce James, the Government Printing Office's chief executive said he would step down. In a letter to President Bush, James, who serves as the country' s public printer, said he will stay until his successor is chosen. James, who was appointed to the agency's top spot in 2002, is leaving after helping steer GPO into a more fiscally sound and digitally driven organization.

A top initiative has been GPO's Future Digital System. It's a $29 million project that will transform the way the agency collects, authenticates, stores and shares federal documents.

Meanwhile, the Transportation Department has tapped Dan Mintz of Sun Microsystems as its new CIO. He replaces Dan Matthews, who left the agency in December to return to the private sector.

Mintz is Sun's director of government compliance programs. He will start May 1.

For more, visit Government Computer News online at GCN.com.

By the time the Bush administration is out of office in 2008, all of the 25 original e-Government initiatives should be fully implemented.

That optimistic prediction comes from Clay Johnson, the Office of Management and Budget's deputy director for management. The e-government projects are a centerpiece of the President's Management Agenda

Johnson vowed continuing focus on performance for the rest of the term. He spoke last week at the annual Government Performance Summit in Washington, It was sponsored by The Performance Institute of Arlington, Virginia. Johnson boasted that government is much more able to set targets and hit them than it was 10 years ago.

GCN.com reports, Johnson predicted the public will be using 80 percent to 90 percent of the 25 e-gov projects to their full capabilities by 2008.

Johnson also said be expects Congress to pass some sort of civil service modernization that includes pay-for-performance.

For more, visit Government Computer News online at GCN.com.