[House Hearing, 114 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
PROBING DHS'S BOTCHED MANAGEMENT OF
THE HUMAN RESOURCES INFORMATION
TECHNOLOGY PROGRAM
=======================================================================
HEARING
BEFORE THE
SUBCOMMITTEE ON
OVERSIGHT AND
MANAGEMENT EFFICIENCY
OF THE
COMMITTEE ON HOMELAND SECURITY
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED FOURTEENTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
__________
FEBRUARY 25, 2016
__________
Serial No. 114-54
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Homeland Security
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Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/
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2016
COMMITTEE ON HOMELAND SECURITY
Michael T. McCaul, Texas, Chairman
Lamar Smith, Texas Bennie G. Thompson, Mississippi
Peter T. King, New York Loretta Sanchez, California
Mike Rogers, Alabama Sheila Jackson Lee, Texas
Candice S. Miller, Michigan, Vice James R. Langevin, Rhode Island
Chair Brian Higgins, New York
Jeff Duncan, South Carolina Cedric L. Richmond, Louisiana
Tom Marino, Pennsylvania William R. Keating, Massachusetts
Lou Barletta, Pennsylvania Donald M. Payne, Jr., New Jersey
Scott Perry, Pennsylvania Filemon Vela, Texas
Curt Clawson, Florida Bonnie Watson Coleman, New Jersey
John Katko, New York Kathleen M. Rice, New York
Will Hurd, Texas Norma J. Torres, California
Earl L. ``Buddy'' Carter, Georgia
Mark Walker, North Carolina
Barry Loudermilk, Georgia
Martha McSally, Arizona
John Ratcliffe, Texas
Daniel M. Donovan, Jr., New York
Brendan P. Shields, Staff Director
Joan V. O'Hara, General Counsel
Michael S. Twinchek, Chief Clerk
I. Lanier Avant, Minority Staff Director
------
SUBCOMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT AND MANAGEMENT EFFICIENCY
Scott Perry, Pennsylvania, Chairman
Jeff Duncan, South Carolina Bonnie Watson Coleman, New Jersey
Curt Clawson, Florida Cedric L. Richmond, Louisiana
Earl L. ``Buddy'' Carter, Georgia Norma J. Torres, California
Barry Loudermilk, Georgia Bennie G. Thompson, Mississippi
Michael T. McCaul, Texas (ex (ex officio)
officio)
Ryan Consaul, Subcommittee Staff Director
John Dickhaus, Subcommittee Clerk
Cedric C. Haynes, Minority Subcommittee Staff Director
C O N T E N T S
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Page
Statements
The Honorable Scott Perry, a Representative in Congress From the
State of Pennsylvania, and Chairman, Subcommittee on Oversight
and Management Efficiency:
Oral Statement................................................. 1
Prepared Statement............................................. 3
The Honorable Bonnie Watson Coleman, a Representative in Congress
From the State of New Jersey, and Ranking Member, Subcommittee
on Oversight and Management Efficiency:
Oral Statement................................................. 4
Prepared Statement............................................. 5
The Honorable Bennie G. Thompson, a Representative in Congress
From the State of Mississippi, and Ranking Member, Committee on
Homeland Security:
Prepared Statement............................................. 6
Witnesses
Ms. Carol R. Cha, Director, Information Technology Acquisition
Management Issues, U.S. Government Accountability Office:
Oral Statement................................................. 8
Prepared Statement............................................. 9
Mr. Chip Fulghum, Deputy Under Secretary for Management, U.S.
Department of Homeland Security:
Oral Statement................................................. 21
Joint Prepared Statement....................................... 22
Ms. Angela Bailey, Chief Human Capital Officer, U.S. Department
of Homeland Security:
Oral Statement................................................. 24
Joint Prepared Statement....................................... 22
Appendix
Questions From Chairman Scott Perry for Carol R. Cha............. 41
Questions From Ranking Member Bonnie Watson Coleman for Carol R.
Cha............................................................ 42
Questions From Chairman Scott Perry for Chip Fulghum............. 46
Questions From Ranking Member Bonnie Watson Coleman for Angela
Bailey......................................................... 48
PROBING DHS'S BOTCHED MANAGEMENT OF THE HUMAN RESOURCES INFORMATION
TECHNOLOGY PROGRAM
----------
Thursday, February 25, 2016
U.S. House of Representatives,
Subcommittee on Oversight and
Management Efficiency,
Committee on Homeland Security,
Washington, DC.
The subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 10:08 a.m., in
Room 311, Cannon House Office Building, Hon. Scott Perry
[Chairman of the subcommittee] presiding.
Present: Representatives Perry, Carter, Loudermilk, Watson
Coleman, Richmond, and Torres.
Mr. Perry. Good morning. The Committee on Homeland Security
Subcommittee on Oversight and Management Efficiency will come
to order.
The purpose of this hearing is to examine mismanagement of
DHS's Human Resources Information Technology program. The Chair
recognizes himself for an opening statement.
The Department of Homeland Security, or DHS, was created in
2002 to unify our Government's efforts to secure America and
improve coordination, management, and information sharing
across numerous Federal agencies. DHS has become the third-
largest Federal department with over 240,000 employees.
Twelve years ago, DHS began a program to consolidate and
update fragmented human capital systems and processes known as
the Human Resources Information Technology program, or HRIT.
While ostensibly well-intended, this inevitably became a
disjointed approach and compromised DHS's ability to
effectively perform its mission.
For example, the lack of an efficient hiring process
jeopardized DHS's ability to hire the skilled personnel
necessary to provide disaster response.
In 2010, DHS's Office of Inspector General reported that
HRIT had failed to achieve any meaningful progress. In fact, in
2011, DHS identified over 400 human capital systems and
applications still in use simultaneously for 22 agencies--400
human capital systems in use simultaneously. It is
breathtaking. I just had to emphasize it.
In a report being released today, the Government
Accountability Office, the GAO, found that after 12 years and
at least $180 million appropriated by the United States
Congress, DHS is no closer to improving its human capital
management; 95 percent--95 percent--of the key HRIT strategic
projects have not been completed, many were to be done 4 years
ago. Yet today, DHS has absolutely no idea when or if these
projects will be finished.
HRIT is a poster child for inept management, in my opinion.
Senior leaders on the Executive Steering Committee responsible
for overseeing the work met only once--only once--in almost 2
years.
Listen, folks, I don't call that commitment. I don't know
if you do, but I don't call that commitment.
DHS didn't maintain a schedule to know when projects would
be done. Officials failed to estimate the total costs of HRIT
and failed to track how much has been spent to date. So no
suspense, no deadline, and we have no idea where the taxpayers'
money went.
I mean, pause to think about that. DHS has no idea how $180
million appropriated by the people's representatives in
Congress has been spent. It is reprehensible, it is
unbelievable, it is unacceptable. If businesses managed their
budgets this way, they would be out of business. If households,
if anybody, if individuals, nobody does this and gets away with
it.
As a result of this botched management, DHS's systems
remain outdated, inefficient, and at high risk to future waste.
Of particular concern is DHS's inadequate progress in managing
how employees separate or off-board from the agency, which
leaves the Department at high risk of security infractions.
Given the recent hack of DHS employee data, a poor off-
boarding process makes DHS vulnerable to cyber threats, as well
as physical breaches at DHS facilities, which threatens
employees, threatens Americans, threatens sensitive
information.
Despite these failures, DHS says it has made progress in
consolidating its performance management and learning system,
or PALMS, to track training for employees and maintain
performance information on its workforce.
The Department praised its efforts to consolidate these
systems as a success story in a report required by legislation
passed by this subcommittee that was signed into law last year.
Far from it, GAO found that implementation of PALMS remains
a jumble with some components implementing PALMS, some not and
others only implementing part of the system.
DHS was again reckless with taxpayer money by not fully
estimating the costs, tracking total costs, developing a
sufficient schedule, or monitoring risks to the project.
DHS will have to continue to use cumbersome, time-consuming
and, in 2016, paper-based processes to manage the performance
and training of its workforce. Without a more robust process
for documenting employee performance, managers face significant
hurdles in removing poor performers, if that ever happens at
all.
I appreciate the hard work of our watchdogs at GAO to bring
these issues to light.
Mr. Fulghum and Ms. Bailey, personally, you know this,
right, I am outraged on behalf of the citizens that I
represent, on behalf of all the American taxpayers, by the
ineptitude laid out in this report. DHS violates the trust of
the taxpayers when it doesn't know how hundreds of millions of
tax dollars are spent and have virtually nothing to show for
it.
Undoubtedly, we will hear your plans to fix the mess and
implement GAO's 14--14, not 3 or 2--14 recommendations. But I
also want to know and everybody wants to know, who has been and
who will be held accountable for this failure? I mean, we
wonder, who is in charge? If somebody is in charge, how can
somebody not be held accountable?
The American people expect better, we demand and require
better from DHS 14 years after its creation. We understand it
is not easy. We understand. I have watched businesses go
through the transition process to SAP. Has anybody ever heard
of PeopleSoft? Not to just, you know, name some names. It is
difficult, but they get through it and they don't take decades
to do it, and they move on. It is not perfect, but they have
something to show for it.
[The statement of Mr. Perry follows:]
Statement of Chairman Scott Perry
February 25, 2016
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) was created in 2002 to
unify our Government's efforts to secure America and improve
coordination, management, and information sharing across a multitude of
Federal agencies. DHS has become the third largest Federal department
with over 240,000 employees. Twelve years ago, DHS began a program to
consolidate and update fragmented human capital systems and processes
known as the Human Resources Information Technology program (HRIT).
This disjointed approach compromised DHS's ability to effectively
perform its mission. For example, the lack of an efficient hiring
process jeopardized DHS's ability to hire the skilled personnel
necessary to provide disaster response. In 2010, DHS's Office of
Inspector General reported that HRIT had failed to achieve any
meaningful progress; in fact, in 2011, DHS identified over 400 human
capital systems and applications still in use.
In a report being released today, the Government Accountability
Office (GAO) found that after 12 years and at least $180 million
appropriated by Congress, DHS is no closer to improving its human
capital management; 95 percent of the key HRIT strategic projects have
not been completed--many were to be done 4 years ago. Yet today, DHS
has no idea when or if these projects will be finished. HRIT is a
poster child for inept management:
Senior leaders on the Executive Steering Committee
responsible for overseeing the work met only once in almost 2
years;
DHS didn't maintain a schedule to know when projects would
be done; and
Officials failed to estimate the total costs of HRIT and
failed to track how much has been spent to date.
Let's pause to think about this; DHS has no idea how $180 million
appropriated by the people's representatives in Congress have been
spent, which is reprehensible and unacceptable. If businesses managed
their budgets this way, they would be out of business. As a result of
this botched management, DHS's systems remain outdated, inefficient,
and at high risk to future waste. Of particular concern is DHS's
inadequate progress in managing how employees separate, or ``off-
board,'' from the agency, which leaves the Department at high risk of
security infractions. Given the recent hack of DHS employee data, a
poor off-boarding process makes DHS vulnerable to cyber threats, as
well as physical breaches at DHS facilities, which threatens employees
and sensitive information.
Despite these failures, DHS says it has made progress in
consolidating its performance management and learning system--PALMS--to
track training for employees and maintain performance information on
its workforce. The Department praised its efforts to consolidate these
systems as a ``success story'' in a report required by legislation
passed by this subcommittee that was signed into law last year. Far
from it, GAO found that implementation of PALMS remains a jumble with
some components implementing PALMS, some not, and others only
implementing part of the system. DHS was again reckless with taxpayer
money by not fully estimating the costs, tracking total costs,
developing a sufficient schedule, or monitoring risks to the project.
DHS will have to continue to use cumbersome, time-consuming, and paper-
based processes to manage the performance and training of its
workforce. Without a more robust process for documenting employee
performance, managers face significant hurdles in removing poor
performers.
I appreciate the hard work of our watchdogs at GAO to bring these
issues to light. Mr. Fulghum and Ms. Bailey, I'm outraged by the
ineptitude laid out in this report. DHS violates the trust of the
taxpayer when it doesn't know how hundreds of millions of taxpayer
dollars are spent. Undoubtedly, we'll hear your plans to fix this mess
and implement GAO's 14 recommendations; but I also want to know who has
been and will be held accountable for this failure. The American people
expect better from DHS 14 years after its creation.
Mr. Perry. With that, the Chair now recognizes the Ranking
Minority Member of the subcommittee, the gentlelady from New
Jersey, Mrs. Watson Coleman, for her statement.
Mrs. Watson Coleman. Thank you, Mr Perry. Thank you for
holding this committee meeting today.
Thank you all for being here.
The report on HRIT released today by the Government
Accountability Office makes clear that after more than a decade
of sustained investment in HRIT, the program has provided
virtually none of the capabilities that DHS leaders initially
hoped the program would yield.
The absence of the management tools expected from HRIT has
created real gaps in human resource management at DHS.
GAO's new report on HRIT and previous reviews of DHS's
management have found that a combination of fragmented,
duplicative and paper-based personnel information systems have
resulted in high administrative costs, shortfalls in employee
skills or numbers, great difficulty in strategic management of
human capital across DHS and potential violations of DHS's
security policies.
A recent report prepared by DHS for Congress, required
under a law reported from the committee last year, echoes these
same concerns. It leads me to wonder how many times DHS has had
to improvise to fill gaps that are left by HRIT's failures to
date.
Two reports issued last month by the Department's own
inspector general underscore the toll taken by HRIT
shortcomings. One of these reports notes that the Department
will not complete implementation of a Performance and Learning
Management System, PALMS, developed as part of HRIT, until
2017. The IG finds that without PALMS operating at full
capacity, DHS lacks an effective governance structure for
training and oversight.
Information I have read indicates that some of the
components are resistant to even using PALMS, so I need to
understand how you are addressing that issue, if that is true.
In another January 2016 report, the DHS IG raises several
concerns with regard to the $1.2 billion HR access contract
awarded by the TSA in 2008 to support the recruitment and
hiring of the workforce responsible for the security of the
traveling public in the United States. The IG notes that TSA
will award a similar contract with performance starting next
year.
