From the U.S. Government Accountability Office, www.gao.gov Transcript for: Quick Look at DHS Acquisitions Description: Audio interview by GAO staff with Michele Mackin, Director, Acquisition and Sourcing Management Related GAO Work: GAO-15-171SP: Homeland Security Acquisitions: Major Program Assessments Reveal Actions Needed to Improve Accountability Released: April 2015 [ Background Music ] [ Narrator: ] Welcome to GAO's Watchdog Report, your source for news and information from the U.S. Government Accountability Office. It's April 2015. Each year, the Department of Homeland Security invests billions of dollars in major acquisition programs. A team led by Michele Mackin, a director in GAO's Acquisition and Sourcing Management team, recently completed the first annual assessment of DHS's major acquisitions. GAO's Jacques Arsenault sat down with Michele to talk about what they found. [ Jacques Arsenault: ] GAO has been producing annual assessments of Department of Defense and NASA acquisitions for several years now. Can you talk about why the agency is now looking at DHS acquisitions? [ Michele Mackin: ] Sure. As you know, those annual assessments provide kind of a snapshot of where major systems are, mostly in terms of cost and schedule. And even though DHS is a relatively new department, just 12 years old, they are spending over about $11 billion a year on their major systems. So we thought it was time to take a more detailed look at cost and schedule. [ Jacques Arsenault: ] And when we talk about major systems, can you give me a sense of the kinds of programs that we're looking at? [ Michele Mackin: ] Sure. DHS is actually buying a wide range of major systems, so there's the Coast Guard with aircraft and ships. We're all familiar with the TSA passenger and baggage screening equipment at airports. FEMA has a logistics management system to track the goods being delivered to emergency response areas. And there are fixed towers, surveillance towers, to help secure the southwest border just as some examples. [ Jacques Arsenault: ] So then, let me ask you, what were some of the things that you found in this year's assessment? [ Michele Mackin: ] Well, we looked in detail at 22 of the largest programs in the department, being those that are expected to cost $300 million or more to kind of drill down into how they're doing against their cost and schedule baselines. And one important thing we found is that 6 of the 22 programs did not have approved baselines. This has been a longstanding problem at the department, which we have pointed out in the past. So obviously without an approved baseline, we weren't able to even assess progress for those six programs. For the remaining programs, the remaining 16, we found that 2 of them were on track against the cost and schedule baselines that had been approved after the current acquisition policy was in effect in 2008. The remaining 14, however, had cost increases, schedule slips, or both. And in fact, the average schedule slip was over three years for these programs and a $9.7 billion increase in cost estimates for those programs. [ Jacques Arsenault: ] So it sounds like there were difficulties with a lot of these programs. Can you talk about some of the key challenges that DHS faces in its acquisition systems? [ Michele Mackin: ] Sure. And actually a couple of years ago, we pointed out three factors that can negatively affect cost and schedule. And in this current report, we found those three factors are still in play. One is staffing of the program offices that are responsible for the day-to-day execution of these programs, so program managers, system engineers, and so forth have some shortfalls in some of these programs. A second is the funding that the programs expect to receive compared to what they actually receive in a given fiscal year. And we found that about half of the programs had some fairly significant shortfalls in their funding, which obviously would cause schedule slips. And thirdly, we found changes to program requirements after the program had been initiated. This could be because the initial requirements weren't well-defined or additional capability was required after the fact. Again, this can lead to cost, growth, and schedule slips. [ Jacques Arsenault: ] And finally, what would you say is the bottom line of this report? [ Michele Mackin: ] I think there are two key takeaways, the first being, as I mentioned, we found six of these 22 programs did not have approved baselines. Without approved baselines, there's really little accountability for how taxpayer dollars are being spent. So that's a big concern we have. Secondly, the extent of cost increases and schedule slips that we found suggest that operators in the field, such as border agents or first responders, may not be getting the tools they need to do their jobs effectively. [ Background Music ] [ Narrator: ] To learn more, visit GAO.gov and be sure to tune in to the next episode of GAO's Watchdog Report for more from the congressional watchdog, the U.S. Government Accountability Office.