Editor’s Note: The GAO has released a report “INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY: Agencies Need to Strengthen Oversight of Billions of Dollars in Operations and Maintenance Investments (attached here) which found that billions of dollars are being spend on IT without appropriate analysis to ensure that the spending is delivering value. Below are a conclusion about agency IT investments and a recommendation to OMB:
Conclusion about IT spending by DOD, HHS, DHS, Treasury, and VA:
Taken together, these five agencies continue to invest billions of dollars each year on IT steady state investments without ensuring that they are continuing to meet agency needs and are delivering value. These shortcomings are due in part to a number of factors, including agencies relying on budget submission processes through their annual exhibit 300 submissions, which are not intended as a substitute for OAs, and not viewing performance of these assessments as a priority. . . .until the agencies address these shortcomings and ensure all their steady state investments are fully assessed, there is increased potential for these multibillion dollar investments to result in unnecessary waste and duplication.
Recommendation to OMB:
to ensure that OA policies are developed and that annual analyses are conducted and to promote transparency into the results of these analyses, we recommend that the Director of OMB revise existing guidance to include directing agencies to report on the IT Dashboard the results from the OAs of their steady state investments.
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