STATEMENT
OF
MARK A. FORMAN
ASSOCIATE DIRECTOR FOR INFORMATION
TECHNOLOGY AND ELECTRONIC GOVERNMENT
OFFICE OF MANAGEMENT AND BUDGET
BEFORE THE
COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT REFORM
SUBCOMMITTEE ON TECHNOLOGY AND PROCUREMENT POLICY
U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
October 1, 2002
Good morning Mr. Chairman
and members of the Committee. Thank you for inviting me here today to discuss
homeland security IT investments. My remarks will focus on recent Administration
steps taken to ensure that IT investments that support the homeland security
mission are appropriately integrated in order to leverage technology for
mission effectiveness while preventing redundant investments and wasted
resources.
The National Strategy
for Homeland Security highlights the key role of IT in achieving results.
Effective use of IT is essential to provide for homeland security and allow
the different component agencies to share information. An IT infrastructure
must support collaboration among the workers in the Federal, state, and
local homeland security related agencies.
As identified in the
National Strategy for Homeland Security, we have two primary results for
measuring effective use of IT: (1) improving response time – the time
to detect and respond to potential threats; and (2) improving decision-making
– making the right decisions at the right time. A modern IT infrastructure
is vital to ensuring we successfully meet these and other homeland security
goals.
While the challenges
are great, the management principles and tools to address them are known
and have been championed by the Chairman and members of this Subcommittee.
The key principles for unifying an IT infrastructure include:
- Effective IT investment
management to accelerate deployment, reduce risk, and achieve mission
goals.
- Identify and reduce
redundant and siloed IT investments.
- Take advantage
of economies of scale.
Business as usual will
not enable us to meet our homeland security goals. We need a comprehensive
review of IT investments. Prior decisions made on the basis of planning,
processes, and considerations that predated the President’s National
Strategy for Homeland Security are being re-examined and in some instances
changed to address new priorities. This review is being conducted according
to the key elements of an effective IT management process outlined below.
- Creating a capital
planning and investment control process.
- Developing an
enterprise architecture that links IT to mission performance and defines
a modernization blueprint.
- Identifying an
inventory of investments.
- Identifying existing
redundancies and opportunities for consolidation, integration, and elimination.
- Identifying savings
resulting from consolidation, integration, and elimination.
- Identifying strategic,
program, and mission performance needs that will be addressed by modernization
investments.
These elements provide
a decision-making process, require involvement by the appropriate stakeholders,
and provide the criteria needed to make decisions. The criteria will help
to ensure that IT investments are being made through the use of good management
principles, and that consolidation and integration of current and planned
IT investments occur in an efficient and cost-effective manner.
Homeland Security
IT Investment and Business Systems Review Groups
The establishment of
a well-functioning capital planning process has been initiated through the
creation of the Homeland Security IT Investment Review Group in OMB Memorandum
02-12, “Reducing Redundant IT Infrastructure Related to Homeland Security.”
The Business Systems IT Review Group, created in OMB Memorandum 02-13, “Review
and Consolidation of Business Management Systems for the Proposed Department
of Homeland Security,” is another part of that process.
The OMB memoranda directed
these Review Groups to begin the effort to identify the IT requirements
of the proposed Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and opportunities
for consolidation and integration of IT investments. The Homeland Security
IT Investment Review Group is charged with making recommendations to reduce
redundant investments and maximize opportunities for effective information
sharing across the proposed DHS components. This Group consists primarily
of Chief Information Officers (CIOs) from the major entities that would
likely be part of the proposed DHS and is chaired by OHS and OMB. There
are two types of reviews conducted by the Group.
First, in response to
an emergency request from an agency in accordance with the guidance in the
memoranda, OMB and the Group provide a quick response to the requesting
agency after conducting a rapid review to identify any related investments,
requirements or opportunities for other component agencies to leverage.
The second type of review
focuses more on larger consolidation issues involving day one and first
year issues such as identifying email capabilities for the proposed Department.
It is from this type of review that we expect the Group to provide most
of their recommendations regarding consolidation, integration, and elimination
of IT investments. The larger issues are closely related to the work that
the Office of Homeland Security (OHS) is leading in consultation with OMB’s
Federal Enterprise Architecture effort as well as with affected agencies
on developing a homeland security enterprise architecture. The enterprise
architecture will cover three broad areas: infrastructure, business systems,
and mission systems in support of the National Strategy for Homeland Security.
The Business Systems
Review Group consists primarily of the Chief Financial Officers (CFOs),
Human Resource (HR) and Procurement Executives of the proposed DHS component
agencies. This group’s charge is identical to the Homeland Security
IT Investment Review Group. To ensure coordination between the groups each
has a liaison and the groups collaborate on issues where appropriate.
OMB Homeland Security IT Memoranda
In July, OMB issued two
memoranda as a first step toward better integration of IT infrastructure
by using available funds to deploy the highest quality technologies, while
providing an opportunity to save taxpayers millions. These memoranda direct
proposed DHS component agencies to temporarily cease funding for new development
or modernization efforts above $500,000, pending a review by the Executive
Branch. The scope of the memoranda include IT infrastructure and business
management systems, such as financial management, HR, and procurement systems.
