Recommendation: The Director of the Office of Management and Budget should (1) require that agencies explicitly document annual data center closure goals in their DCOI strategic plans and (2) track those goals on the IT Dashboard. (Recommendation 1)

Agency: Executive Office of the President: Office of Management and Budget
Status: Open

Comments: The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) has not yet taken action to address this recommendation. We will continue to monitor the agency's efforts to implement this recommendation.

Recommendation: The Director of the Office of Management and Budget should require agencies to report in their quarterly inventory submissions those facilities previously reported as data centers, even if those facilities are not subject to the closure and optimization requirements of DCOI. (Recommendation 2)

Agency: Executive Office of the President: Office of Management and Budget
Status: Open

Comments: The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) has not yet taken action to address this recommendation. We will continue to monitor the agency's efforts to implement this recommendation.

Recommendation: The Director of the Office of Management and Budget should document OMB's decisions on whether to approve individual data centers when designated by agencies as either a mission critical facility or as a facility not subject to DCOI. (Recommendation 3)

Agency: Executive Office of the President: Office of Management and Budget
Status: Open

Comments: The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) has not yet taken action to address this recommendation. We will continue to monitor the agency's efforts to implement this recommendation.

Recommendation: The Director of the Office of Management and Budget should take action to address the key performance measurement characteristics missing from the DCOI optimization metrics, as identified in this report. (Recommendation 4)

Agency: Executive Office of the President: Office of Management and Budget
Status: Open

Comments: The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) has not yet taken action to address this recommendation. We will continue to monitor the agency's efforts to implement this recommendation.

Recommendation: The Secretary of Agriculture should take action to achieve its data center-related cost savings target established under DCOI by OMB. (Recommendation 5)

Agency: Department of Agriculture
Status: Open

Comments: In comments on our report, the Department of Agriculture (Agriculture) agreed with our recommendation and stated that it planned to meet the cost savings target in 2020. We will continue to monitor Agriculture's efforts to implement this recommendation.

Recommendation: The Secretary of Commerce should take action to achieve its data center-related cost savings target established under DCOI by OMB. (Recommendation 6)

Agency: Department of Commerce: Office of the Secretary
Status: Open

Comments: In comments on our report, the Department of Commerce (Commerce) agreed with our recommendation and described actions that they planned to take in order to address the recommendation. We will continue to monitor Commerce's efforts to implement this recommendation.

Recommendation: The Secretary of Commerce should take action to meet its data center optimization metric targets established under DCOI by OMB. (Recommendation 7)

Agency: Department of Commerce: Office of the Secretary
Status: Open

Comments: In comments on our report, the Department of Commerce (Commerce) agreed with our recommendation and described actions that they planned to take in order to address the recommendation. We will continue to monitor Commerce's efforts to implement this recommendation.

Recommendation: The Administrator of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration should take action to achieve its data center-related cost savings target established under DCOI by OMB. (Recommendation 8)

Agency: National Aeronautics and Space Administration
Status: Open

Comments: In comments on our report, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) agreed with our recommendation and described actions that the agency planned to take to address the recommendation. NASA stated that it expected to complete these actions by March 31, 2020. Once we have obtained and assessed evidence of the agency's actions taken, we will update the status of this recommendation.

Recommendation: The Secretary of Defense should ensure that the Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition and Sustainment develop and implement a plan to guide and coordinate efforts to implement the Wideband AOA recommendations to support timely, informed decisions on its next wideband satellite communications architecture. (Recommendation 1)

Agency: Department of Defense: Office of the Secretary of Defense
Status: Open

Comments: DOD concurred with our recommendation, but as of July 2020 is still working to implement its corrective action plan.

Recommendation: The Secretary of Defense should direct the Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition and Sustainment to determine and identify in final guidance for middle-tier acquisition programs the metrics that will be used to assess the performance of middle-tier acquisition programs across the military departments, including whether programs are meeting statutory objectives. (Recommendation 2)

Agency: Department of Defense
Status: Open

Comments: DOD concurred with this recommendation, and stated that it planned to determine performance metrics in coordination with its release of its final guidance on middle-tier programs, which DOD expected to release in late 2019. In December 2019, Congress passed the fiscal year 2020 National Defense Authorization Act. Section 837 in the Conference Report accompanying the Act requires DOD to submit a report to the congressional defense committees no later than December 15, 2019, that includes guidance on the use of middle-tier acquisition authority and the metrics required to assess the performance of such a program, among other topics. DOD's report, provided to Congress in January 2020, identified metrics that DOD planned to use to assess the performance of these programs. The Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition and Sustainment subsequently leveraged these metrics in its March 2020 bi-annual review of middle-tier acquisition programs to assess program execution. However, DOD has yet to identify these metrics in guidance as we recommended, which we continue to believe is important to facilitate consistent reporting across the military departments and DOD components.