Ms. Bailey, I realize that DHS Chief Information Officer
Luke McCormack has taken charge of the HRIT investment. But as
a representative of DHS human capital managers left empty-
handed by HRIT, I very much hope that you will make clear how
the Department plans to recover from HRIT's performance to date
and to reinvigorate human resource management at DHS.
Having said that, gaps in management capability and risks
associated with these gaps don't just happen by accident.
Mr. Fulghum, we respect your distinguished service to your
country for almost 3 decades in uniform and as a leader in the
Department's management directorate since October 2012.
Nevertheless, I feel compelled to tell you that the
Department's HRIT experience must impress upon you and other
DHS leaders that acquisition management has to improve
demonstrably for programs at all phases of the acquisition life
cycle and it must do so now.
The Department's responsibility to steward public
resources, even as DHS protects the American people, demands no
less.
Mr. Fulghum, I cannot understand how the Department will
continue a complex, multi-million-dollar acquisition for more
than a decade without a current schedule, a validated estimate
of life-cycle costs, a complete accounting of costs incurred,
or the assurance that the planning document for HRIT reflects
the Department's current priorities and goals.
Mr. Chairman, on this past Tuesday, the House passed the
DHS Acquisition Documentation Integrity Act of 2016 which I
introduced earlier this month. The bill's language codifies
best practices already embodied in DHS's acquisition policy and
builds upon an acquisition decision memorandum issued in April
2015 to ensure a regular, transparent reporting of acquisition
programs' performance to DHS leadership and to Congress.
Mr. Chairman, as we have seen in the case of HRIT, anything
less than an up-to-date acquisition documentation increases the
odds of cost and schedule overruns, risks delayed delivery of
critical capabilities and depletes resources needed to address
future requirements.
Congress and the Department simply cannot allow GAO's
latest report on HRIT or this hearing to fade into a background
already overpopulated with other reports and hearings on poor
management at DHS. On so many levels, the American people
cannot afford that.
With that, Mr. Chairman, I yield back my time.
[The statement of Ranking Member Watson Coleman follows:]
Statement of Ranking Member Bonnie Watson Coleman
February 25, 2016
Today, the subcommittee meets to respond to a serious management
challenge facing the Department of Homeland Security--specifically, how
does DHS build and maintain the large, complex workforce needed to keep
Americans safe? When the Department began its operations in the wake of
September 11, it was the largest reorganization of the U.S. Government
since the end of World War II.
Aware that the Department's critical work would require something
on the scale of today's DHS--with 240,000 employees working in 16
operating and support components--leaders within and across these
functions knew they would need tools for the full range of activities
involved in managing people in an organization of the Department's
scale and scope.
To put management of the new Department's workforce on a solid
footing, DHS initiated the Human Resource Information Technology or
``HRIT'' investment in 2003. The report on HRIT released today by the
Government Accountability Office makes clear that after more than a
decade of sustained investment in HRIT, the program has provided
virtually none of the capabilities that DHS leaders initially hoped the
program would yield.
The absence of the management tools expected from HRIT has created
real gaps in human resource management at DHS. GAO's new report on HRIT
and previous reviews of DHS management have found that a combination of
fragmented, duplicative, and paper-based personnel information systems
have resulted in high administrative costs, shortfalls in employee
skills or numbers, great difficulty in strategic management of human
capital across DHS, and potential violations of DHS security policies.
A recent report prepared by DHS for Congress--required under a law
reported from this committee last year--echoes these same concerns.
It leaves me to wonder how many times DHS has had to improvise to
fill gaps left by HRIT's failures to date. Two reports issued last
month by the Department's own Inspector General underscore the toll
taken by HRIT's shortcomings:
One of these reports notes that the Department will not complete
implementation of a Performance and Learning Management System (PALMS)
developed as part of HRIT until 2017. The IG finds that without PALMS
operating at full capacity, DHS lacks an effective governance structure
for training oversight.
In another January 2016 report, the DHS IG raises several concerns
with regard to the $1.2 billion ``HR Access'' contract, awarded by the
Transportation Security Administration in 2008, to support the
recruitment and hiring of the workforce responsible for the security of
the traveling public in the United States. The IG notes that TSA will
award a similar contract, with performance starting next year.
Ms. Bailey, I realize that DHS Chief Information Officer Luke
McCormack has taken charge of the HRIT investment. But as the
representative of DHS human capital managers left empty-handed by HRIT,
I very much hope that you will make clear how the Department plans to
recover from HRIT's performance to date, and to reinvigorate human
resource management at DHS.
Having said that, gaps in management capability and the risks
associated with these gaps don't just happen by accident.
Mr. Fulghum, we respect your distinguished service to your country
for almost 3 decades in uniform, and as a leader in the Department's
management directorate since October 2012.
Nevertheless, I feel compelled to tell you that the Department's
HRIT experience must impress upon you and other DHS leaders that
acquisition management has to improve, demonstrably, for programs at
all phases of the acquisition life cycle--and it must do so now. The
Department's responsibility to steward public resources, even as DHS
protects the American people, demands no less.
Mr. Fulghum, I cannot understand how the Department would continue
a complex, multimillion-dollar acquisition for more than a decade
without a current schedule, a validated estimate of life-cycle costs, a
complete accounting of costs incurred, or the assurance that the
planning document for HRIT reflects the Department's current priorities
and goals.
Mr. Chairman, on this past Tuesday, the House passed the ``DHS
Acquisition Documentation Integrity Act of 2016,'' which I introduced
earlier this month. The bill's language codifies best practices already
embodied in DHS acquisition policy, and builds upon an Acquisition
Decision Memorandum issued in April 2015 to ensure regular, transparent
reporting of acquisition programs' performance to DHS leadership and
Congress.
Mr. Chairman, as we've seen in the case of HRIT, anything less than
up-to-date acquisition documentation increases the odds of cost and
schedule overruns; risks delayed delivery of critical capabilities; and
depletes resources needed to address future requirements.
Congress and the Department simply cannot allow GAO's latest report
on HRIT or this hearing to fade into a background already overpopulated
with other reports and hearings on poor management at DHS. On so many
levels, the American people cannot afford that.
Mr. Perry. The Chair thanks the gentlelady.
Other Members of the subcommittee are reminded that opening
statements may be submitted for the record.
[The statement of Ranking Member Thompson follows:]
Statement of Ranking Member Bennie G. Thompson
It is not shocking that the subject of today's hearing is another
acquisition failure at the Department. The Government Accountability
Office has found that DHS has made little progress in implementing its
Human Resources Information Technology Investment (HRIT). HRIT was
created to consolidate, integrate, and modernize the Department's
information technology infrastructure that supports human resources.
It is no secret that DHS has been plagued with acquisition
failures. This committee, in a bipartisan fashion, has exercised
vigorous oversight over DHS acquisitions. The committee has also
produced bipartisan legislation on DHS acquisitions. Just this week,
the House passed more common-sense legislation to reform DHS
acquisitions. H.R. 4398, authored by the Ranking Member of this
subcommittee, requires regular reporting on the progress of DHS
acquisitions to Congress. What I do find appalling is that the
Department official ultimately responsible for both acquisition and
human resource management at DHS is not appearing today.
Under Secretary Deyo, the under secretary for management, has not
appeared before the committee since assuming his duties at DHS. Even
though the Government Accountability Office has noted that management
challenges at DHS are among the most serious programmatic risks facing
the U.S. Government, the under secretary is not here to address GAO's
findings or receive questions from Members.
Today's hearing involves significant concerns with respect to the
management of DHS personnel, information technology, and acquisition
actions all of which fall squarely within the under secretary's
responsibilities. The Department's poor performance on the Office of
Personnel Management's Federal Employee View Point Survey underscores
DHS's human capital management challenges. Additionally, GAO introduced
a new high-risk area for DHS in its high-risk update focused on
``Improving the Management of IT Acquisitions and Operations''.
Unfortunately, the Department's HRIT investment provides a glaring
case-in-point: GAO's report on HRIT provides the following box score
for the program--after more than 12 years of sustained investment, no
validated program baselines; uncertainty about the validity of
requirements; virtually no capabilities fully delivered; and no
complete accounting of program costs to date.
Finally, GAO's report finds that an executive steering committee
for HRIT--composed of senior DHS officials--met only once between
September 2013 and June 2015. This committee has seen too many cases of
poor program discipline at DHS translating into acquisition programs
beset by cost overruns and schedule delays. Mr. Chairman, I hope that
today's hearing offers a full record of the lapses that have left HRIT
in its current predicament. I also hope that our witnesses will also
explain the Department's plan to recover value from the HRIT
investment, and to reform DHS acquisition management.
Mr. Perry. We are pleased to have a distinguished panel of
witnesses before us today. The witnesses' entire written
statements will appear in the record.
The Chair will introduce all of the witnesses first and
then recognize each of you for your testimony.
Ms. Carol Cha is director of the information technology
acquisition management issues at the Government Accountability
Office, the GAO. In this position, Ms. Cha oversees GAO's
evaluation of information technology programs across the
Federal Government. Ms. Cha is a member of the Senior Executive
Service and joined GAO in 2002.
Welcome.
The honorable Chip Fulghum is the deputy under secretary
for management and chief financial officer for the Department
of Homeland Security. Mr. Fulghum joined DHS in October 2012 as
its budget director. Prior to joining the Department, Mr.
Fulghum served for 28 years in the United States Air Force,
retiring with the rank of colonel.
Thank you for your service, sir.
Ms. Angela Bailey is the chief human capital officer for
the Department of Homeland Security. Prior to joining DHS in
January 2016, Ms. Bailey was the chief operating officer at the
Office of Personnel Management. Ms. Bailey has almost 35 years
of public service with more than 25 years in human resources.
Thank you for your service, Ms. Bailey.
Thank you all for being here today. The Chair recognizes
Ms. Cha for her opening statement.
STATEMENT OF CAROL R. CHA, DIRECTOR, INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY
ACQUISITION MANAGEMENT ISSUES, U.S. GOVERNMENT ACCOUNTABILITY
OFFICE
Ms. Cha. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, Ranking
Member Watson Coleman and Members of the subcommittee, thank
you for inviting us to testify today on DHS's human resources
IT investment.
As requested, I will briefly summarize the findings from
our report, completed at your request on this very important IT
acquisition.
DHS's human resources environment includes at least 422
fragmented systems and applications as well as duplicative and
paper-based processes. HRIT was initiated in 2003 to
consolidate, integrate, and modernize this infrastructure
across the Department and its components.
The objective of this investment is to enable complete
visibility of all employees in order to strategically manage
the workforce and best deploy people in support of homeland
security missions.
The enterprise-wide business capabilities expected to be
delivered under HRIT includes end-to-end hiring, payroll action
processing, training and performance management, among many
others. Unfortunately, this investment has largely been
neglected and the Department has not come close to fulfilling
this objective.
This morning I would like to highlight 3 key points from
our report.
First, the lack of progress made to implement HRIT. While
DHS initiated HRIT in 2003, the Department redefined its scope
and implementation time frames in 2011. In particular, DHS
identified 15 business capabilities to be improved and planned
for the vast majority of them to be implemented by June 2015.
As of November 2015, only 1 has been fully implemented, 5
are partially complete and work has yet to begin on the
remaining 9. Furthermore, the current expected completion dates
for these 14 open ones are unknown.
Additionally, HRIT has made limited progress in achieving
key performance targets outlined in its strategic plan for
fiscal year 2012 through 2016. HRIT is expected to reduce
component-specific services by 46 percent. It is also expected
to increase Department-wide services by 38 percent. However,
since 2012, HRIT has achieved improvements in each of these
target areas by only 8 percent.
Second, DHS's lack of executive oversight. The HRIT
Executive Steering Committee, which is the investment's core
oversight body, was minimally involved for nearly 2 years,
meeting only once from 2013 through 2015 during a time when
significant issues were occurring.
For example, HRIT's only on-going acquisition called the
Performance and Learning Management System experienced years-
long schedule delays and had 5 different program managers
during this time.
The lack of meetings resulted in key governance activities
not being completed, such as the approval of the investment's
expenditure plan for fiscal year 2014 through 2019.
Additionally, the Steering Committee did not ensure HRIT
had key management controls to effectively monitor performance
and inform decisions. In particular, HRIT lacked a current
integrated master schedule, a life-cycle cost estimate and an
ability to track total actual costs incurred to date.
More recently, the HRIT Executive Steering Committee met in
June and October 2015 and DHS officials have indicated that the
committee will meet quarterly moving forward. However, this
will likely not be frequent enough to ensure effective delivery
of the remaining 14 capabilities.
Given its state, we identified HRIT as one of a handful of
major IT acquisitions across the Federal Government, in need of
the most attention on GAO's high-risk list. As such, the
Department should rethink its decision and consider meeting on
a monthly basis, an action consistent with its own policies for
overseeing IT investments designated as high-risk.
Third, HRIT's acquisition strategy, also known as the
blueprint, may not reflect the Department's current priorities
and goals. The blueprint was issued over 4 years ago and has
not been updated since. As such, the Department does not know
whether the remaining 14 business capabilities are still valid
and appropriately prioritized based on current mission needs.
According to the Department, it is still committed to
implementing the blueprint, but agree that it should be
reevaluated. DHS expects to complete this and update the
blueprint by the end of April 2016.
In light of these issues, we made a total of 14
recommendations to address HRIT's poor progress and ineffective
management. Moving forward, it will be critical for DHS to
effectively implement them in order to improve HRIT outcomes
and provide the Department with complete employee information
necessary to more effectively carry out its mission.
That concludes my statement and I look forward to
addressing your questions.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Cha follows:]
Prepared Statement of Carol R. Cha
February 25, 2016
gao highlights
Highlights of GAO-16-407T, a testimony before the Subcommittee on
Oversight and Management Efficiency, Committee on Homeland Security,
House of Representatives.
Why GAO Did This Study
DHS's human resources information technology environment includes
fragmented systems, duplicative and paper-based processes, and little
uniformity of data management practices, which according to DHS, are
compromising the Department's ability to effectively carry out its
mission. DHS initiated HRIT in 2003 to consolidate, integrate, and
modernize DHS's human resources information technology infrastructure.