The memoranda do not affect steady state spending needed to maintain operations
nor do they affect mission IT investments. The intent of the memoranda is
to ensure modern investments and prevent redundant investments and wasteful
spending. Additionally, it is important to note that FY03 IT investment
decisions were made prior to the President’s announcement proposing
the creation of the new Department, and must be reconsidered in light of
the proposed reorganization.
For example, the Transportation
Security Administration (TSA), to meet its mission, has a business requirement
need for network infrastructure at airports. However, INS, Customs, FAA
and other agencies have already built and deployed telecommunications networks
that would likely be redundant with a new TSA network. An initial assessment
found that the existing component agencies of the proposed Department plan
to spend $257M in FY03 on IT infrastructure that will support networks at
airports. Clearly, there are multiple opportunities for homeland security
related agencies to better leverage IT investments so that TSA will not
have to build its own telecommunications network.
To ensure appropriate
leveraging of technologies, such as the above example, one of the first
tasks of the Homeland Security IT Investment Review Group is to review all
task orders under TSA's Information Technology Managed Services Contract.
Prior to issuing task orders TSA will first review similar investments at
other agencies for leveraging opportunities, before renting new capabilities
under the managed services contract. This approach will enable TSA to more
rapidly obtain IT services and significantly reduce planned spending.
Each of the memoranda
also contains a provision for emergency approval of an IT investment. Some
of the requests present opportunities for other proposed DHS component agencies
to leverage, and are brought to the attention of appropriate groups for
review and discussion.
The Federal government
must ensure that IT investments are made in an efficient and cost-effective
manner. This includes the appropriate migration of Federal homeland security
IT investments – the result of bringing together currently separate
component agencies. Planned spending by DHS component agencies for IT infrastructure
and business management systems will total at least $900M in FY03. An integrated
IT system would provide the best support for homeland security – including
earlier detection and faster response to potential threats. Consolidating
and integrating IT investments presents significant opportunities for savings
while providing the best investments for our homeland security mission.
Clearly this approach
is neither new nor surprising – it is simply good management. These
memoranda recognize the Federal government’s responsibility to ensure
wise IT investments are made and that IT investments will not be wasted
through the acquisition or retention of systems that are redundant, not
interoperable, or otherwise not well-designed to enable an agency to carry
out its mission in a cost-effective manner. In fact, recent General Accounting
Office (GAO) reports and testimony have stressed the need for the Federal
government to improve management of IT investments. See GAO-02-6, “Information
Technology: Enterprise Architecture Use Across the Federal Government Can
Be Improved” (February 19, 2002).
In March of this year,
GAO testified before this subcommittee at a hearing on electronic government.
In this testimony, (GAO-02-389T, “Information Technology: OMB Leadership
Critical to Making Needed Enterprise Architecture and E-government Progress”),
GAO called attention to the E-government initiatives contained in the President’s
Fiscal Year 2003 Budget – “most involving multiple agencies”
– that seek the “elimination of redundant, nonintegrated business
operations and systems.” The testimony also recognized that elimination
of redundancies could result in billions of dollars in savings, and improved
efficiencies and service delivery to customers.
OMB is fulfilling this
role through the use of our responsibilities under Section 5113 of the 1996
Clinger-Cohen Act (40 USC 1413), to issue “clear and concise direction”
to agencies for ensuring “efficient and effective capital planning”
for IT investments, which is to include “guidance for undertaking
efficiently and effectively inter-agency and Government-wide investments
in information technology to improve the accomplishment of missions that
are common to the executive agencies.” The actions taken in the homeland
security IT memoranda are the right steps in good IT management and would
improve mission performance under any circumstances regarding the proposed
Department.
Next Steps and Conclusion
Most of the work of these
Review Groups’ is just beginning. I anticipate that as the Groups’
continue to identify more opportunities to leverage technologies, we will
be able to better define the optimal IT investments for the proposed Department.
This includes the migration strategies needed to reach that decision and
an identification of the resulting savings.
The homeland security
IT memoranda are a clear demonstration of OMB working with OHS and the agencies
to prevent new redundancies and address existing redundant investments.
They are a step that GAO and others agree will improve the Federal government’s
use of IT resources to architecture savings, and gains in efficiency and
productivity. OMB and OHS will continue to look for additional ways to better
leverage federal IT spending for Homeland Security. As this Committee highlighted
two weeks ago, there are several key opportunities for applying E-Government
to Homeland Security -- including three of the Administration’s E-Government
initiatives on wireless communications, geospatial information, and disaster
management.
To achieve our goals
we must all effectively leverage IT for homeland security. It requires the
use of modern management practices and a level of teamwork not always seen.
It will also require – and is already benefiting from -- a tremendous
amount of leadership among the Executive Branch, the Congress, and the IT
industry. Collaborative leadership and support is vital to our performance.
I would also like to commend the Review Groups’ for their initial
progress. I am particularly impressed with the level of teamwork and cooperation
of the Groups.
Thank you for your continued
leadership, Mr. Chairman, in working toward effective and efficient IT management
of the Federal government’s IT resources. |