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entitled 'Homeland Security: Information Technology Funding and 
Associated Management Issues' which was released on January 14, 2003.



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Report to the Chairman and Ranking Minority Member, Permanent 

Subcommittee on Investigations, Committee on Governmental Affairs,

U.S. Senate:



December 2002:



Homeland security:



Information Technology Funding and Associated Management Issues:



GAO-03-250:



GAO Highlights:



Highlights of GAO-03-250, a report to the Chairman and Ranking Minority 

Member, Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, Committee on 

Governmental Affairs, U.S. Senate:



Why GAO Did This Study:



Information technology (IT) will play a critical role in strengthening 

our nation’s homeland security against potential future attacks. 

Specifically, IT will help enable the nation to identify potential 

threats, share information more readily, provide mechanisms to protect 

our homeland, and develop response capabilities. The Permanent 

Subcommittee on Investigations of the Senate Committee on Governmental 

Affairs requested that we identify, for fiscal years 2002 and 2003, IT 

funding targeted for purposes related to homeland security in those 

departments and agencies that play a key role in this mission area and, 

using our prior work, report on the IT management issues facing these 

organizations.



In commenting on a draft of this report, agencies provided technical 

comments that were incorporated in the report, as appropriate.



What GAO Found:



We identified $2.9 billion in IT funding for homeland security for 

fiscal year 2002 and for fiscal year 2003. For fiscal year 2002, $1.2 

billion of it is for organizations (agencies, departments, or 

components of these) proposed to move to the Department of Homeland 

Security. For fiscal year 2003, $1.7 billion is for organizations 

proposed to move to the new department. Total reported IT funding for 

homeland security is likely understated. For example, there may be 

other potential costs that are not reflected in reported totals, 

including multi-agency IT infrastructure (for example, secure 

networks), new intelligence systems, and funding for existing agency 

missions that appear to be related to homeland security (for example, 

Department of Defense, Federal Aviation Administration).



Of those organizations with significant IT funding that are proposed 

to move to the new department, the FBI’s National Infrastructure 

Protection Center (NIPC), the Immigration and Nationalization Service 

(INS), the Coast Guard, and Customs have a large number of GAO 

recommendations from our prior work that still require action (see 

figure below). Although we did not have specific open recommendations 

for many of the organizations proposed to move to the Department of 

Homeland Security, most are from parent organizations that, based on 

our prior work, still face IT management issues. The majority of open 

recommendations are associated with securing information, having an 

architecture or blueprint to guide system development efforts, 

managing IT investments, and developing and acquiring information 

systems. Since September 1996, we have reported that poor information 

security is a widespread federal problem and therefore have designated 

it a governmentwide high-risk area.



Highlights Figure: Selected Departmentseith Open GAO IT Recommendations

and Associated Homeland Security IT Funding Requested for Fiscal Year

2003:



[See PDF for image]



[End of image]



Contents:



Letter:



Agency Comments:



Appendixes:



Appendix I: Homeland Security IT Funding and Associated Management 

Issues:



Appendix II: Homeland Security IT Funding, by CFO Agency:



Appendix III: Open Recommendations, by CFO Agency:



December 13, 2002:



The Honorable Carl Levin

Chairman

The Honorable Susan Collins

Ranking Minority Member

Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations

Committee on Governmental Affairs

United States Senate:



Information technology (IT) will play a critical role in strengthening 

our nation’s homeland security against potential future attacks. 

Specifically, IT will help enable the nation to identify potential 

threats, share information more readily, provide mechanisms to protect 

our homeland, and develop response capabilities. As you requested, our 

objectives were to identify fiscal years 2002 and 2003 IT funding 

targeted for purposes related to homeland security in those departments 

and agencies that play a key role in this mission area and, using our 

prior work, report on the IT management issues facing these departments 

and agencies.



To identify IT funding targeted for purposes related to homeland 

security in fiscal years 2002 and 2003, we requested and reviewed 

budget documentation from each of the 24 chief financial officer (CFO) 

departments and agencies, including their Exhibit 300s,[Footnote 1] 

Exhibit 53s,[Footnote 2] and other documents that identify IT funding 

for homeland security. In addition, we reviewed the Office of 

Management and Budget’s (OMB) June 2002 Annual Report to Congress on 

Combating Terrorism and the President’s June 2002 report entitled The 

Department of Homeland Security.



