f. Analysis of the Guaranteed Student Loan programs g. Support for state and local cost estimating

h. CBO financial management

i. Federal employment analysis

j. Monthly tracking of outlays estimating

k. Options analysis of Navy strengths

1. Supporting the House Committee on Appropriations

We estimate that 80 CBO employees are using micros.

Question. How many micro-computers do you currently have in use, and how many are projected for Fiscal Year 1984?

Answer. Present inventory is 25. We expect to obtain an additional 10.

Question. Please describe the costs, benefits, and any savings resulting from the use of micro-computers.

Answer. Analysts have found the micros to be less costly to use in conducting analysis previously done on time-sharing services. Less than 300 hours of connect costs alone will pay the cost of a micro computer. We are also using them as computer terminals which saves on rental cost and office space.

Question. What portion of the $435,000 increase for new computer costs is for micro-computer hardware and software? What portion is for other categories?

Answer. Approximately $65,000 of the increase is expected to be used for micros and associated software.

Question. Please provide a list of computer upgrading and maintenance activities and their associated costs.

Answer. Computer Upgrade and Enhancement Activities July-December 1982

Question. Please indicate where (i.e. Committees, Members or Other) most of the increased demand for budget related information is occurring as it affects increased costs to CBO.

Answer. All of the increase is associated with our work supporting Committees. We generally do not perform new analysis for individual Members. We do, of course, provide them with work already performed at the request of a committee.

Cost

$59,550

1,756

13,230

331

22,057

96,924

REDESIGNING COMPUTER SYSTEMS

Mr. HARRIS. Mr. Chairman, just a few months ago we completed the final process of redesigning our five-year projections application, which backs up the report that Dr. Rivlin shared with you earlier. The overall cost benefit that we are receiving now from that conversion process to a more state of the art kind of technology has been tremendous. For the first time within CBO we have actually had the analysts working directly with the database updating and working with five-year projections.

We are no longer in the black box environment in which the analyst hands the work sheet to a data processor and then has to review a report three or four days later and ask the question what did the black box do with it.

Mr. Fazio. That is a real productivity increase?

Mr. HARRIS. I think it is.

Mr. FAZIO. It is a real learning ability on the part of some people. Mr. HARRIS. They can study more options than they ever could examine in a brief period of time and feel comfortable when they get up and walk away that the intent of their analysis is reflected

in that database; that is something we have not been able to do historically.

That involved using what we call a database management system that resides at the House Information Systems Computer Center, fortunately colocated in our building. That is a distinct advantage, and has reduced the need for lengthy communication nodes with commercial vendors on the outside and has reduced a lot of risk of data losses and so forth.

We also have recently established a credit budget application using the same technology. Here again, right down to the last user of that application they are extremely pleased with it and it is responsive.

Mr. FAZIO. I might point out my colleague from California, Mr. Mineta, was probably as important in pushing the Congress to look at our credit budget as he was to have us look at the cost estimates that impact State and local government. I would have to give him credit for having, during his six years of service, gotten into these areas and I appreciate the fact that you are following through even though he is no longer on the committee.

Mr. HARRIS. Now in conjunction with our major users, we are looking at our last major application-the automated scorekeeping system. We hope that, with the cooperation of the end users, over the next 12 or 15 months we might seriously entertain revising that application so that we can bring it in house.

Dr. Rivlin established very early on a couple of basic policies regarding data processing. One was that we would come before this committee and ask for all the resources we needed, as opposed to having a service entity such as the Senate Computer Center or the House Computer Center asking for money on our behalf. That basically gives us the discretion so people can't gouge us, whether it be a Congressional center or a commercial center.

Our commercial request this year is actually below that of 1979, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. FAZIO. That is very impressive, and you were able to do that with an increased workload.

RELIABILITY OF HOUSE INFORMATION SYSTEMS

Mr. HARRIS. With significant increases. At the same time, the House Information System's people will be requesting somewhere in the neighborhood of $2 million less for direct appropriations this year than they did in 1979 because the Clerk of the House and the Congressional Budget Office are reimbursing them and it is a pay as you go. Therefore, the responsiveness we expect is what we would get from a commercial vendor.

We have a memorandum of understanding with the chairman of the House Committee on Administration on terms of service levels, penalty rates, revising rates, and a quality review process to measure this success.

Computer centers on the Hill have a tremendous job to be everything to everybody. Within the Congressional Budget Office, when it comes to computers, not all my users are happy at all times and there definitely is some criticism from time to time, but as an end user of HIS we think we are going in the right direction.

EVALUATE HIS

Mr. FAZIO. I was going to ask you to comment on HIS, to evaluate them, and I gather it is very positive.

Do you want to expand on that? This is an important issue for this committee.

Mr. HARRIS. We have participated

Mr. FAZIO. Several years ago when I first heard your budget presentation you were a lot more skeptical and somewhat reluctant to spend a lot of time working with them and apparently this has changed.

Mr. HARRIS. That was one reason for the memorandum of understanding. That was one of the reasons we asked the House Committee on Administration for this memorandum that gave us a longterm commitment in terms of the level of service.

Over the last 12 months, the reliability on the House Computer Center has been in the area of 98 to 99 percent reliability. That compares with what we have been getting with most of our commercial vendors, which is in the 96 to 97 percent range.

It sounds like minute differences but, when you get called out of bed late at night or when you are trying to get that report out so that we can meet a particular deadline, it is very important that those computers be functioning properly.

Mr. FAZIO. Could you provide some data for the record?
Mr. HARRIS. Be more than happy to, Mr. Chairman.

[The following chart compares the computer availability (ie. uptime) between CBO's largest commercial and government suppliers.]

Mr. FAZIO. I have some additional questions for the record and unless there are any further questions.

[The questions follow:]

Question. You estimate a $760,000 increase (+29 percent) in interagency agreements-from $2,605,000 to $3,365,000. Why is this item increasing?

Answer: To avoid the impact of a 20 percent price increase by our largest commercial supplier and to take advantage of more modern and responsive systems and software.

Question. That item also increased last year by almost $1 million. That amounts to a $1,471,000 increase in two years (+78 percent). Why is it necessary to increase these interagency agreements to that extent?

Answer. As pointed out earlier despite large price increases by commercial suppliers, our 1984 commercial request for ADP services is below our 1979 level. This has been made possible by using Federal services which offer more resources per dollar. Furthermore, the interagency pricing was not adequately reflecting true cost and was understating our real utilization.

Question. Are you shopping around to see if you can save some money. We don't have to use an agency just because it is within the government. There are plenty of hungry suppliers out there.

Answer. We have shopped around and in so doing have identified the congressional source of computer services as the best value. Although the competition is keen in the commercial sector, the communication and marketing costs have increased significantly. The following analysis of our computer bill for the last 6 months of 1982 shows the changes in cost due to new prices effective March 1, 1983. This is much higher than we anticipated.

COST COMPARISON FOR COMPUTER PROCESSING UNITS CURRENT AND NEW VENDOR RATES

Question. Please update the interagency ADP contract data on page 719 of the fiscal year 1983 hearings.

Question. You are asking for a $268,000 increase in the Systems, Data and Model Development item under "Other Services." Which of your divisions uses these services?