In 2011, DHS redefined HRIT's scope and implementation time frames.
This statement summarizes GAO's report that is being released at
today's hearing (GAO-16-253) on, among other objectives, the progress
DHS has made in implementing the HRIT investment and how effectively it
managed the investment.
What GAO Recommends
In its report that is being released today, GAO made 14
recommendations to DHS to, among other things, address HRIT's poor
progress and ineffective management. For example, GAO recommended that
the HRIT executive steering committee be consistently involved in
overseeing and advising the investment, and that DHS establish time
frames for re-evaluating HRIT and develop a complete life-cycle cost
estimate for the investment. DHS concurred with the 14 recommendations
and provided estimated completion dates for implementing each of them.
homeland security.--weak oversight of human resources information
technology investment needs considerable improvement
What GAO Found
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has made very little
progress in implementing its Human Resources Information Technology
(HRIT) investment over the last several years. This investment includes
15 improvement areas; as of November 2015, DHS had fully implemented
only 1.
HRIT's limited progress was due in part to the lack of involvement
of its executive steering committee--the investment's core oversight
and advisory body. Specifically, this committee was minimally involved
with HRIT, such as meeting only once during a nearly 2-year period when
major problems were occurring, including schedule delays and the lack
of a life-cycle cost estimate. As a result, key governance activities,
such as approval of HRIT's operational plan, were not completed.
Officials acknowledge that HRIT should be re-evaluated. They have met
to discuss it; however, specific actions and time frames have not yet
been determined. Until DHS takes key actions to manage this neglected
investment, it is unknown when its human capital management weaknesses
will be addressed.
Chairman Perry, Ranking Member Watson Coleman, and Members of the
subcommittee: I am pleased to be here today to discuss the Department
of Homeland Security's (DHS) efforts to implement the Human Resources
Information Technology (HRIT) investment. Since DHS was created in 2002
and merged 22 agencies into 1 department with 8 components, its human
resources environment has included fragmented systems, duplicative and
paper-based processes, and little uniformity of data management
practices. According to DHS, these limitations in its human resources
environment are compromising the Department's ability to effectively
and efficiently carry out its mission.\1\ To address these issues, DHS
initiated HRIT in 2003 to consolidate, integrate, and modernize the
Department's information technology (IT) infrastructure that supports
human resources.
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\1\ DHS, Human Capital Segment Architecture Blueprint, Version 1.0
(Aug. 9, 2011).
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The information in my testimony is based on our report being
released at today's hearing on the results of our review of DHS's
implementation of HRIT.\2\ Specifically, my remarks today summarize key
findings from that study, which: (1) Evaluated the progress DHS has
made in implementing the HRIT investment and how effectively DHS
managed the investment, (2) determined whether the Performance and
Learning Management System (PALMS)--HRIT's only on-going program--is
being implemented enterprise-wide, and (3) evaluated the extent to
which PALMS is implementing selected IT acquisition best practices.
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\2\ GAO, Homeland Security: Oversight of Neglected Human Resources
Information Technology Investment Is Needed, GAO-16-253 (Washington,
DC: Feb. 11, 2016).
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For our report, we, among other things, compared HRIT's goals,
scope, and implementation time frames to the investment's actual
accomplishments. Additionally, we analyzed HRIT and PALMS
documentation, such as program management briefings, the PALMS
acquisition plan, and cost and schedule estimates, and compared them
against relevant IT acquisition best practices identified by GAO, the
Software Engineering Institute at Carnegie Mellon University, and the
Project Management Institute, Inc.\3\ More details on the objectives,
scope, and methodology are provided in the report. The work on which
this statement is based was conducted in accordance with generally
accepted Government auditing standards.
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\3\ GAO, GAO Cost Estimating and Assessment Guide: Best Practices
for Developing and Managing Capital Program Costs, GAO-09-3SP
(Washington, DC: March 2009); GAO Schedule Assessment Guide: Best
Practices for Project Schedules, GAO-16-89G (Washington, DC: Dec. 22,
2015); Software Engineering Institute, Capability Maturity Model
Integration for Acquisition (CMMI-ACQ), Version 1.3 (Pittsburgh, PA:
November 2010); and Project Management Institute, Inc., A Guide to the
Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK Guide), Fifth Edition,
(Newton Square, PA: 2013). ``PMBOK'' is a trademark of the Project
Management Institute, Inc.
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background
According to DHS, the limitations in its human resources
environment, which includes fragmented systems and duplicative and
paper-based processes, were compromising the Department's ability to
effectively and efficiently carry out its mission.\4\ For example,
according to DHS, the Department does not have information on all of
its employees, which reduces its abilities to strategically manage its
workforce and best deploy people in support of homeland security
missions. Additionally, according to DHS, reporting and analyzing
enterprise human capital data are currently time-consuming, labor-
intensive, and challenging because the Department's data management
largely consists of disconnected, stand-alone systems, with multiple
data sources for the same content.
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\4\ DHS, Human Capital Segment Architecture Blueprint, Version 1.0
(Aug. 9, 2011).
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To address these issues, in 2003, DHS initiated the HRIT
investment, which is intended to consolidate, integrate, and modernize
the Department's and its components' human resources IT infrastructure.
These components include U.S. Customs and Border Protection, the
Federal Emergency Management Agency, the Federal Law Enforcement
Training Center, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the
Transportation Security Administration, U.S. Citizenship and
Immigration Services, the U.S. Coast Guard, and the U.S. Secret
Service.
HRIT is managed by DHS's Human Capital Business Systems unit, which
is within the Office of the Chief Human Capital Officer and has overall
responsibility for HRIT. Additionally, the Office of the Chief
Information Officer plays a key supporting role in the implementation
of HRIT by reviewing headquarters' and components' human resources
investments, identifying redundancies and efficiencies, and delivering
and maintaining enterprise IT systems.
From 2003 to 2010, DHS made limited progress on the HRIT
investment, as reported by DHS's inspector general.\5\ This was due to,
among other things, limited coordination with and commitment from DHS's
components. To address this problem, in 2010 the DHS deputy secretary
issued a memorandum emphasizing that DHS's wide variety of human
resources processes and IT systems inhibited the ability to unify DHS
and negatively impacted operating costs. Accordingly, the deputy
secretary memorandum prohibited component spending on enhancements to
existing human resources systems or acquisitions of new solutions,
unless those expenditures were approved by the offices of the chief
human capital officer or chief information officer. The memorandum also
directed these offices to develop a Department-wide human resources
architecture.
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\5\ DHS Office of Inspector General, Management Oversight and
Component Participation Are Necessary to Complete DHS' Human Resource
Systems Consolidation Effort, OIG-10-99 (Washington, DC: July 1, 2010).
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In 2011, in response to the deputy secretary's direction, the
Department developed a strategic planning document referred to as the
Human Capital Segment Architecture blueprint, which redefined the HRIT
investment's scope and implementation time frames. As part of this
effort, DHS conducted a system inventory and determined that it had 422
human resources systems and applications, many of which were single-use
solutions developed to respond to a small need or links to enable
disparate systems to work together. DHS reported that these numerous,
antiquated, and fragmented systems inhibited its ability to perform
basic workforce management functions necessary to support mission
critical programs.
To address this issue, the blueprint articulated that HRIT would be
comprised of 15 strategic improvement opportunity areas (e.g., enabling
seamless, efficient, and transparent end-to-end hiring) and outlined 77
associated projects (e.g., deploying a Department-wide hiring system)
to implement these 15 opportunities.
HRIT's only on-going program is called PALMS and is intended to
fully address the Performance Management strategic improvement
opportunity area and its 3 associated projects. PALMS is attempting to
implement a commercial off-the-shelf software product that is to be
provided as a service \6\ in order to enable, among other things,
comprehensive enterprise-wide tracking, reporting, and analysis of
employee learning and performance for DHS headquarters and its 8
components. Specifically, PALMS is expected to deliver the following
capabilities:
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\6\ For software provided as a service, a consumer uses a
provider's applications that are accessible from various client devices
through an interface such as a web browser (e.g., web-based e-mail).
The consumer does not manage or control the underlying infrastructure
or the individual application capabilities.
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Learning management.--The learning management capabilities
are intended to manage the life cycle of learning activities
for all DHS employees and contractors. It is intended to, among
other things, act as a gateway for accessing training at DHS
and record training information when a user has completed a
course. Additionally, it is expected to replace 9 disparate
learning management systems with 1 unified system.
Performance management.--The performance management
capabilities are intended to move DHS's existing primarily
paper-based performance management processes into an electronic
environment and capture performance-related information
throughout the performance cycle (e.g., recording performance
expectations discussed at the beginning of the rating period
and performance ratings at the end of it).
Each component is responsible for its own PALMS implementation
project, and is expected to issue a task order using a blanket purchase
agreement that was established in May 2013 with an estimated value of
$95 million.\7\ The headquarters PALMS program management office is
responsible for overseeing the implementation projects across the
Department. Additionally, the office of the chief information officer
is the component acquisition executive responsible for overseeing
PALMS.\8\
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\7\ A blanket purchase agreement is a method of filling anticipated
repetitive needs for supplies or services by establishing ``charge
accounts'' with qualified sources of supply. These agreements between
agencies and vendors have terms in place for future use and agencies
issue individual orders to fulfill requirements for goods and services
as they arise; funds are obligated when orders are placed.
\8\ DHS classifies its acquisition programs into 3 levels to
determine the extent and scope of required project and program
management, the level of reporting requirements, and the acquisition
decision authority. Component acquisition executives are the senior
acquisition officials within the components, responsible for, among
other things, acting as the acquisition decision authority for Level 3
programs (including PALMS) and establishing component-level acquisition
policy and processes.
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In addition, according to DHS officials, as of September 2014,
PALMS was expected to address part of our High-Risk Series on
strengthening DHS's management functions.\9\ Specifically, PALMS is
intended to address challenges in integrating employee training
management across all the components, including centralizing training
and consolidating training data into 1 system.
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\9\ GAO, High-Risk Series: An Update, GAO-03-119 (Washington, DC:
Jan. 1, 2003).
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dhs has made very little progress in implementing hrit; investment
lacked effective management
DHS has made very limited progress in addressing the 15 strategic
improvement opportunities and the 77 associated projects included in
HRIT. According to the Human Capital Segment Architecture Blueprint,
DHS planned to implement 14 of the 15 strategic improvement
opportunities and 68 of the 77 associated projects by June 2015; and
the remaining improvement opportunity and 9 associated projects by
December 2016. However, as of November 2015, DHS had fully implemented
only 1 of the strategic improvement opportunities, which included 2
associated projects. Table 1 summarizes the implementation status and
planned completion dates of the strategic improvement opportunities--
listed in the order of DHS's assigned priority--as of November 2015.
DHS has partially implemented 5 of the other strategic improvement
opportunities, but it is unknown when they will be fully addressed.
Further, HRIT officials stated that DHS has not yet started to work on
the remaining 9 improvement opportunities, and the officials did not
know when they would be addressed.
Additionally, DHS developed an HRIT strategic plan for fiscal years
2012 through 2016 that outlined the investment's key goals and
objectives, including reducing duplication and improving efficiencies
in the Department's human resources processes and systems. The
strategic plan identified, among other things, 2 performance metrics
that were focused on reductions in the number of component-specific
human resources IT services provided and increases in the number of
Department-wide HRIT services provided by the end of fiscal year 2016.
However, DHS has also made limited progress in achieving these 2
performance targets. Figure 1 provides a summary of HRIT's progress
towards achieving its service delivery performance targets.
Key causes for DHS's lack of progress in implementing HRIT and its
associated strategic improvement opportunities include unplanned
resource changes and the lack of involvement of the HRIT executive
steering committee. These causes are discussed in detail below:
Unplanned resource changes.--DHS elected to dedicate the
vast majority of HRIT's resources to implementing PALMS and
addressing its problems, rather than initiating additional HRIT
strategic improvement opportunities. Specifically, PALMS--which
began in July 2012--experienced programmatic and technical
challenges that led to years-long schedule delays.\10\ For
example, while the PALMS system for headquarters was originally
planned to be delivered by a vendor in December 2013, as of
November 2015, the expected delivery date was delayed until the
end of February 2016--an over 2-year delay. HRIT officials
explained the decision to focus primarily on PALMS was due, in
part, to the investment's declining funding. However, in doing
so, attention was concentrated on the immediate issues
affecting PALMS and diverted from the longer-term HRIT mission.
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\10\ PALMS program management office officials attributed these
slippages to multiple causes, including, among other things, the
vendor's commercial off-the-shelf system not meeting certain
requirements that it was expected to meet, thereby requiring the vendor
to customize the system to meet those requirements. As of November
2015, according to PALMS headquarters officials, DHS had 483 baseline
requirements, 32 of which needed customizations, and 5 of these 32
requirements still needed to be fully addressed by the vendor. DHS
expected these requirements to be met by the end of February 2016.
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Lack of involvement of the HRIT executive steering
committee.--The HRIT executive steering committee--which is
chaired by the Department's under secretary for management and
co-chaired by the chief information officer and chief human
capital officer--is intended to be the core oversight and
advisory body for all DHS-wide matters related to human capital
IT investments, expenditures, projects, and initiatives. In
addition, according to the committee's charter, the committee
is to approve and provide guidance on the Department's mission,
vision, and strategies for the HRIT program.
However, the executive steering committee only met once from
September 2013 through June 2015--in July 2014--and was
minimally involved with HRIT for that almost 2-year period. It
is important to note that DHS replaced its chief information
officer (the executive steering committee's co-chair) in
December 2013--during this gap in oversight. Also during this
time period HRIT's only on-going program--PALMS--was
experiencing significant problems, including schedule slippages
and frequent turnover in its program manager position (i.e.,
PALMS had 5 different program managers during the time that the
HRIT executive steering committee was minimally involved). As a
result of the executive steering committee not meeting, key
governance activities were not completed on HRIT. For example,
the committee did not approve HRIT's notional operational plan
for fiscal years 2014 through 2019.\11\ Officials from the
offices of the chief human capital officer and chief
information officer attributed the lack of HRIT executive
steering committee meetings and committee involvement in HRIT
to the investment's focus being only on the PALMS program to
address its issues, as discussed earlier. However, by not
regularly meeting and providing oversight during a time when a
new co-chair for the executive steering committee assumed
responsibility and PALMS was experiencing such problems, the
committee's guidance to the troubled program was limited.
