June 17, 2010 -- The National Endowment for the Arts saw its grant budget grow by 50 percent thanks to the Recovery Act. And it was up to Mike Burke, the NEA chief information officer, to make sure the systems could handle the influx of funding.

Burke, who has been the agency's CIO for almost 10 years, says NEA made all $50 million in awards in a matter of months because its people had systems that met their needs.

But Burke also knows that the NEA grants management system needs updating. In fact, NEA will begin using the National Endowment for the Humanities back-end grants management system later this year.

Burke says NEH's system meets their needs with only minor modifications. He says the data migration part is about 90 percent done.

Another priority for NEA is using geospatial data to develop a mashup tool. Burke says the map would show the communities across the country which are using NEA's grant money. That geospatial system should be running by the end of June.