U.S. Department of Treasury: Information Technology (IT)

Published August 2017

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Challenge

Implementation of the State Small Business Credit Initiative (SSBCI) Program required ongoing Information Technology (IT) support to design and develop user-friendly forms for State, Territory, and Municipal applicants to apply for SSBCI funding. The SSBCI Program, enacted as part of the Small Business Jobs Act of 2010 and administered by the U.S. Department of Treasury, provides Federal funding for eligible State and Municipal credit support programs designed to promote small business access to private capital.

Solution

Federal Management Systems (FMS) successfully implemented a forms management solution for Treasury to enable States, Territories, and Municipalities to apply for SSBCI funds. FMS’ solution included the design and development of PDF forms and accompanying attachments with fillable data fields and ensured the integrity of the data during transmission by the States to Treasury. Our approach to the development of forms incorporated data validation strategies to assure Treasury that data transmitted to the agency was correct and included only permitted characters within range and length boundaries. Our strategy ensured that data was not only validated, but also business rule correct.

Additional Information

In addition, FMS developed a data extraction solution that enabled Treasury to store all application data within a single database to facilitate rapid data retrieval and analysis for reporting. Our staff supported the SSBCI Program’s Helpdesk that provided applicants with technical assistance as they downloaded, completed, and transmitted the forms and attachments to Treasury.

We also conducted requirements analysis for Treasury on the development of a data repository/IT platform to house loan-level raw data on performance and characteristics of the various SSBCI programs proposed by the States. The IT platform was required for performing risk evaluations, financial modeling, financial program reporting, loan loss reserve evaluations, and any related analysis. We provided Treasury with a completed technology survey assessment to determine vendors offering industry best practice solutions (Data Warehouse, Decision Management Tools, and Predictive Analytics) to implement the platform. Our documented assessment findings included a SWOT analysis of each vendor.

Solution

FMS was able to meet Treasury’s objectives of developing secure, user-friendly forms and attachments within the required two-week timeframe for the expedited roll-out of the SSBCI program. States, Territories, and Municipalities were able to transmit application data without any loss of data integrity 100 % of the time. As a result of our efforts, Treasury was able to approve the first couple of applications for SSBCI to fund loan programs within only one week of program initiation.