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\11\ HRIT's notional operational plan for fiscal years 2014 through
2019 identified the high-level projects and activities that HRIT
planned to fund each year and the planned phase of each project (e.g.,
planning, acquisition, operations and maintenance).
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More recently, the HRIT executive steering committee met in June
and October 2015, and officials from the offices of the chief
human capital officer and chief information officer stated that
the committee planned to meet quarterly going forward. However,
while the committee's charter specified that it meet on at
least a monthly basis for the first year, the charter does not
specify the frequency of meetings following that year.
Furthermore, the committee's charter has not been updated to
reflect the increased frequency of these meetings.
As a result of the limited progress in implementing HRIT, DHS is
unaware of when critical weaknesses in the Department's human capital
environment will be addressed, which is, among other things, impacting
DHS's ability to carry out its mission. For example, the end-to-end
hiring strategic improvement opportunity (which has an unknown
implementation date) was intended to streamline numerous systems and
multiple hand-offs in order to more efficiently and effectively hire
appropriately skilled personnel, thus enabling a quicker response to
emergencies, catastrophic events, and threats.
We recommended in our report that DHS's Under Secretary for
Management update the HRIT executive steering committee charter to
establish the frequency with which the committee meetings are to be
held, and ensure that the committee is consistently involved in
overseeing and advising HRIT. DHS agreed with both of these
recommendations and stated that the executive steering committee
charter would be updated accordingly by the end of February 2016; and
that by April 30, 2016, the under secretary plans to ensure that the
committee is consistently involved in overseeing and advising HRIT.
HRIT Lacked a Current Schedule, Life-Cycle Cost Estimate, and Cost
Tracking
According to the GAO Schedule Assessment Guide, a key activity in
effectively managing a program and ensuring progress is establishing
and maintaining a schedule estimate. Specifically, a well-maintained
schedule enables programs to gauge progress, identify and resolve
potential problems, and forecast dates for program activities and
completion of the program.\12\
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\12\ GAO-16-89G.
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In August 2011, DHS established initiation and completion dates for
each of the 15 strategic improvement opportunities within the Human
Capital Segment Architecture Blueprint. Additionally, HRIT developed a
slightly more detailed schedule for fiscal years 2014 through 2021 that
updated planned completion dates for aspects of some strategic
improvement opportunities, but not all.
However, DHS did not update and maintain either schedule after they
were developed. Specifically, neither schedule was updated to reflect
that DHS did not implement 13 of the 15 improvement opportunities by
their planned completion dates--several of which should have been
implemented over 3 years ago. HRIT officials attributed the lack of
schedule updates to the investment's focus shifting to the PALMS
program when it started experiencing significant schedule delays.
Without developing and maintaining a current schedule showing when DHS
plans to implement the strategic improvement opportunities, DHS and
Congress will be limited in their ability to oversee and ensure DHS's
progress in implementing HRIT.
We recommended that the Department update and maintain a schedule
estimate for when DHS plans to implement each of the strategic
improvement opportunities. In response, DHS concurred with our
recommendation and stated that, by April 30, 2016, the DHS chief
information officer will update and maintain a schedule estimate for
each of the strategic improvement opportunities.
HRIT Did Not Have a Life-Cycle Cost Estimate
The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) requires that agencies
prepare total estimated life-cycle costs for IT investments.\13\
Program management best practices also stress that key activities in
planning and managing a program include establishing a life-cycle cost
estimate and tracking costs expended.\14\ A life-cycle cost estimate
supports budgetary decisions and key decision points, and should
include all costs for planning, procurement, and operations and
maintenance of a program.\15\
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\13\ OMB, Fiscal Year 2016, Capital Planning Guidance (Washington,
DC: May 2014).
\14\ CMMI-ACQ, Project Planning and Project Monitoring and Control
Process Areas; PMBOK Guide, Project Cost Management; and GAO-09-3SP.
\15\ GAO-09-3SP.
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Officials from the Office of the Chief Human Capital Officer stated
that a draft life-cycle cost estimate for HRIT was developed, but that
it was not completed or finalized because detailed projects plans for
the associated projects had not been developed or approved. According
to the Human Capital Segment Architecture blueprint, the Office of the
Chief Human Capital Officer roughly estimated that implementing all of
the projects could cost up to $120 million. However, the blueprint
specified that this figure did not represent the life-cycle cost
estimate; rather it was intended to be a preliminary estimate to
initiate projects. Without a life-cycle cost estimate, DHS has limited
information about how much it will cost to implement HRIT, which
hinders the Department's ability to, among other things, make budgetary
decisions and informed milestone review decisions.
Accordingly, we recommended that DHS develop a complete life-cycle
cost estimate for the implementation of the HRIT investment. DHS agreed
with our recommendation and stated that, by June 30, 2016, the DHS
chief information officer will direct development of a complete life-
cycle cost estimate for the implementation of HRIT's strategic
improvement opportunities.
DHS Did Not Track All Costs Incurred on HRIT
According to CMMI-ACQ and the PMBOK Guide, programs should track
program costs in order to effectively manage the program and make
resource adjustments accordingly. In particular, tracking and
monitoring costs enables a program to recognize variances from the plan
in order to take corrective action and minimize risk.\16\
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\16\ CMMI-ACQ, Project Monitoring and Control Process Area; PMBOK
Guide, Project Cost Management.
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However, DHS has not tracked the total actual costs incurred on
implementing HRIT across the enterprise to date. Specifically, while
the investment received line item appropriations for fiscal years 2005
through 2015 which totaled at least $180 million,\17\ DHS was unable to
provide all cost information on HRIT activities since it began in 2003,
including all Government-related activities and component costs that
were financed through the working capital fund, which, according to DHS
officials from multiple offices, were provided separately from the at
least $180 million appropriated specifically to HRIT.\18\ Officials
from the Office of the Chief Human Capital Officer attributed the lack
of cost tracking to, among other things, the investment's early
reliance on contractors to track costs, and said that the costs were
not well-maintained nor centrally-tracked, and included incomplete
component-provided cost information. The components were also unable to
provide us with complete information.
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\17\ Appropriations acts passed for fiscal years 2003 through 2004
did not include a line item appropriating specific funds to HRIT and
DHS officials were unaware of how much had been appropriated for those
years.
\18\ The working capital fund is available to DHS for expenses and
equipment necessary for maintenance and operations of administrative
services that the Secretary of Homeland Security determines would be
performed more advantageously as central services. Pub. L. No. 108-90,
117 Stat. 1137, 1153, 506 (2003).
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Consequently, we recommended that the Department document and track
all costs, including components' costs, associated with HRIT. DHS
concurred and stated that, by October 31, 2016, the DHS chief
information officer will direct the HRIT investment to document and
track all costs associated with HRIT.
hrit's 2011 blueprint may not be valid and reflective of dhs's current
priorities and goals
According to the HRIT executive steering committee's charter, the
under secretary for management (as the chair of the committee) is to
ensure that the Department's human resources IT business needs are met,
as outlined in the blueprint. Additionally, according to the GPRA
(Government Performance and Results Act) Modernization Act of 2010,
agency strategic plans should be updated at least every 4 years. While
this is a legal requirement for agency strategic plans (the Human
Capital Segment Architecture blueprint does not fall under the category
of an ``agency strategic plan''), it is considered a best practice for
other strategic planning documents, such as the blueprint.
However, the Department issued the blueprint in August 2011
(approximately 4.5 years ago) and has not updated it since. As a
result, the Department does not know whether the remaining 14 strategic
improvement opportunities and associated projects that it has not fully
implemented are still valid and reflective of DHS's current priorities,
and are appropriately prioritized based on current mission and business
needs. Additionally, DHS does not know whether new or emerging
opportunities or business needs need to be addressed.
Officials stated that the Department is still committed to
implementing the blueprint, but agreed that it should be re-evaluated.
To this end, following a meeting we had with DHS's under secretary for
management in October 2015, in which we expressed concern about HRIT's
lack of progress, officials from the Offices of the Chief Human Capital
Officer and Chief Information Officer stated that HRIT was asked by the
deputy under secretary for management in late October 2015 to re-
evaluate the blueprint's strategic improvement opportunities and to
determine the way forward for those improvement opportunities and the
HRIT investment. However, officials did not know when this re-
evaluation and a determination for how to move forward with HRIT would
occur, or be completed.
Further, according to officials from the Office of the Chief
Information Officer, DHS has not updated its complete systems inventory
since it was originally developed as part of the blueprint effort, in
response to a 2010 Office of Inspector General report that stated that
DHS had not identified all human resource systems at the components.
This report also emphasized that without an accurate inventory of human
resource systems, DHS cannot determine whether components are using
redundant systems.\19\ Moreover, the officials from the Office of the
Chief Information Officer were unable to identify whether and how its
inventory of human resources systems had changed.
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\19\ DHS Office of Inspector General, Management Oversight and
Component Participation Are Necessary to Complete DHS' Human Resource
Systems Consolidation Effort, OIG-10-99 (July 2010).
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Until DHS establishes time frames for re-evaluating the blueprint
to reflect DHS's HRIT current priorities and updates its human
resources system inventory, the Department will be limited in
addressing the inefficient human resources environment that has plagued
the Department since it was first created. As a result, we recommended
that DHS establish time frames for re-evaluating the strategic
improvement opportunities and associated projects in the blueprint and
determining how to move forward with HRIT; evaluate the opportunities
and projects to determine whether the goals of the blueprint are still
valid and update the blueprint accordingly; and update and maintain the
system inventory. DHS agreed with these recommendations and expects to
address them by February 2016, April 2016, and October 2016,
respectively.
selected palms capabilities have been deployed to headquarters and two
components; but full implementation at four components is not currently
planned
As previously mentioned, PALMS is intended to provide an
enterprise-wide system that offers performance management capabilities,
as well as learning management capabilities to headquarters and each of
its components. As such, DHS's headquarters PALMS program management
office and the components estimate that, if fully implemented across
DHS, PALMS's learning management capabilities would be used by
approximately 309,360 users, and its performance management
capabilities would be used by at least 217,758 users.\20\
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\20\ According to Federal Emergency Management Agency officials,
the number of PALMS performance management users would be substantially
higher if the system is able to accommodate the agency's performance
management requirements for Reservists, which are a type of incident
management responder, hired as temporary, intermittent employees.
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However, there is uncertainty about whether the PALMS system will
be used enterprise-wide to accomplish these goals. Specifically, as of
November 2015, of the 8 components and headquarters, 5 are planning to
implement both PALMS's learning and performance management capabilities
(3 of which have already implemented the learning management
capabilities--discussed later), 2 are planning to implement only the
learning management capabilities, and 2 components are not currently
planning to implement either of these PALMS capabilities, as
illustrated in figure 2.
Officials from the Federal Emergency Management Agency, U.S.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the Transportation Security
Administration, and the U.S. Coast Guard cited various reasons for why
their components were not currently planning to fully implement PALMS,
which include:
Federal Emergency Management Agency and U.S. Immigration and
Customs Enforcement officials stated that they were not
currently planning to implement the performance management
capabilities because the program had experienced critical
deficiencies in meeting the performance management-related
requirements. Federal Emergency Management Agency officials
stated that they do not plan to make a decision on whether they
will or will not implement these performance management
capabilities until the vendor can demonstrate that the system
meets the agency's needs; as such, these officials were unable
to specify a date for when they plan to make that decision.
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials also stated
that they do not plan to implement the performance management
capabilities of PALMS until the vendor can demonstrate that all
requirements have been met. PALMS headquarters officials
expected all requirements to be met by the vendor by the end of
February 2016.
Transportation Security Administration officials stated that
they were waiting on the results of their fit-gap assessment
\21\ of PALMS before determining whether, from a cost and
technical perspective, the administration could commit to
implementing the learning and performance management
capabilities of PALMS. Administration officials expected the
fit-gap assessment to be completed by the end of March 2016.
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\21\ Before implementing PALMS, each component is completing a fit-
gap assessment to, among other things, identify any requirements and
critical processes that cannot be met by the preconfigured, commercial
off-the-shelf system. If such component-specific requirements are
identified, the component must then decide whether to have the vendor
customize the system.
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U.S. Coast Guard officials stated that, based on the PALMS
schedule delays experienced to date, they have little
confidence that the PALMS vendor could meet the component's
unique business requirements prior to the 2018 expiration of
the vendor's blanket purchase agreement. Additionally, these
officials stated that the system would not meet all of the
Coast Guard's learning management requirements, and likely
would not fully meet the performance management requirements
for all of its military components. Due to the component's
uncertainty, the officials were unable to specify when they
plan to ultimately decide on whether they will implement one or
both aspects of PALMS.
As a result, it is unlikely that the Department will meet its goal
of being an enterprise-wide system. Specifically, as of November 2015,
the components estimate 179,360 users will use the learning management
capabilities of PALMS (not the 309,360 expected, if fully implemented),
and 123,200 users will use the performance management capabilities of
PALMS (not the 217,758 expected, if fully implemented).
Of the 7 components and headquarters that are currently planning to
implement the learning and/or performance management aspects of PALMS,
as of December 2015, 3 have completed their implementation efforts of
the learning management capabilities and deployed these capabilities to
users (deployed to U.S. Customs and Border Protection in July 2015,
headquarters in October 2015, and the Federal Law Enforcement Training
Center in December 2015); 2 have initiated their implementation efforts
on one or both aspects, but not completed them; and 2 have not yet
initiated any implementation efforts.
As a result, PALMS's current trajectory is putting the Department
at risk of not meeting its goals to perform efficient, accurate, and
comprehensive tracking and reporting of training and performance
management data across the enterprise; and consolidating its 9 learning
management systems down to 1. Accordingly, until the Federal Emergency
Management Agency decides whether it will implement the performance
management capabilities of PALMS and the Coast Guard decides whether it
will implement the learning and/or performance management capabilities
of PALMS, the Department is at risk of implementing a solution that
does not fully address its problems. Moreover, until DHS determines an
alternative approach if one or both aspects of PALMS is deemed not
feasible for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the
Transportation Security Administration, the Federal Emergency
Management Agency, or the Coast Guard, the Department is at risk of not
meeting its goal to enable enterprise-wide tracking and reporting of
employee learning and performance management.