Recommendation: The Secretary of Defense should develop a plan for how the department will assess the effect of recent acquisition reforms, including identifying who will be responsible for the assessment and what data will be needed. (Recommendation 4)

Agency: Department of Defense
Status: Open

Comments: DOD concurred with this recommendation, and stated that it has included a division in the Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Acquisition to analyze the effect of recent acquisition reforms and other high-level oversight and policy issues. In December 2019, Congress took additional action. The Conference Report accompanying the fiscal year 2020 National Defense Authorization Act required DOD to submit a report with the budget for fiscal year 2021 on the progress of implementing acquisition reform initiatives. In response, DOD provided a report to Congress in March 2020 that includes how the Secretary will identify, quantify, assess and manage program risk, describes changes to DOD's data collection and sharing processes, and describes new acquisition frameworks to be implemented. However, the report does not address how DOD will assess the acquisition reforms, what data is needed, or who is responsible. Additionally, in August 2020, the Assistant Secretary of Defense approved a plan for assessing the implementation of new acquisition pathways at DOD. However, DOD is still identifying the specific data needed to assess each acquisition pathway, as well as determining how to assess the remaining acquisition reforms we covered in our June 2019 report. Therefore, we will continue to monitor DOD efforts to implement this recommendation.

Recommendation: To ensure that DHS effectively implements FITARA, the Secretary of Homeland Security should direct the Under Secretary for Management to direct the Chief Information Officer to establish time frames and implement a plan for (1) identifying the department's future IT skillset needs as a result of DHS's new delivery model, (2) conducting a skills gap analysis, and (3) resolving any skills gaps identified.

Agency: Department of Homeland Security
Status: Open

Comments: In 2018 and 2019, the DHS Office of the Chief Information Officer implemented a Strategic Workforce Planning initiative that included (1) identifying the department's future IT skillset needs, and (2) conducting a skills gap analysis related to these needs. The department is currently working to resolve the skills gaps identified during the initiative. We will continue to monitor and evaluate the Department's efforts to resolve these skills gaps.

Recommendation: To ensure that DHS effectively implements FITARA, the Secretary of Homeland Security should direct the Under Secretary for Management to update the department's acquisition policies and guidance to be consistent in identifying that the DHS CIO is to certify investments' incremental development activities.

Agency: Department of Homeland Security
Status: Open

Comments: In response to our recommendation, DHS updated its agile development policy to specify that the DHS CIO is responsible for certifying investments' incremental development activities, which is consistent with the Department's Acquisition Management Instruction. However, DHS has not yet updated its Systems Engineering Life Cycle Instruction and Guidebook to be consistent in specifying that this certification is the responsibility of the DHS CIO. We will continue to monitor the Department's progress in implementing this recommendation.

Recommendation: To ensure that DHS effectively implements FITARA, the Secretary of Homeland Security should direct the Under Secretary for Management to update DHS headquarters', Customs and Border Protection's, and U.S. Coast Guard's processes to track, for all contracts and agreements, the IT investment with which each is associated (as applicable).

Agency: Department of Homeland Security
Status: Open

Comments: In response to our recommendation, Customs and Border Protection implemented a process to track the IT investments associated with each contract and agreement. The U.S. Coast Guard also implemented a process to track the IT investments associated with its contracts; however, it has not yet demonstrated that it has implemented such a process for tracking the IT investments associated with its agreements. Further, DHS headquarters is still working to establish a process for tracking the IT investments associated with its contracts and agreements. We will continue to monitor and evaluate the Department's progress in implementing this recommendation.

Recommendation: To ensure that DHS effectively implements FITARA, the Secretary of Homeland Security should direct the Under Secretary for Management to update and implement the process DHS uses for assessing the risks of major IT investments to ensure that the CIO rating reported to the Dashboard fully reflects the CIO's assessment of each major IT investment.

Agency: Department of Homeland Security
Status: Open

Comments: DHS concurred with our recommendation. In May 2020, DHS officials stated that the Office of the CIO began piloting a new program health assessment process in the second quarter of fiscal year 2020, and DHS intends to report the program ratings resulting from that process to the IT Dashboard. We will continue to monitor and evaluate the Department's efforts to implement this new process.