DHS Oversight of Contract Oversight

The Department of Homeland Security lacks appropriate oversight of its contracts, according to a new GAO report.  This is no small oversight, seeing as DHS has received over $40 billion since FY 2006 (its FY 2008 total is $14.9 billion).

Despite systems to track finances and insights into cost, schedule, and performance of contracts, the process hasn't worked well.  Projects have reported cost growth, schedule slips, and performance shortfalls.

GAO found that policies were not followed, basic acquisition documentation was missing, and that:

...almost a third of DHS's major investments received funding without having validated mission needs and requirements--which confirm a need is justified--and two-thirds did not have required life-cycle cost estimates.  At the same time, DHS has not conducted regular reviews of its investment portfolios--broad categories of investments that are linked by similar missions--to ensure effective performance and minimize unintended duplication of effort for investments.  Without validated requirements, life-cycle cost estimates, and regular portfolio reviews, DHS cannot ensure that its investment decisions are appropriate and will ultimately address capability gaps.

POGO has testified before Congress about its concerns with the agency's poor contract management policies and procedures, the acquisition of infant technologies, and buying under emergency circumstances when competition is, by necessity, limited or non-existent.  In the years following 9/11, a lot of people cut DHS some slack because it was an infant agency.  But the time has come for DHS to right its contracting ship, starting with the Deepwater program.

-- Scott Amey

Comments

[Michael DeKort]

The key to solving the Deepwater problems is to go right at the root cause. For the past two years that has been senior Coast Guard leadership. While changes have been put in place they are not nearly enough. Major security and safety issues still exist and we never fully accounted for the 123 issues. The leadership is now so dug in and vested in their own survival, career ambitions and egos that the only way to resolve the issues is to change the leadership. That change should include every officer who actively participated in the problems and those who sat by passively. The new Secretary of DHS might also want to create a Secretary of the Coast Guard position.