We recommended that the Department establish a time frame for
deciding whether PALMS will be fully deployed at the Federal Emergency
Management Agency and the Coast Guard, and determine an alternative
approach if the learning and/or performance management capabilities of
PALMS are deemed not feasible for the Federal Emergency Management
Agency, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the Transportation
Security Administration, or the Coast Guard. DHS concurred with our
recommendation and stated that the PALMS program office will establish
a time frame for a deployment decision of PALMS for these components.
palms program had made mixed progress in implementing key it
acquisition best practices
According to GAO's Cost Estimating and Assessment Guide, having a
complete life-cycle cost estimate is a critical element in the
budgeting process that helps decision makers to evaluate resource
requirements at milestones and other important decision points.\22\
Additionally, a comprehensive cost estimate should include both
Government and contractor costs of the program over its full life
cycle, from inception of the program through design, development,
deployment, and operation and maintenance to retirement of the program.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\22\ GAO-09-3SP.
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However, according to PALMS program management office officials,
they did not develop a life-cycle cost estimate for PALMS. In 2012, DHS
developed an independent Government cost estimate to determine the
contractor-related costs to implement the PALMS system across the
Department (estimated to be approximately $95 million); however, this
estimate was not comprehensive because it did not include Government-
related costs. PALMS program office officials stated that PALMS did not
develop a life-cycle cost estimate because the program is a Level 3
acquisition program and DHS does not require such an estimate for a
Level 3 program. However, while DHS acquisition policy does not require
a life-cycle cost estimate for a program of this size, we maintain that
such an estimate should be prepared because of the program's risk and
troubled history. Without developing a comprehensive life-cycle cost
estimate, DHS is limited in making future budget decisions related to
PALMS.
Accordingly, we recommended that the Department develop a
comprehensive life-cycle cost estimate, including all Government and
contractor costs, for the PALMS program. DHS concurred with our
recommendation and stated that, by May 30, 2016, the PALMS program
office will update the program's cost estimate to include all
Government and contractor costs.
PALMS's Schedule Was Incomplete and Inaccurate
As described in GAO's Schedule Assessment Guide, a program's
integrated master schedule is a comprehensive plan of all Government
and contractor work that must be performed to successfully complete the
program. Additionally, such a schedule helps manage program schedule
dependencies.\23\ Best practices for developing and maintaining this
schedule include, among other things, capturing all activities needed
to do the work and reviewing the schedule after each update to ensure
the schedule is complete and accurate.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\23\ GAO-16-89G.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
While DHS had developed an integrated master schedule with the
PALMS vendor, it did not appropriately maintain this schedule.
Specifically, the program's schedule was incomplete and inaccurate. For
example, while DHS's original August 2012 schedule planned to fully
deploy both the learning and performance management capabilities in one
release at each component by March 2015, the program's September 2015
schedule did not reflect the significant change in PALMS's deployment
strategy and time frames. Specifically, the program now plans to deploy
the learning management capabilities first and the performance
management capabilities separately and incrementally to headquarters
and the components. However, the September 2015 schedule reflected the
deployment-related milestones (per component) for only the learning
management capabilities and did not include the deployment-related
milestones for the performance management capabilities.
In September 2015, PALMS officials stated that the deployments
related to performance management were not reflected in the program's
schedule because the components had not yet determined when they would
deploy these capabilities. Since then 2 components have determined
their planned dates for deploying these capabilities, but 7 (including
headquarters) remain unknown. As a result, the program does not know
when PALMS will be fully implemented at all components with all
capabilities.
Moreover, the schedule did not include all Government-specific
activities, including tasks for employee union activities (such as
notifying employee unions and bargaining with them, where necessary)
related to the proposed implementation of the performance management
capabilities.\24\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\24\ In accordance with Title 5, Chapter 71 of the United States
Code, implementing regulations and relevant Executive Order, Federal
agencies are to notify their unions and offer them the opportunity to
negotiate on policies and practices that would affect working
conditions. As such, each DHS component must determine whether
implementing PALMS would affect working conditions and, if so, notify
their unions.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Without developing and maintaining a single comprehensive schedule
that fully integrates all Government and contractor activities, and
includes all planned deployment milestones related to performance
management, DHS is limited in monitoring and overseeing the
implementation of PALMS, and managing the dependencies between program
tasks and milestones to ensure that it delivers capabilities when
expected. Consequently, we recommended that DHS develop and maintain a
single comprehensive schedule. DHS agreed and stated that, by May 30,
2016, the PALMS program office will develop and maintain a single,
comprehensive schedule that includes all Government and contractor
activities, and all planned milestones related to deploying the PALMS
system's performance management capabilities.
The PALMS Program Management Office Did Not Monitor Total Costs
According to CMMI-ACQ and the PMBOK Guide, a key activity for
tracking a program's performance is monitoring the project's costs by
comparing actual costs to the cost estimate.\25\ The PALMS program
management office--which is responsible for overseeing the PALMS
implementation projects across DHS, including all of its components--
monitored task order expenditures on a monthly basis. As of December
2015, DHS officials reported that they had issued approximately $18
million in task orders to the vendor.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\25\ CMMI-ACQ, Project Monitoring and Control Process Area, and the
PMBOK Guide, Project Cost Management.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
However, the program management office officials stated that they
were not monitoring the Government-related costs associated with each
of the PALMS implementations. The officials stated that they were not
tracking Government-related implementation costs at headquarters
because many of the headquarters program officials concurrently work on
other acquisition projects and these officials are not required to
track the amount of time spent working specifically on PALMS. The
officials also said that they were not monitoring the Government-
related costs for each of the component PALMS implementation projects
because it would be difficult to obtain and verify the cost data
provided by the components. We acknowledge the Department's
difficulties associated with obtaining and verifying component cost
data; however, monitoring the program's costs is essential to keeping
costs on track and alerting management of potential cost overruns. As
such, we recommended that DHS track and monitor all costs associated
with the PALMS program. DHS concurred with our recommendation and
stated that it plans to have the PALMS program office track and monitor
all costs associated with the PALMS program by March 30, 2016.
In summary, although the HRIT investment was initiated about 12
years ago with the intent to consolidate, integrate, and modernize the
Department's human resources IT infrastructure, DHS has made very
limited progress in achieving these goals. HRIT's minimally involved
executive steering committee during a time when significant problems
were occurring was a key factor in the lack of progress. Moreover,
DHS's lack of use of program management best practices for HRIT and
PALMS also contributed to the neglect this investment has experienced.
Implementing our recommendations is critical to the Department
addressing its fragmented and duplicative human resources environment
that is hindering the Department's ability to efficiently and
effectively perform its mission.
Chairman Perry, Ranking Member Watson Coleman, and Members of the
subcommittee, this concludes my prepared statement. I would be pleased
to respond to any questions that you may have.
Mr. Perry. Thank you, Ms. Cha.
The Chair now recognizes Mr. Fulghum for his opening
statement.
STATEMENT OF CHIP FULGHUM, DEPUTY UNDER SECRETARY FOR
MANAGEMENT, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY
Mr. Fulghum. Chairman Perry, Ranking Member Watson Coleman,
distinguished Members of the committee, thank you for the
opportunity to be here today.
I had a written statement that I was ready to read to you,
but I have dispelled with that and we will just get right down
to what I believe the 4 basic issues are here.
First and foremost, I agree with GAO. We agreed with every
recommendation and we appreciate the work that they have done
on this program to continue to help make the Department
stronger.
We have already implemented many of the recommendations as
the audit was on-going. I and the under secretary for
management are accountable for seeing them through.
Second, clearly there is missed opportunity here. There is
no doubt about it, she has documented that, we agree with that.
It was an aggressive schedule, not fully baked-out requirements
as well as some poor documentation. But we did, and I want to
underscore this, we did deliver capability.
Since 2009, we have spent $90 million on this program. Here
is what we got for that $90 million: We got an access business
intelligence tool that is critical to better analysis and
decision making in the Department. We have spent $18 million on
PALMS to get it up and running. We have a medical case
management system for Workmans Compensation to help process
cases faster.
We have spent $10 million on a balanced workforce tool that
will allow us to make better decisions when looking to whether
to insource or outsource a particular function. All the while
while we were continuing to sustain programs that we had
previously invested in with the money that we have received.
Two years ago, we made an evaluation of the overall HRIT
program and we decided to stop the overall program to focus on
PALMS. But let me be clear, we did not document that well and
we did not particularly as it relates to the ESC.
However, we had regular engagements with key members of the
ESC, to include the CPO of the Department, the chief
information officer, the chief financial officer, as well as
the chief human capital officer, to focus on making sure we
delivered PALMS successfully. That program is now being
implemented across the Department. By the end of fiscal year
2016 we will either have it implemented or a decision made on
the remaining components.
Fourth, moving forward, an Acquisition Review Board was
held in December and directed the following actions. First of
all, we have moved the program from the chief human capital
officer to the chief information officer, with a new chief
acquisition executive as well as new program management.
We have reinvigorated the ESC; I attended the first one
myself and gave the ESC clear direction on what our
expectations are moving forward. We have already had a second
one. I believe that body met yesterday.
We plan to re-baseline and reevaluate the road map and the
strategy that was outlined by GAO. We will then work through
the ESC to the Joint Requirements Council to make sure we are
solving the right problems and making sure that we are solving
them in a way that best meets the mission of the Department. We
will also have quarterly Acquisition Review Board reviews of
this program.
Finally, I am confident that we have the right leadership
in place, in particular with the lady sitting beside me, to get
this program on the right track to solve her needs and the
Department's needs.
We will do that by building on what we have done, leverage
technology and best practices throughout the Department, better
business intelligence, consistent data management and smart,
integrated consolidation where it makes good business sense.
Thank you, and I stand ready to answer your questions.
[The joint prepared statement of Mr. Fulghum and Ms. Bailey
follows:]
Joint Prepared Statement of Chip Fulghum and Angela Bailey
February 25, 2016
Chairman Perry, Ranking Member Watson Coleman, and other
distinguished Members of the subcommittee, thank you for the
opportunity to appear today to discuss the Human Resource Information
Technology (HRIT) program at DHS. My comments will focus on our
progress in addressing GAO's recommendations on HRIT.
We wish to express appreciation to our colleagues from the
Government Accountability Office (GAO) for their long-standing and
dedicated work in support of strengthening management functions at DHS.
Over the past several years, we have forged an excellent working
relationship with GAO and have reached common ground on many issues.
In April 2015, I testified before this committee, noting that the
Department has worked diligently to improve its acquisition processes.
These efforts have produced more effective governance and significant
improvements to the future and health of current acquisitions. I also
noted that the Acquisition Review Board (ARB) has increased its
oversight reach and has taken action to cancel or pause several poor-
performing or higher-risk programs that were not achieving the pre-
established cost, schedule, and performance goals.
We have continued our progress since April 2015, holding 27 action-
oriented acquisition review boards for major acquisition programs. As
of December 31, 2015 all major acquisition program documentation was
approved, fully addressing GAO High Risk Outcome No. 1. Moreover, the
Acquisition Management Directive, revision 03 of MD 102-01, was signed
by the Under Secretary for Management on July 28, 2015. This revision
was updated to include critical touch points to the Secretary's Joint
Requirements Council.
It is now almost 1 year later and our work to increase oversight
continues to yield key decisions based on the performance of programs.
This includes our decision to pause the HRIT Executive Steering
Committee's management and oversight of the HRIT investment in order to
address challenges associated with the Department's effort to deploy a
centralized Performance and Learning Management System (PALMS). As
noted by GAO, DHS agrees that very little progress has been made in
implementing the HRIT investment in the last several years beyond the
focus on the PALMS implementation.
On January 15, 2010, DHS established an executive steering
committee that included all DHS components, led by the OCIO and OCHCO,
to rationalize legacy human resource processes and systems into a
common, Department-wide architecture. At that time, DHS prohibited
spending to enhance existing human resource systems or to purchase new
human resource solutions unless approved by the OCIO and the OCHCO. The
newly formed Executive Steering Committee (ESC) approved the long-term
strategic plan for HRIT through a Human Capital Segment Architecture
(HCSA) study, completed in 2011. The HRIT program, under the guidance
of the ESC, delivered a user-friendly interface with the National
Finance Center's (NFC) payroll/personnel system for processing
personnel actions, such as promotions and awards with ``EmpowHR'', a
time and attendance system with ``webTA'', payroll services with the
deployment of ``National Finance Center Corporate'', and an electronic
official personnel file system called ``eOPF''. Additional solutions
delivered under the ESC guidance includes a Balanced Workforce
Assessment Tool, the Medical Case Management System, the data
management Human Capital Analytics Intelligence system (AXIS) and an
enterprise learning management system called Performance and Learning
Management System (PALMS).
PALMS was established to consolidate 9 component-based learning
management systems and to integrate employee performance management
requirements into a single Department-wide solution. During the
deployment of PALMS in the fourth quarter of 2014, DHS Chief
Information Officer Luke McCormack asked to slow down implementation in
order to address unexpected challenges with the contract to buy this
capability as a service. I concurred with the OCIO's decision to
remediate the PALMS implementation issues, in order to lower the risk
and associated costs of an implementation that was not on track to meet
the Department's needs. During this slow down, the HRIT program
management office addressed concerns with the initial operating
capability meeting the requirements of the program and worked with the
Office of the Chief Procurement Officer to ensure timely and effective
delivery. DHS withheld payment from the vendor until requirements were
achieved, and DHS executed no-cost extensions until contract
requirements were met, providing several cure notices to the vendor due
to non-performance.
Since addressing the challenges that caused the slowdown, the
training portion of the PALMS system has been successfully deployed: At
Customs and Border Protection in July 2015; for DHS Headquarters
components in October 2015; and most recently at the Federal Law
Enforcement Training Center (FLETC) in December 2015. In total there
are over 350,000 learning management system course completions. U.S.
