To view this site you need Adobe Flash Player and your browser must allow javaScripts. Go here to get the latest Flash Player. NEBRASKA AVENUE The nuts and bolts of procurement reform BY KELLEY VLAHOS, WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT THERE’S APPROXIMATELY $15 BILLION A YEAR IN INVESTMENTS CIRCULATING THROUGH THE DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY (DHS). CRITICS SAY OVER THE YEARS THE AGENCY HAS WASTED—THROUGH DISORDERLY AND UNRESTRAINED CONTRACTING AND PROCUREMENT PRACTICES—MORE MONEY THAN IT HAS ACTUALLY PUT TO WORK. BUT IS THIS THE YEAR THE AGENCY STANDS ITS OLD REPUTATION ON ITS HEAD? “We’re trying to share some of the news about the steps we’ve taken to improve acquisition,” argued Rick Gunderson, acting chief procurement officer at DHS, in a January interview with Homeland Security Today. “There is some negative stigma out there. …Where we are today is much different than where we were in 2003.” The road, however, is littered with broken and abandoned programs and a lot of money that flew out of the coffers and into virtual money pits. The more infamous programs roll off the tongues of industry analysts: SBInet—Also known as The Secure Border Initiative Network, the massive IT project that was to serve in part as a “virtual fence” to protect the nation’s southern and northern borders was put on ice in September. It had been valued in the range of $6 billion and was the third in a line of aborted programs relating to border security. It replaced the Integrated Intelligence System and the America’s Shield Initiative. A December 2006 DHS Inspector General’s report, Major Management Challenges Facing the Department of Homeland Security (www.dhs.gov /xoig/assets/mgmtrpts/OIG_0712_Dec06.pdf), said SBInet was developed “without having laid the foundation to effectively oversee and assess contractor performance and effectively control cost and schedule.” The Integrated Deepwater System Program, or “Deepwater”—The 25-year, $24 billion Coast Guard modernization project is ongoing, but since its debut in 2002, it’s been the focus of investigations by the DHS Office of Inspector General, the Department of Justice, countless congressional hearings and a whistleblower drama. Eight patrol boats valued because of cost overruns and agency mismanagement. eMerge 2—The agency paid out $50 million to Bearing Point, McLean, Va., for a program that would have managed all of DHS’ financial assets, acquisitions and budgets. The project was terminated in 2005 because it was deemed unmanageable. The agency is now in the process of seeking bids for a similar but new program, Transformation and Systems Consolidation (TASC). CAPPS II—The $100 million Computer Assisted Passenger Pre-screening System was initiated after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks and was immediately beset with developmental and privacy problems. Reviews of the program—which would use personal passenger information shared by multiple government agencies to determine the risk levels of passengers—found numerous planning and cost estimate shortcomings. It was scrapped in 2004, but has morphed into Secure Flight, which is supposed to be implemented sometime early this year. According to a November 2008 Government Accountability Office (GAO) report to Congress, Billions Invested in Major Programs Lack Appropriate Oversight (www.gao.gov/new.items/d0929.pdf), the lack of sufficient internal reviews throughout the life cycle of major DHS contracts— from the development of a proposal to the maintenance of the contract and overall program—is to blame for much of the $15 billion in investment failures since the agency’s inception in 2003. “Of 48 major investments requiring milestone or annual reviews, 45 were not reviewed in accordance with the department’s investment review policy and 18 were not reviewed at all,” charged the report. Four programs were transitioned into the late production phase with no review at all. “Poor production” could be placed in part at the feet of DHS’ two central review boards. The Investment Review Board (IRB) was set up to handle projects over $300 million (Level I). The Joint Requirements Council (JRC) was supposed to handle programs valued from $100 million to $300 million (Level II). Neither, according to GAO at the time, had teeth or enough resources to do their jobs effectively. There are a host of other factors that at close to $100 million were destroyed. Late last year, DHS formally established itself as the acquisition decision authority for the Coast Guard’s Deepwater projects—a move DHS says is not disciplinary but part of ongoing acquisition reforms at the Coast Guard. Transportation Security Agency (TSA) IT Management—What government contracting attorney David Bodenheimer, a partner at the Washington-based law firm Crowell & Moring, calls “a horror show,” the agency effort to modernize all of its disparate IT networks and systems has had a rocky journey. TSA is now in the process of finding a contractor to fulfill the newest program incarnation, the $2 billion Information Technology Infrastructure program, a follow-up to the embattled $1 billion Information Technology Managed Services contract, which was closed out at the end of 2006 14 April 2009 | www.HSToday.us This month’s issue is now available online at…