Most Wasteful Government IT Projects Of 2013
Federal agencies continue to pour millions into overlapping IT projects. Check out the worst offenders.
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How big a problem is wasteful spending for the federal government? As Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) points out in Wastebook 2013, an annual survey that looks at the government's inefficiencies, there are 100 projects that have cost taxpayers nearly $30 billion. The list includes information technology, such as the hundreds of millions of dollars the government has spent on duplicative IT systems.
In his survey, Coburn references a September report from federal watchdog agency GAO. That report reviewed 590 technology investments and found 12 potentially identical IT projects at the departments of Homeland Security (DHS), Defense (DOD), and Health and Human Services (HHS). These particular agencies were selected because they spend the most on IT. The duplicative projects identified by GAO accounted for approximately $321 million in IT spending between fiscal years 2008 and 2013.
The government budgets approximately $82 billion each year for IT. "By addressing these duplications, the agencies will be able to provide assurance they are avoiding investing in unnecessary systems and thus saving resources," the GAO said.
In his survey, Coburn highlights another project that could have saved the government time and money: the Department of Agriculture's mobile device management (MDM) integration. In August 2012, the USDA issued a request for proposal for a "next generation" mobility initiative with potential to increase the agency's mobile users from 15,000 to more than 100,000. Since the start of the project, the agency ran into rollout issues, which, according to Coburn's report, are due to incompatibilities with contractors it hired.
"One of these three contractors was awarded $212.1 million in government contracts just in 2013. The contractor with the incompatible software has several multi-million dollar government contracts with the CIA, NSA, FBI, DHS, and the Air Force," said Coburn.
In April 2012, Office of Management and Budget's then acting director Jeff Zients and federal CIO Steven VanRoekel issued a memo urging federal agencies to focus on high-value IT investments and put an end to deployment of redundant IT services. The memo introduced two new initiatives: one called PortfolioStat, which reviews agency IT portfolios, and another that requires agencies to develop consolidation plans for commodity IT services.
Three federal CIOs told Congress last year that they were trying to reduce duplicative IT investments in their departments. DOD CIO Teri Takai, former DHS CIO Richard Spires, and Department of Energy CIO at the time Michael Locatis said they created new IT governance committees and other processes in order to help them eliminate overlapping IT systems. Their testimony followed the release of a 2012 report by the GAO, which found that the DOD and DOE have duplicative IT systems that could cost the agencies $1.2 billion and $8 million, respectively.
Despite these efforts by federal CIOs to reduce waste, the GAO's latest report shows that while agencies are making progress, there's still a lot of work ahead. Take a look at these examples.
Since 2005, the US Air Force had spent $1 billion to build an enterprise resource planning (ERP) system. The Expeditionary Combat Support System (ECSS) was supposed to merge base-level and wholesale logistics systems.
The project was cancelled in December 2012 with "no identifiable benefit to the military or to the taxpayer," said Coburn in his report. It would have required an additional $1.1 billion and would not have been completed until 2020. (Read Lessons From A Failed Federal IT Project.)
(Source: US Air Force)
The Department of Health and Human Services has six costly duplicative projects. Four of them support enterprise information security. They have totaled $256.6 million in a five-year period. The other two are for determining Medicare coverage and have cost $3.8 million. The HSS told the GAO that several functions of the Medicare coverage system have been consolidated, without offering a resolution for the other overlapping functions.
In its report the GAO identified four redundant investments at the Department of Defense. Two of these systems -- costing $15.8 million from 2008 through 2013 -- track soldiers' healthcare status. The other two manage dental care, a $14.8 million investment. Although the Defense Department said it would consolidate its dental systems by 2015, it hasn't come up with a concrete plan of action.
(Source: US Navy)
The Department of Homeland Security spent $30.3 million in five years on two overlapping efforts for immigration enforcement booking management. This includes the processing of illegal aliens detained under suspicion of immigration law violations. The DHS told the GAO it needs two immigration booking systems due to unique requirements, but the agency did not provide specifics.
(Source: US Immigration and Customs Enforcement)
The Department of Agriculture's investment in untested and malfunctioning IT systems has cost the government $20 million. The agency wanted to give employees access to its servers on personal iPhones and Android smartphones as part of a mobile device management software integration project. Instead, the project is now one year behind schedule. The problem? Incompatibility between the USDA's network security infrastructure and one contractor's software. "USDA is still just testing one component of the contractor's incompatible software to determine whether the software will be used or abandoned," said Coburn.
(Sources: Apple and USDA)
The National Science Foundation (NSF) is spending more than $4.4 million on alternate reality games (ARG) designed to attract teenagers -- especially girls -- to science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) careers. According to Coburn's report, girls stopped participating in ARG, and most players are not motivated to participate to begin with. "Despite $356 million in sequestration cuts, the NSF could still fork over $4.4 million to create games for students that provide no educational value," Coburn said.
(Source: Massachusetts Institute of Technology)
The National Science Foundation (NSF) is spending more than $4.4 million on alternate reality games (ARG) designed to attract teenagers -- especially girls -- to science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) careers. According to Coburn's report, girls stopped participating in ARG, and most players are not motivated to participate to begin with. "Despite $356 million in sequestration cuts, the NSF could still fork over $4.4 million to create games for students that provide no educational value," Coburn said.
(Source: Massachusetts Institute of Technology)
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