Citizenship and Immigration Services and Immigration and Customs
Enforcement are scheduled for deployment in the third quarter of fiscal
year 2016 and the U.S. Secret Service is scheduled for deployment in
the fourth quarter of fiscal year 2016. The Transportation Security
Administration, Federal Emergency Management Agency, and the U.S. Coast
Guard are performing their analysis and are on schedule for an
implementation decision by April 30, 2016.
DHS has moved forward with implementing the performance management
capabilities in PALMS, conducting an initial pilot within DHS OCIO.
Barring any unforeseen challenges in meeting the requirements, this
portion of the project remains on track for implementation.
DHS agrees with GAO's 14 recommendations to strengthen and improve
HRIT and had already begun to take corrective actions to address the
program's management, oversight, and progress. In their report, GAO
noted that during the 2014 and 2015 period, the oversight and
management of the overall HRIT portfolio of programs and strategic
improvement opportunities became a secondary focus and suffered. During
this period, opportunities for further consolidation and efficiency
were not addressed. DHS agrees more could have been done to provide
oversight of the HRIT program during the 2014 and 2015 period. Between
2010 and 2016, the annual appropriated funding to continue work on
strategic improvement declined. This decline was due in part due to a
poor budget justification leaving only $7.778 million in fiscal year
2016 which is only sufficient to cover the implementation of PALMS as
currently defined.
Recognizing the challenges in the investment/program, I convened an
Acquisition Review Board on December 22, 2015, to begin to provide an
enhanced focus on HRIT. On January 21, 2016, the under secretary for
management issued an Acquisition Decision Memorandum (ADM) that
initiated several actions, the first of which was to move the oversight
of the HRIT investment from the OCHCO to the OCIO which occurred on
January 29, 2016. The second major action was to reestablish the
Executive Steering Committee (ESC), which met on February 4, 2016.
OCIO is working closely with OCHCO, through the ESC and under the
guidance of the DHS Acquisition Review Board, to ensure the investment
continues to address the remaining ADM actions and to deliver the
fundamental goals of the HRIT program.
The HRIT ESC will work to ensure the original intent of the 2011
Human Capital Segment Architecture (HCSA) study is: (1) Still valid/
supported through the Joint Requirements Council; and (2) implemented
to optimize HRIT capabilities to support efficient human resources
processes across DHS. In this regard the focus is on: Improving the
transparency, accountability, and efficiency of HRIT services;
strengthening and unifying our ability to collect and share actionable
enterprise HR information in support of DHS's mission; and enhancing
operational support for enterprise human resources systems and service
delivery across DHS.
Continuing the HRIT investment is critical to reducing redundancies
and increasing the efficient and effective functionality of human
resources systems across the Enterprise. We appreciate GAO's insight
into this investment and are working to strengthen oversight for HRIT.
Mr. Perry. Thank you, Mr. Fulghum.
The Chair now recognizes Ms. Bailey for her opening
statement.
STATEMENT OF ANGELA BAILEY, CHIEF HUMAN CAPITAL OFFICER, U.S.
DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY
Ms. Bailey. Good morning, Chairman Perry, Ranking Member
Watson Coleman, and distinguished Members of the subcommittee,
thank you for the opportunity to appear today to discuss human
resources information technology at the Department.
To underscore what the deputy under secretary said, the
under secretary, deputy under secretary, chief information
officer and I are committed to undertaking concrete steps to
address the Human Resource Information Technology Program
management oversight and progress.
As I stated in my recent response to Congressman Thompson
and Ranking Member Watson Coleman, my office is working very
closely with the Office of the Chief Information Officer.
Effective January 29, the under secretary for management
directed the realignment of resources and placement of
operational control and program oversight of HRIT management
functions under the CIO, to include detailing HRIT personnel to
them.
This realignment was essential for the Department to
address 12 of the GAO's 14 recommendations concerning
management of the HRIT investment schedule, budget, cost, risk,
and strategic investment opportunities.
In addition, the direction of the under secretary for
management, the chief information officer and I co-chair the
quarterly meetings of the HRIT Executive Steering Committee
which last met on February 4 and just yesterday.
I want to stress that while we have a requirement to meet
quarterly, the CIO and I are committed to meeting as often as
necessary. Right now, we believe that is pretty much every
other week.
At these meetings, the group, the very first meeting we
had, we discussed the GAO's recommendations, a time line to
revise the ESC's charter, initiated a review of the current and
the future strategic investment opportunities, discussed the
challenges and next steps in the on-going roll-out of the
Department's leading HRIT investment, which is PALMS, and
working through the HRIT ESC and under the guidance of the DHS
Acquisition Review Board and the DHS Joint Requirements
Council. We will continue to address the remaining actions in
the GAO report to ensure DHS meets the fundamental goals of the
HRIT investment.
We clearly have work to do and we are leaning forward to
implement 2 of our top priorities, which is data management and
business intelligence strategies that we believe actually will
make a difference. We are going to do so by solving the right
problems of today, and that means a re-validation of our
original blueprint and architecture, going back and making sure
that it actually is solving what problems we are facing today,
as well as having an eye towards the integration of systems and
leveraging what already exists.
I thank you for your leadership and your continued support
of the Department of Homeland Security and its management's
programs. I look forward to working together and shaping the
future and success of DHS.
I am happy to answer any questions you may have.
Mr. Perry. Thank you, Ms. Bailey.
The Chair now recognizes himself for 5 minutes of
questioning.
Ms. Cha, is HRIT one of the most mismanaged, highest-risk
IT programs in the Federal Government? If so, how long has it
been designated as such?
Ms. Cha. Mr. Chairman, we have identified HRIT as one of
the top 10 major IT programs across the Federal Government in
need of most attention. We did this and we designated this as
such as part of our latest GAO High-risk Update, which was
issued February of last year.
Mr. Perry. February of last year?
Ms. Cha. That is correct. That was based on the findings
that we were identifying through the current audit that we were
doing for you.
Mr. Perry. Okay.
Mr. Fulghum, DHS has transferred responsibility for HRIT
back and forth between Office of the Chief Information Officer
and Office of the Chief Human Capital Officer multiple times. I
know Ms. Bailey just went through it. Specifically in 2003,
OCHCO was assigned responsibility, we call that the OCHCO, it
was transferred to the OCIO in 2004, it was shifted back to the
OCHCO in 2009, and as of this month that responsibility is back
with the OCIO.
What the hell is going on over there? I mean, is this like,
you know, hot potato, nobody wants to deal with this thing? Why
is it going to be any different now than it has been these
other times?
Mr. Fulghum. So here is what I will say. First of all, we
have got what I believe is the right leadership in CIO in terms
of the information technology expertise that they have.
They have demonstrated the ability to turn around programs
like this in the past, while at the same time her job is to
make sure that they are doing the right thing from a
requirements perspective to, as she said, solve the right
problems.
Mr. Perry. So did we not have the right leadership before
or the capability? She is 2 weeks on the job, right?
Mr. Fulghum. Right.
Mr. Perry. Okay. So what was----
Mr. Fulghum. But she has got 35 years of experience.
Mr. Perry. I understand. But what was happening before she
showed up? Because Ms. Cha said this has been identified for
over a year now.
Mr. Fulghum. So what I would tell you, for the past 2 years
what we have been focused on and focused on solely is
delivering PALMS. We stopped the investment, any new investment
in the rest of that portfolio to focus on PALMS.
As I think she noted, we have had program management
turnover, which has not helped the problem, but we have got the
right program management in there now. If we can sustain them
by keeping them there, we will make progress. I am confident of
that.
Mr. Perry. All right. Let me carry on here a little bit. In
2010, the DHS Office of Inspector General, the OIG, reported
that DHS made limited progress on the Human Resource
Information Technology, HRIT, investment because of, among
other things, a lack of commitment from DHS's components.
Now GAO is reporting that HRIT has failed because of a lack
of commitment by DHS oversight officials after almost 13 years.
This has been a long time.
You served at the command level, you are an O-6, you are in
the business of issuing orders and executing and
accountability. A lack of commitment.
So you have got 22 directorates that are working underneath
you, right, and you say this is our program. We have just asked
the United States Congress, the taxpayers to pay $180 million
to roll this thing out, bring everybody in, and somebody says
we are not going to do it, right, that is a lack of commitment,
or they just kind of slow roll it.
You have been there for, what, 3 years and about 5 months
or something, about 3\1/2\ years, is that right, in this
position?
Mr. Fulghum. I have been in this position for a little less
than a year.
Mr. Perry. Little less than a year, but prior to that you
have been----
Mr. Fulghum. I was a part of the Department.
Mr. Perry. You have been part of even the budget process
and so on and so forth, right?
Mr. Fulghum. Yes, sir.
Mr. Perry. There is no lack of commitment, you issue
orders. If you don't want to commit to it, go get another job,
right? This is taxpayers' money. We don't just send $180
million to 22 different directorates and say, hey, knock
yourself out, I hope you come back with something.
I looked at the schedule from the GAO here. Page 1,
essentially the first page past the opening, 1 through 14,
completion expected, current expected completion date, 1
through 14 out of 1 through 15, 1 through 14 unknown.
Sir, you have issued suspenses, time on target. I don't
need to go through this with you. But you know what is
expected. Why is there a lack of commitment? How does that
happen? Who says no and gets away with it? Tell me, I really
want to know.
Mr. Fulghum. So what I will tell you is that at the ESC
that we just had, there was very clear direction given and I
expect that that will be carried out.
Mr. Perry. Well, for the love of God, Mr. Fulghum, this is
like 10 years on, $180 million pissed away. Really?
Mr. Fulghum. I would again go back to what I said in my
opening statement about the $90 million we have spent. It was
not pissed away.
Mr. Perry. I have got 14 out of 15 no known time when it is
going to be complete.
Mr. Fulghum. What I would say to that is, No. 1, we poorly
documented the work we have done. If you go look at the
blueprint and you go look at the SIOs and the recommendations,
many of those are about process, policy, and training, much of
which we have done, we just didn't document it.
Mr. Perry. Well, we will see what GAO says throughout the
course of this, but I suspect they might differ.
But with all due respect, we will move on. I am past my
time, so the Chair now recognizes Ms. Watson Coleman from New
Jersey.
Mrs. Watson Coleman. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I want to talk about the Steering Committee, or the ESO?
Mr. Fulghum. ESC.
Mrs. Watson Coleman. ESC, because Ms. Cha's recommendation
is that that committee convenes on a monthly basis.
Ms. Bailey, you indicated that the proposal is to meet
every 3 months.
It seems to me that part of the issue with the failure to
implement and document is that whatever entity was overseeing
this was not holding anybody else accountable to whatever the
time frame should have been.
It would seem to me that since things are so critical right
now, you would want that entity to be much more aggressive,
much more interactive, much more meeting more regularly and
then having a discussion down the line as to who is not doing
what and when they can expect to have it. Because it seems to
me that there has been tremendous lack of, Chairman said,
commitment, I am saying minimal accountability.
So why are you proposing 3 months when GAO is proposing a
monthly meeting and oversight?
Ms. Bailey. I am actually--I want to correct something if I
misspoke earlier. I am not trying to propose a quarterly
meeting. It is just that was the minimum requirement that was
actually identified I think in the acquisition decision
memorandum.
However, the CIO and I have absolutely agreed that we need
to meet far more often. In fact, we have already met twice. The
CIO and I talk almost daily. In fact, yesterday after the ESC
meeting we had a follow-on meeting with regard to the status
and implementation of PALMS specifically.
So you have my commitment that we are----
Mrs. Watson Coleman. You two are the co-chairs of the
committee, right? Of the----
Ms. Bailey. Myself and the CIO.
Mrs. Watson Coleman. Yes.
Ms. Bailey. Yes.
Mrs. Watson Coleman. Then who else is on that, how many
other people?
Ms. Bailey. We have all of the components.
Mrs. Watson Coleman. Meaning?
Ms. Bailey. CHCOs, CIOs, and the chief learning officers,
because sometimes they are not necessarily within the CHCO
office. So we have full representation of both the CIO
community and the CHCO community.
Mrs. Watson Coleman. So after your discussions, your
meetings, what is it that happens as a result of that, that
something gets translated down, some accountability is shared
through the system?
Ms. Bailey. Yes, absolutely. One of the first things that
we do is we take minutes of everything that we have discussed.
We have a complete action plan. We go through it and we make
sure that every milestone, on a weekly basis, we go through and
identify which particular milestones that are due that week,
what is due the following week, what challenges and barriers do
we have, what do we need from a resource commitment, where do
we need to go from an acquisition strategy and what is the
smartest way to go about this from an IT standpoint?
So between the two offices we have, it is clearly
identified that we are both--I want to make sure that everybody
understands this. This is not a hand-off of the CHCO community
just over to the CIO and we wash our hands of it. We still
within the H.R. community have a fundamental responsibility to
make sure that whatever it is that we are doing, that we are
asking the IT, the CIO to deliver, actually delivers and solves
the right problem on behalf of the H.R. community. We are not
relinquishing that responsibility whatsoever.
Mrs. Watson Coleman. I wasn't suggesting that you were
relinquishing anything. My concern is whether or not there is
follow-up and accountability.
Ms. Bailey. Absolutely.
Mrs. Watson Coleman. Because it seems to me that for a
number of years you all have been doing--I am not suggesting
that this is not a very busy department with very serious
mandates, but it just seems to me that this is so vitally
important to ensuring that there is consistency and that you
have what you need and you need what you have and you know what
you have to go after. You have not sort-of met that mandate.
I want to speak to this whole issue of the Performance and
Learning Management Systems.
Because, Mr. Fulghum, you suggested in your remarks that
this was implemented across the Department. In some of my
briefing materials, there was an indication that there were
certain components which were resistant to using this.
So my question is: Is this something that should be
uniformly applied across the Department because it ensures
consistency and certain standards? And (B), what is it that we
plan to do or you plan to do to ensure that it is followed
through on at the component level?
Mr. Fulghum. Okay, a couple of things. I may have misspoke,
I want to be clear about what I said about PALMS. PALMS is not
implemented across the Department, so I want to be clear about
that.