To report on the IT management issues facing the 24 CFO departments and 

agencies, we reviewed GAO IT products for fiscal years 1997-2002. We 

identified the recommendations from these products, which we organized 

by department or agency, and categorized them into specific IT areas 

(for example, information security). Subsequently, we followed up on 

each recommendation to determine whether action had been taken to 

address it.[Footnote 3]



On October 1, 2002, we provided a briefing to your offices on the 

results of this work.[Footnote 4] The briefing slides are included as 

appendixes I-III. As agreed with your offices, the purpose of this 

letter is to provide the published briefing slides to you.



In brief, we identified $2.9 billion in IT funding for homeland 

security for fiscal year 2002 and for fiscal year 2003. For fiscal year 

2002, $1.2 billion is for organizations (agencies, departments, or 

components of these) proposed to move to the Department of Homeland 

Security. For fiscal year 2003, $1.7 billion is for organizations 

proposed to move to the new department. However, total reported IT 

funding for homeland security is likely understated, because there may 

be other potential costs that are not reflected in reported totals, 

including multi-agency IT infrastructure (for example, secure 

networks), new intelligence systems, and funding for existing agency 

missions that appear to be related to homeland security (for example, 

Department of Defense, Federal Aviation Administration). The majority 

of the funding requested for fiscal year 2003 was reported by the 

Department of Justice’s Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS), 

the Department of Transportation’s Transportation Security Agency, and 

the Department of the Treasury’s United States Customs Service. 

Beginning with the fiscal year 2004 budget submission, agencies are to 

indicate in Exhibit 53s whether IT projects are related to homeland 

security.



The organizations that are proposed to move to the new department will 

face IT management issues. Of those organizations with significant IT 

funding that are proposed to move to the new department, the FBI’s 

National Infrastructure Protection Center, the INS, the Coast Guard, 

and Customs have a large number of GAO recommendations that still 

require action. Although we did not have specific open recommendations 

for many of the organizations proposed to move to the Department of 

Homeland Security, most are from parent organizations that, based on 

our prior work, still face IT management issues. Of those 

recommendations that still require action, the majority of open 

recommendations are associated with securing information (information 

security), having an architecture or blueprint to guide system 

development efforts (enterprise architecture), managing IT investments 

(investment management), and developing and acquiring information 

systems (systems development and acquisition). Since September 1996, we 

have reported that poor information security is a widespread federal 

problem and therefore have designated it a governmentwide high-risk 

area.



Agency Comments:



We provided a draft of this report to the 24 CFO departments and 

agencies for comment. Several departments and agencies provided oral 

technical comments that we have incorporated into this report, as 

appropriate.



As agreed with your staff, unless you publicly announce the contents of 

this report earlier, we plan no further distribution of it until 30 

days from the date of this letter. At that time, we will send copies of 

this report to other interested congressional parties. We also will 

make copies available to others upon request. In addition, the report 

will be available at no charge on the GAO Web site at http://

www.gao.gov.



Should you or your staff have any questions on matters discussed in 

this report, please contact me at (202) 512-6408. I can also be reached 

by E-mail at WillemssenJ@gao.gov. Key contributors to this report were 

Lester Diamond, Joanne Fiorino, Robert Kershaw, Dave Powner, Karl 

Seifert, Kevin Secrest, and Eric Winter.



Signed by Joel C. Willemssen:



Joel C. Willemssen

Managing Director, Information Technology Issues:



[End of section]



Appendixes:



Appendix I: Homeland Security IT Funding and Associated Management 

Issues:



[See PDF for image]



[End of figure]



[End of section]



Appendix II: Homeland Security IT Funding, by CFO Agency:



[See PDF for image]



[End of figure]



[End of section]



Appendix III: Open Recommendations, by CFO Agency:



[See PDF for image]



[End of figure]



FOOTNOTES



[1] Exhibit 300s are federal budget documents containing program and 

project information and associated cost, schedule, and performance 

information.



[2] Exhibit 53s list all of the IT projects and their associated costs 

within a federal organization and are to be prepared each year as part 

of the budget process in accordance with OMB Circular A-11.



[3] Our approach focused on agencies and areas where we have conducted 

IT reviews and was not intended to reflect IT management capabilities 

across the government. Also, it did not include Inspector General 

reports.



[4] We have amended the briefing as of November 22, 2002, to include 

minor changes and technical updates.



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