The cost will likely run into the millions of dollars for the department, which has 110,000 full-time employees and 50,000 contractors. Among the agency's many responsibilities is testing for the avian influenza virus among birds and waterfowl.
A slowly growing number of human influenza cases related to the avian flu has raised the possibility of a pandemic. It's enough of a threat to require planning at the USDA, which is overseen by CIO David Combs.
"It's going to take a tremendous amount of planning," said Combs, who added that preparing means ensuring that employees can work from remote locations, and data centers remain operational. "The most logical place folks are going to want to be is at home," he said.
That means ensuring the capacity to handle a surge in traffic by remote workers, said Combs.
"Our networks are designed for current capacity," said Combs, adding that the agency must consider how much money to spend to give it "some headroom" so it isn't faced with an overload on its systems.
The USDA made a preliminary estimate of US$23 million for remote working, including supplying computers, computer security training and help desk support, as well as expanding internal infrastructure to handle the demand. That includes increasing its virtual private network and Citrix capability. This estimate is from a planning document posted on the USDA Web site that was removed after a reporter inquired about it. Officials said it was a preliminary framework, not an estimate of actual costs, and it shouldn't have been on the Web site in the first place.
It remains to be seen how prepared government agencies are for remote workers, should a pandemic arrive. In May of this year, the Government Accountability Office looked at federal agency preparation for teleworking and found those preparations lacking. For instance, none of the 23 agencies the GAO looked at "could ensure adequate technological capacity to allow designated personnel to telework during an emergency."
The White House, in a report released in May on pandemic planning, set telework as a management priority, but James Krause, an analyst at Input Inc. in Chantilly, Va., said he has not seen a concerted push by the government on this issue.
"I just don't think it's there from a technology standpoint. I don't think it's there from a planning or organizational standpoint," Krause said. Moreover, the theft of a laptop from the home of Veterans Administration employee last June highlighted the planning problems, he said.
But Ray Bjorklund, an analyst at Federal Sources Inc. in McLean, Va., said many federal agencies have already accounted for pandemic-related IT planning in existing budgets, and have had to prepare for pandemic-like scenarios, such as the evacuation of Washington in the event of a terrorism incident.
"The notion of a pandemic has put a little more urgency behind the notion of telecommuting, but I think it's just one more type of disaster in the bag of disasters to consider," Bjorklund said.
The USDA's IT disaster preparedness was tested during Hurricane Katrina. The USDA's finance center in New Orleans, which processes payroll, was shut down by the storm, and operations were shifted to a SunGard Data Systems Inc. facility. The agency didn't miss a payroll, Combs said.
But a pandemic is unlike a hurricane. Instead of bringing people together, you want them to work at remote locations, Combs said. Because many of the USDA's employees already work in rural areas, his department already has experience in providing these IT services.
The data center operations will rely on remote management, and if there's a need to keep staff on-site, there will be basic supplies for employees. Provisions will also be made to connect employees with their families, Combs said, noting the importance of taking care of an employee's family was a lesson the department learned during Katrina.