We have a schedule for several components to come on-board
by the end of the fiscal year. There are, I think, 3 components
left that need to make a decision whether PALMS makes sense for
them, from both an operational perspective as well as from a
business perspective. We plan to have that done by 30 April.
Mrs. Watson Coleman. So if they decide that it doesn't work
for them, do they get to do something entirely different?
Mr. Fulghum. It is not them deciding, it is the Department
looking at what their unique operational needs are as well as
their business needs and then the Department making a
determination as to whether or not they use the system or not.
Mrs. Watson Coleman. What is the goal of PALMS? What is it
that why would you want this Performance and Learning
Management Systems? What does it tell you or provide you?
Mr. Fulghum. So it provides a platform to provide education
and training courses throughout the Department. The performance
management piece is really about automating that process of
documenting performance appraisals, the whole performance
management.
Mrs. Watson Coleman. So my time is expired, but it just
seems to me that I don't understand how a Department could
determine that something that raises these issues and answers
these questions wouldn't be applicable to their needs.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Perry. The Chair thanks the gentlelady.
The Chair now recognizes the gentleman from Georgia, Mr.
Loudermilk.
Mr. Loudermilk. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I will tell you, I am very concerned here from coming from
several backgrounds. I was Air Force as well, worked in the
intelligence community, had an SEI security clearance when I
was a young man.
But I also spent 30 years in the IT sector. There are
several aspects of this report that are gravely concerning to
me. I have so many questions, I really don't even know where to
start.
But based off Ms. Watson Coleman's question, I would like
to kind of continue that thought on PALMS.
You said that PALMS is an education and training system, is
that correct?
Mr. Fulghum. It provides education and training courses.
Mr. Loudermilk. Is that the extent of it?
Mr. Fulghum. That is a piece of it, yes. It also tracks the
training that has been completed, things of that nature, yes.
Mr. Loudermilk. Why did you prioritize PALMS as the project
to focus on? When you read the report, of all the other issues,
several of which, from looking at it from this report, PALMS
would probably, in my estimation, be the least critical of
those systems, why did you prioritize PALMS?
Mr. Fulghum. We believed it was important to the Department
to get a consistent approach to how we delivered education and
training.
Mr. Loudermilk. So you felt that was more important than
actually knowing who is an employee of the Department of
Homeland Security?
As I read the report here, it says that really the
dysfunction of what you have is that your fragmented and
outdated human resource systems, you can't even actually track
who is--you don't have accurate information on who is employed,
who is working for the Department of Homeland Security.
You saw that PALMS, though, was more important than
addressing those issues.
Mr. Fulghum. So I would say a couple of things. No. 1, that
is why we are re-validating the framework and the strategy
going forward, and we are going to do that very rapidly.
No. 2, I still believe PALMS was important, yes.
Mr. Loudermilk. Okay, but it is more important than
actually knowing details of who is current in Department of
Homeland Security?
Mr. Fulghum. So I think that is more about access than it
is about knowing who is in the Department. We know who is in
the Department. I am not quite following you.
Mr. Loudermilk. Okay, well, let me shift a little. Let me
read what the report says. For example, the Department of
Homeland Security reported that it did not have information on
all its employees, which reduced its ability to manage its
personnel, and this is the part that concerns me the most, or
deploy the right people to meet a particular mission.
Now, that tells me you don't have all the information that
you need about someone.
Mr. Fulghum. So I think what we are talking about is access
to that information. One of the things that HRIT did deliver
was business intelligence, so that regardless of the system
that you have out and the components, you have the ability to
pull that information out.
It is not fully developed yet, but it does provide us
capability. We have got to continue to build out that business
intelligence capability to pull out the information we need.
One of the things I would like to say, as far as systems go
and consolidation of systems, we have done that in the
Department before where we have tried to go build what I call
big-bang systems. We did it in financials, we tried it twice
with financial systems. It didn't work.
What we have determined is that we need to consolidate
where we can consolidate and then put business intelligence on
top of it to give us the information we need, which is one of
the things that HRIT did deliver in terms of the access tool
that we built.
Mr. Loudermilk. Okay. So what you are indicating is PALMS
is providing the information that you need to adequately deploy
the right people to the right mission.
Mr. Fulghum. That is not what I said. What I said was what
you are talking about is about access to information.
Mr. Loudermilk. Right.
Mr. Fulghum. What we need to do is build business
intelligence to get to that information, which is one of the
things that HRIT did deliver. That is what I was trying to say.
Mr. Loudermilk. Okay. I am still not sure why PALMS was the
priority that you focused everything on.
One other thing. Mr. Chairman, are we going to have another
round of questioning? Is that possible? Okay, I will save a
couple.
But to Ms. Cha, I am also on the Science, Space, and
Technology Committee, a chair of the Oversight Subcommittee,
the sister committee to this. We had a hearing right after the
OPM data breach, a devastating incident to our country. I asked
your counterpart, if he was to rate the cybersecurity risk or
just rate what the Federal Government's current security status
is on an elementary school grading level, what would you give
the Federal Government, and his response was D minus.
One of the reasons was because of fragmented systems,
multiple management and no one being in control. What would
you, just from what you know, rate the current status from a
security standpoint of the Department of Homeland Security's IT
systems?
Ms. Cha. Unfortunately, sir, I am not the best expert to
provide you with that response. The scope of the review that we
evaluated for HRIT was focused on the management of the
program. We did not look at the security protocols or the state
of security for the Department's H.R. environment or the state
of DHS's IT systems in general.
Mr. Loudermilk. Well, let me ask you this, if I may, Mr.
Chairman.
Because of the issues with the system, does DHS, because I
assume that the majority of people in DHS have some level of
security clearance, which gives them access to Classified
information, is there a risk that someone who should not have
access will have access because maybe their security has been
pulled, maybe they are on disciplinary action, but because the
system is nonfunctional at this point, are we at risk there?
Ms. Cha. Yes, I do believe that a risk does exist. The
reason why I say that is because at this time, as I mentioned
earlier, at the time that DHS identified 422 fragmented systems
and applications within their H.R. environment, that study was
done in 2011. Currently, DHS does not know the state of that
422-system inventory.
So until the Department updates that inventory, it could be
more, it could be less. But until they get a full handle of the
total number of systems in that inventory, a risk exists.
Mr. Loudermilk. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back.
Mr. Perry. The Chair thanks the gentleman.
The Chair now recognizes the gentleman from Louisiana, Mr.
Richmond.
Mr. Richmond. Let me just comment that it appears that we
just have an inability to get it done. I guess in my effort to
figure out how we just get to progress or competency, have you
all even explored the possibility of using shared services,
like the National Finance Center?
Mr. Fulghum. So we do use the National Finance Center for
payroll.
Mr. Richmond. Well, why don't you use them for H.R.?
Mr. Fulghum. So as a part of reevaluating the road map and
strategy, that is absolutely a part of what we are going to
look at, shared services where it makes sense, just like we
have done in financial management.
Mr. Richmond. Well, how is your payroll going? Are you
satisfied with the National Finance Center, how they do
payroll?
Mr. Fulghum. They do a good job.
Mr. Richmond. Well, they are interested in doing your H.R.
I don't know if they have contacted you, but they met with me
to say we don't understand why DHS won't let us do their H.R.
because we think we can do it better than them, we think we can
do it for a lower cost than they do it.
Now, let me--full disclosure, the National Finance Center
is located in my district. They employ a bunch of people. But
they do payroll for over 650,000 people in the Federal
Government and now they do H.R. Everybody is happy with them.
So it would just seem to me that, look, we can try to get
it right, but if we have people who do it and they are part of
the Federal Government, then we might want to really look at
seeing if we can't get together and figure out a way that they
can help you all, because at the end of the day we just want it
to work.
Whether it is the National Finance Center or someone else
doesn't matter as much as the fact that it has to get done.
I would just encourage you to at least entertain the
director of the National Finance Center and see if you all
can't find some understanding if they can help or if they can't
help. But at least what they advocate to me is that they think
they can solve your problems. If they can solve your problems,
then let us use them.
But I would love to hear your thoughts on it.
Mr. Fulghum. I absolutely support the use of shared
services. As I said before, that is exactly what we are doing
with our financial systems modernization is leveraging the work
and the systems that are in place at places like DOI. So we are
absolutely open to doing that.
Mr. Richmond. Thank you, and I will yield back.
Mr. Perry. The Chair thanks the gentleman.
The Chair now recognizes the gentleman from Georgia, Mr.
Carter.
Mr. Carter. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Ladies and gentlemen, I hope you understand why this is so
concerning to us. I mean, this is very, very disturbing.
The General Accounting Office said, ``The Department does
not have information on all its employees, which reduces its
ability to strategically manage its workforce and best deploy
people in support of homeland security missions.'' That is from
the GAO.
You can imagine how concerning that is to us, especially
when we talk about internal threats. We are talking about the
Department of Homeland Security. We are talking about the
people that we put our faith in, that we are depending on.
Mr. Fulghum, how can the Department of Homeland Security
vet effectively and identify individuals that may have links to
terrorism when you don't have all the information on your
employees? How can you do that?
Mr. Fulghum. Again, I believe we are talking about access
to certain information at the Department level. We have very
good, solid procedures in place to vet employees.
Mr. Carter. But do you have all the information?
Ms. Cha, what information does the Department not have on
employees or not have access to? You want to talk about we have
got it, but we don't have access. I don't care. I just want to
know why we are not getting the job done.
Ms. Cha. Mr. Carter, the statement that you cite in our
report, that particular one actually comes from DHS's own
business justification for HRIT. So that is not even a GAO
conclusion, that is a conclusion of the Department itself.
Mr. Carter. So that makes it even worse.
Mr. Fulghum. But again, that is why we built the business
intelligence to get that information.
As far as the security vetting goes that goes on throughout
the Department, we are confident in the procedures that we have
in place and the vetting procedures that we use, which includes
the security clearance process.
Mr. Carter. All right. Well, tell me what information you
are lacking on employees. Are you lacking any information or do
you not have access to any information? I want to leave today
assured that you can tell me that we don't have any internal
threats from any of our employees. Are you going to be able to
do that?
Mr. Fulghum. So the specifics of what information we are
lacking that was cited back in that report, I am not familiar
with. That said, what I will say is the following, again, that
I believe we have very solid, secure procedures and processes
in place to vet employees.
Mr. Carter. So you are assuring me that we will not have
any internal threats as a result of us not having information
on employees.
Mr. Fulghum. Sir, what I am assuring you of is that we have
the best procedures we can in place. That is what I am assuring
you of.
Mr. Carter. But that is not what we are getting in this
report here. What we are getting is that you have got
fragmented systems and that you are not utilizing everything
you could be utilizing. Am I wrong? Am I reading this wrong?
Mr. Fulghum. What you are reading is is that we have got
more work to do in terms of making smart business--
Mr. Carter. You know what the problem is with that? We
haven't got time. We need it and we need it now.
Mr. Fulghum. We agree with you.
Mr. Carter. Okay, all right. Let me shift real quick. Let
me ask you, when you were developing the HRIT, at any point,
did any senior management get any kind of bonuses?
Mr. Fulghum. Sir, I don't have that information.
Mr. Carter. Any of you all know? Do you all know if anybody
got bonuses as a result of this? Anybody know? I am looking for
volunteers.
Mr. Fulghum. Bonus information of senior executives is
publicly available. We can certainly get that.
Mr. Carter. Well, can you get that for me? Because I would
sure like to know.
Mr. Fulghum. Yes, sir.
Mr. Carter. Well, if you can, I sure would appreciate it.
You know, look, guys, this is serious, this is really
serious. I hope you all understand how serious it is. We are
depending on you. People are depending on us and we are
depending on you.
Mr. Chairman, I yield.
Mr. Perry. The Chair thanks the gentleman.
The Chair now recognizes himself. I have just got a few
more to wrap up and then we can if Mr. Loudermilk and Mrs.
Watson Coleman have some more.
The DHS initially estimated that HRIT would cost $120
million according to what I have got here. Congress has
appropriated at least $180 million, which is another issue in
and of itself, right? They asked for $120 million, you get $180
million. I am not here to defend that.
But how much at this point does DHS estimate the cost to
be, do you know?
Mr. Fulghum. So that is exactly why we are doing a life-
cycle cost estimate to make sure we get it right.
Mr. Perry. So we don't know right now, but I suspect at
some point somebody is going to be asking for more money for
this, right? How many years on are we?
Mr. Fulghum. So that is what, again, that is what we are
going through right now to make sure we do it smartly and as
quickly as we can. But a key piece of that will be the life-
cycle cost estimate that we are going to do.
Mr. Perry. When will that be done?
Mr. Fulghum. By the end of this year.
Mr. Perry. The end of the fiscal year or the calendar?
Mr. Fulghum. End of the fiscal year.
Mr. Perry. So by the end of September, you are going to
know what the actual cost is.
Mr. Fulghum. We are going to know what the estimated cost
is to move forward, yes, sir.
Mr. Perry. You know that our National debt is $19 trillion
right now, right? You know this?
Mr. Fulghum. I am aware of that.
Mr. Perry. We have got about somewhere, some people
estimate $200 trillion in unfunded liability. Now, I am
privileged to serve on this committee. You know, I hear the
Secretary saying that his legacy is going to be of improved
management.
But from this hearing to the last one to the one before, we
don't know how many vehicles we have got, we have got too many
vehicles, we can't track their mileage without asking them
through programs and so on and so forth.
Now, quite honestly, I just don't see it. But you can make
the claim, I suppose, but I don't see things that have
improved. There has been a long time getting here.
I will tell you this, sir, I do appreciate your service.
You know, you folks are operating at the Senior Executive
Service level or the Executive schedule. We demand your
leadership if you are going to be paid for it. Leadership
requires making hard decisions, hard choices, and making people
accountable.
We don't, I certainly don't deign to understand the
intricacies of what you have got to do. I kind-of get that vibe
from Ms. Bailey, like you are asking questions you don't
understand how hard this is.
I hate to put it this way. We don't care how hard it is,
right? You wanted the job, you got the job. Congress has
appropriated the money and we demand the results, right? The
taxpayers, the poor folks are out there working everyday trying
to put their kids through college and pay a mortgage and we
don't have $180 million to throw down the tank and having
nothing really appreciable to show for it.
