GAO Reports Highlight Continued Deficiencies in IT Reporting
The federal government is expected to spend $81 billion in information technology (IT) in fiscal year 2014. Management and effectively monitoring IT investments is critical during this time when budgets are constrained by sequestration.
In March 2012, the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) initiated PortfolioStat, a program for federal agencies to use to examine their IT portfolios in order to identify common areas of spending in order to decrease duplication and drive down costs. On October 24, 2012, OMB announced that agencies using PortfolioStat would be able to save the federal government $2.5 billion over the following three years through consolidating duplicative systems, buying in bulk, and ending or streamlining off-track projects.
Federal News Radio reported on July 25, 2013, that by using the PortfolioStat process, federal agencies have been able to save or avoid spending $885 million. The four agencies which have saved more than $100 million each are the Social Security Administration, which has saved a total of $206 million using the PortfolioStat process; the Department of Defense which has saved $189 million; the Department of Homeland Security which has saved $164 million; and, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration which has saved $102 million.
On November 6, 2013, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) issued a report highlighting continued duplicative, overlapping, or fragmented IT. The report included a review of the use of PortfolioStat; out of the 26 agencies reviewed, only one, the Department of Education, had completed all of OMB’s requirements.
GAO noted that OMB’s expected savings of $2.5 billion over three years through improved IT investment management may be understated because OMB did not include estimates from the Departments of Defense and Justice. GAO suggested the figure may be closer to $5.8 billion in potential savings through fiscal year 2015.
However, if agencies are not fully implementing OMB’s recommendations to use PortfolioStat and other IT management tools to identify and reduce wasteful and duplicative spending, it will be difficult to reach either OMB’s or GAO’s estimated savings. The GAO report also noted that the chief information officers (CIO) at six agencies had either limited or no authority over the IT portfolio. GAO also found that in 21 agencies, less than 50 percent of major and non-major IT investments had gone through the OMB’s TechStat process, which measures the imminent success or failure of federal IT projects. GAO recommended that agencies be required to fully disclose the limitations to their CIO’s ability to exercise their authority and take steps to improve their PortfolioStat implementation.
Fragmentation and duplication in federal IT is also being addressed by Congress. On March 18, 2013, Committee on Oversight and Government Reform Chairman Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) and Subcommittee on Government Operations Ranking Member Gerald Connolly (D-Va.) introduced H.R. 1232, the Federal Information Technology Acquisition Reform Act (FITARA). The legislation would improve software asset management through software licensing auditing tools, cut the number of extraneous software licenses, track operations and maintenance spending with the federal IT Dashboard, and increase the authority and responsibility of CIOs. Other reforms in FITARA include a push for further federal usage of cloud computing and “approval by consent” of federal IT contracts on which no action has been taken for 100 days.
H.R. 1232 was ordered reported out of the Committee on March 20, 2013, and was included as an amendment to the House-passed version of H.R. 1960, the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for fiscal year 2014 on June 14, 2013.
Providing CIOs additional IT budget authority is an important step in tackling duplicate and wasteful IT spending. It is also critical that agencies complete all of the PortfolioStat requirements in order to improve their management of IT investments.
