From the U.S. Government Accountability Office, www.gao.gov

Transcript for: Oversight of DHS Acquisitions

Description: Audio interview by GAO staff with Michele Mackin, Director,
Acquisition and Sourcing Management

Related GAO Work: GAO-15-292: Homeland Security Acquisitions: DHS Should
Better Define Oversight Roles and Improve Program Reporting to Congress

Released: March 2015

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[ Narrator: ] Welcome to GAO's Watchdog Report, your source for news and
information from the U.S. Government Accountability Office. It's March
2015. In Fiscal Year 2014, the Department of Homeland Security planned
to spend about $10 billion to acquire tools to protect against
terrorism, disease, natural hazards, and border violations. A team led
by Michele Mackin, a director in GAO's Acquisition and Sourcing
Management team, recently reviewed DHS's oversight of its major
acquisition programs. GAO's Jacques Arsenault sat down with Michele to
discuss what they found.

[ Jacques Arsenault: ] Can you talk a little bit about the kinds of
tools that DHS is acquiring in its major programs?

[ Michele Mackin: ] Sure, DHS is a very large agency with many different
components. One example we're all familiar at the airports with the
passenger and baggage screening systems. So, those are two major
investments at the department and the Coast Guard is also a part of DHS,
so it's buying ships and aircraft. Another example is the Emergency
Management Agency that helps with disaster assistance; so they provide
information on flood risk to local communities.

[ Jacques Arsenault: ] And what are some of the risks that DHS faces if
they don't have appropriate oversight of these practices?

[ Michele Mackin: ] Well, if you think about in our own personal lives,
if we're going to invest a lot of money in something, we want to make
sure we know how much it will cost, when it will be available to us, and
what it will do for us—what the performance will be. So, obviously what
DHS is buying is much more complex but those same basic principles
really apply. So, without good acquisition oversight, the risk is that
program cost will increase; systems will be developed late and delivered
to the end user, for example, a border patrol agent not having the
capabilities that were intended.

[ Jacques Arsenault: ] So then, what did you find about DHS's
acquisition oversight?

[ Michele Mackin: ] We found that there is one major entity in the
department that's been designated as the lead role for acquisition
oversight; but really, responsibilities lie at the program office level
as well as the component level, for example, at the Coast Guard level,
and then even senior leadership in the department. So, it really is
dispersed across the department and that's where we found that the
linkages between those different entities aren't spelled out and
documented as we think they should be. DHS has made progress in
acquisition oversight. When the department was first formed, the focus
was really all about the mission for obvious reasons, not a lot of
attention to acquisition oversight. But lately, senior management has
gotten very involved and put some structures in place, so that's a good
thing. But what we found is that some of these structures aren't clearly
documented in terms of rules and responsibilities and accountability for
who's doing the oversight, how the different entities are linked
together within the department, and so one of the things we recommended
in this report is that simply those rules and responsibilities be
documented. As we all know, people come and go and the current person
could be doing a great job, but if they leave, that structure still
needs to be in place.

[ Jacques Arsenault: ] So then, what recommendations is GAO making to
DHS to improve that oversight?

[ Michele Mackin: ] Well, one recommendation is that they document the
rules and responsibilities of the key oversight entities in the
department. Another has to do with the information on the major systems,
basic information like cost, schedule, and performance. We looked at the
system where this information is supposed to reside and found a number
of problems. Information was out-of-date for example, and obviously
without good information, you can't do good oversight.

[ Jacques Arsenault: ] And finally, what would you say is the bottom
line of this report?

[ Michele Mackin: ] I would say it's that good oversight is needed to
ensure that our tax dollars are well spent. So, without documented roles
and responsibilities and good information on the individual systems,
that oversight can't be as effective as it should be.

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[ 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.