When I say I don't deign to know your business, I don't.
But the GAO does and they have given us these recommendations
in this report and they countervail most of what you tell us
except for what you have been working on recently, because they
have been babysitting.
We don't hire people in the Senior Executive Schedule to be
babysat. You are the leaders, you are the heavies. We hire the
heavies to get things done, not to come in here and--you don't
want to be here and I don't want to be here, but I have got a
feeling that if I am in Congress in a couple of years and you
are in your position for a couple more years, we are going to
be right back here with the same problem. That is the feeling I
have got and I don't want to have that feeling.
With all due respect, you haven't given me any confidence
in your testimony today that anything is really going to
change. Right? I hope I am wrong.
I would say this. At a time of great need and reduced
budgets because there is reduced income, we have got a 2
percent economy, when you come back and ask for more money and
people vote against your budget, you think about this hearing
and think about what we did here today and the answers you gave
us and ask yourself, if you were in my position to take money
out of the pockets of the people that you live around and give
it to you and this organization that has done this with it,
what would you vote?
I want you to think about that. Then, you know, look, I am
not here to scold you, sir, you are a grown man, right? But
this is our job and we have got to beseech you about the
importance of this, the gravity of this, the security concerns
that we have, the financial concerns we have.
This isn't just going to work today and, well, you know, I
am going to take it as far as I can and the next poor slob will
get the job and hopefully he can take it to the next level. You
have a commitment that you have made. If you can't get the job
done, we have got to find somebody that will.
With that, I yield to Mrs. Watson Coleman.
Mrs. Watson Coleman. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I really do get the sense that there is a wake-up call here
and that we recognize how important it is to standardize,
document, and move forward with this.
I think that the ESC is vitally important in this. I am
wondering what role it plays in establishing those in answer to
those unknowns that we have for those 14 or 15 items that have
been identified by GAO as outstanding.
So I have a two-pronged question. Is it the ESC where that
information would come? And (B), when do you think you would
have that information for us? Which is simply, you know, when
you think these various things would be fully implemented,
partially implemented or whatever.
Mr. Fulghum. So what I would say, first of all, is yes, it
is the ESC's job, but the ESC is going to take it to the Joint
Requirements Council, which is one of the things or one of the
bodies that Secretary Johnson initiated and you guys have
passed legislation on, codifying that Joint Requirements
Council, which we greatly appreciate, in the House.
So to answer your second question, we expect to take that
through the ESC to the JRC by the 30th of April.
Mrs. Watson Coleman. When do you think that you would have
feedback back so that you could fill in those boxes in terms
of----
Mr. Fulghum. So I believe in early May we will be able to
share with you and your staff exactly what the plan is moving
forward.
Mrs. Watson Coleman. So I really think that we are helpful
to you in raising these issues and asking you to come here,
because it kind-of keeps the stuff in the forefront of what you
are doing. So I would be interested in the Chairman even asking
Mister--is it Deyo?
Mr. Fulghum. Deyo.
Mrs. Watson Coleman. Deyo, Mr. Deyo and Mr. McCormack to
come and sort-of give us progress reports at some point.
But I would also be interested in you all supplying us
information as to how you are moving through these expectations
and how the ESC is working with you on hopefully more than the
minimum of every 3 months, so we can really understand that
there is progress that is being made.
We know that you all do really important work and that this
is an important Department, but we also know that there are
places like TSA that have internal concerns and threats right
now as it relates to employees, credentialing, recovering
credentials and all. So there are very, very serious problems
that exist and concerns that exist in this Department that we
depend upon to keep us safe.
So I for one would be very interested in ensuring that we
had more contact, more feedback, just so that we help you in
your need to make sure that the Department is accountable,
being accountable on a more routine basis.
Thank you.
Mr. Fulghum. If I could, sir?
Mr. Perry. Yes, sir.
Mr. Fulghum. You have our commitment that you will get it.
If I could, one more thing, sir?
Last year I sat in front of this committee and I said
various things about acquisition, improving acquisition in the
Department, to include making sure that every major program had
documentation, that we got our system where we track investment
costs for major acquisitions current and certified, and a
variety of other things. I sat right here and told you we would
do it.
I think that you are going to see in April that when GAO
issues its report that we did a lot of those things.
When you asked me about my leadership as a can-do, get-it-
done guy, I pride myself on that. When I sat here last year and
said we would get life-cycle cost estimates for every one of
those programs, we got them.
So when I am sitting here today telling you we are going to
make progress on this, you have my word we are going to make
progress on this.
Mr. Perry. I understand. On behalf of the American
taxpayer, I hope you are right, sir. I appreciate your input.
The Chair now recognizes Mr. Loudermilk.
Mr. Loudermilk. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Again, I appreciate you guys being here. I know this isn't
easy, but we are in such a time in this Nation. Through
history, I don't know that I have ever even read about such a
time that the people of our Nation so depended on the
Government for its National security, but so distrusted the
Government because of things like this.
This is where we are today with a $19 trillion debt, with
$90 million that we can't really positively go back to our
constituents and say, you know, all that tax money that you
paid and you couldn't buy Johnny a new pair of cleats for
baseball practice, well, at least here is what happened. I
can't do that.
So this is part of the concern. Representative Carter who
represents the Port of Savannah which is very dependent upon
homeland security adequately doing its job with the very best
people there to do it, and this is our concern. It is nothing
against anyone here personally. I know you have got a
tremendous job to do. I appreciate your commitment to make
progress.
But I could argue that this is progress because out of 15
we have completed 1. I mean, that is more progress than
completing none.
When I was in the Air Force it was during the Cold War. If
we needed to get an aircraft on time to support the Army, that
aircraft had to be there at that time no matter what, or lives
could be cost. So we did whatever it took to get an aircraft
into the battlefield, in position to provide the support for
our brothers and sisters who were on the ground.
The same things happened when my children were growing up.
I could tell them to clean their room, but unless I gave them a
deadline the room never got cleaned.
Where are our deadlines? We keep shifting, shifting,
shifting. I see all these unknowns. What the American people
want to see is not progress, they want to see action, they want
to see these things done. What does it take?
When we get together this time next year, what are we going
to be looking at?
I know, Colonel, you said that you agreed and appreciated
the report by the GAO. I think in a management position of
yours, that is the right approach. Yes, we need to know the
things that we are doing wrong. Lord knows we have constituents
that call us continually expressing their thoughts about us and
Government.
But where will we be this time next year? At least give me
dates, deadline dates of when these are going to be
accomplished. Because when I look at some of these, such as
off-boarding process, to me that is as critical as an on-
boarding process.
Here is why. We had a bill that I actually passed out of
this committee. It has passed the House, it is in the Senate.
It was addressing a problem that we have in the Department of
Homeland Security to the tune of $380 million--$380 million.
That is how much homeland security has been spending to pay its
employees to stay at home and not come to work.
Why, you have so many people that are on administrative
leave, some of them for as much as 2 years. What the Department
of Homeland Security said part of the problem was we don't have
a good IT system. There is your money, $380 million paying
homeland security people to be at home because we have not
concluded their off-boarding process. Most of them are for
disciplinary action.
So if there is some frustration here, it is because we are
the funnel from the American people, as I said, who rely on
you, but don't trust you. That is a very bad position to be in.
So if you would like to comment I would really love to know
when we are going to have some deadlines--deadlines--to get
these things done.
Mr. Fulghum. So as Angie said, that is what the ESC is
doing right now. Once we get through the Joint Requirements
Council on the 30th of April, in early May you will have more
of that integrated schedule that you are looking for, which are
deadlines, when we say we are going to deliver things by. We
are going to share that with this committee.
Then, again, I will tell you this, that we are laser-
focused on this effort. You have got my assurance that we are
going to hold ourselves accountable and do something, take
action and do something to deliver what we need to help her do
her job better.
Mr. Loudermilk. Well, thank you.
Again, Mr. Chairman, thank you for this hearing.
I am glad to hear that, but I am not ready to trust it yet.
I think that is what the American people are looking for. We
need to continue this oversight.
We need to be laser-focused as they are laser-focused, Mr.
Chairman.
Thank you.
Mr. Perry. The Chair thanks the gentleman.
The Chair also thanks the witnesses for their valuable
testimony, and the Members for their questions.
Members may have some additional questions for the
witnesses and we will ask you to respond to these in writing.
Pursuant to committee rule 7(e), the hearing record will
remain open for 10 days. Without objection, the subcommittee
stands adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 11:16 a.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]
A P P E N D I X
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Questions From Chairman Scott Perry for Carol R. Cha
Question 1. Mr. Fulghum's testimony indicated that DHS made the
deliberate decision to halt other HRIT strategic improvement
opportunities in order to pursue PALMS. However, GAO's report indicates
that this was not the case. Please explain the discrepancy.
Answer. We agree with the Department that officials elected to
dedicate a vast majority of the Human Resources Information Technology
(HRIT) investment resources to the Performance and Learning Management
System (PALMS) in order to address significant schedule delays and
technical challenges, rather than initiating additional HRIT strategic
improvement opportunities. This is consistent with our February 2016
report.\1\ We also reported that HRIT officials explained the decision
to focus primarily on PALMS was due, in part, to the investment's
declining funding stream.
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\1\ GAO, Homeland Security: Oversight of Neglected Human Resources
Information Technology Investment Is Needed, GAO-16-253 (Washington,
DC: Feb. 11, 2016).
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We do not agree with Mr. Fulghum's written statement that DHS made
a ``decision to pause the HRIT executive steering committee's
management and oversight,'' in order to deploy PALMS. During the course
of our review, DHS officials did not provide documentation that
indicated the Department deliberately paused the HRIT executive
steering committee management. On the contrary, the HRIT executive
steering committee charter specifies that it is intended to be the core
oversight and advisory body for all DHS-wide matters related to human
capital IT investments, expenditures, and projects, which includes
HRIT's PALMS program. However, as we reported, the committee did not
perform its oversight responsibilities. Specifically, the committee
only met once over a 2-year period when HRIT's only on-going program--
PALMS--was experiencing significant problems (including frequent
turnover in its program manager position).
Question 2. GAO reported that DHS made limited progress in
achieving its 2 performance metrics and associated targets for the HRIT
program. These included reducing the number of component-specific human
resource IT systems by 46 percent and increasing the number of
Department-wide HRIT services by 38 percent by the end of fiscal year
2016. However, DHS has barely made progress in meeting these goals. How
realistic are these goals? What type of performance metrics or goals
would better reflect DHS's intended performance for HRIT?
Answer. To determine whether the HRIT performance metrics and
associated targets are realistic or need to be updated, the Department
should first implement our recommendation to re-evaluate HRIT's
strategic improvement opportunities to decide whether they are still
valid and reflective of DHS's current needs. Once this is complete, the
Department should implement our recommendation to re-prioritize the
improvement opportunities to determine the highest-priority areas, and
determine how to move forward with HRIT, including deciding if the
performance metrics are appropriate and whether updating them is
necessary.
Question 3. GAO reported that DHS anticipates that, of the total
number of users, less than half would actually use either the learning
or performance management capabilities. As a result, would implementing
PALMS ultimately address the problems that it is intended to address
when about 200,000 users will not use either system?
Answer. According to DHS, the PALMS program was to enable
enterprise-wide tracking and reporting of employee learning and
performance management data across DHS headquarters and its 8
components in order to, among other things, automate paper-based
performance management processes, consolidate duplicative learning
management systems, and ensure consistency across the Department.
However, as of November 2015, the Federal Emergency Management
Agency and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement were not yet
committed to implementing the PALMS performance management
capabilities, and the Transportation Security Administration and the
U.S. Coast Guard were not yet committed to implementing either of the
PALMS learning and performance management capabilities. As we reported
in February, until these components implement our recommendation to
determine whether they will adopt the learning and/or performance
management capabilities of PALMS, the Department is at risk of
implementing a solution that does not fully address its problems.
Moreover, until DHS decides on an alternative viable solution for any
component that deems PALMS as not feasible, the Department is at risk
of not meeting its goal to enable enterprise-wide tracking and
reporting of employee learning and performance management.
Question 4. DHS's effort to field PALMS includes implementing a
commercial off-the-shelf software product that is to be provided as a
service. If the system is a commercial off-the-shelf system, why is has
it been so challenging to implement? To what extent did the Department
properly determine the requirements for the system prior to selecting a
vendor to deliver the capability?
Answer. Although PALMS was intended to provide an enterprise-wide
commercial off-the-shelf system, the program experienced implementation
challenges because it did not follow several key IT acquisition best
practices. Specifically, DHS did not maintain a complete and accurate
program schedule, or implement key risk management practices, including
regularly tracking the status of its risks and mitigation efforts, and
prioritizing its risks. To help DHS monitor and oversee the
implementation of PALMS, and ensure that the program's attention and
resources for risk mitigation are used in the most effective manner,
the Department should promptly address our 5 recommendations that we
made on each of these areas in our February report.\2\
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\2\ GAO-16-253.
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We have not conducted the necessary work to answer the question
regarding the extent to which DHS properly determined the requirements
for the system prior to selecting a vendor. However, we reported that,
as of November 2015, according to PALMS officials, the vendor's
commercial off-the-shelf system did not meet requirements that it was
expected to meet, which required the vendor to customize the system to
meet those requirements. According to PALMS officials, DHS had 483
baseline requirements, 32 of which needed customizations, and 5 of
these 32 requirements still needed to be fully addressed by the vendor,
as of November 2015. DHS expected these requirements to be met by the
end of February 2016.
Questions From Ranking Member Bonnie Watson Coleman for Carol R. Cha
Question 1. Based on GAO's analysis, only 1 out of 15 improvement
opportunities were fully implemented by DHS as of November 2015,
specifically the HRIT intake process. Of the 14 remaining, was it
reasonable for DHS to have fully implemented any the improvement
opportunities by November 2015? If so, which ones? What do you believe
is a reasonable time line for full implementation of the remaining 14
improvement areas?
Answer. Through DHS's extensive effort to develop the Human Capital
Segment Architecture, which began in 2010 and was completed in August
2011, DHS considered it reasonable to fully implement 14 of the 15 HRIT
strategic improvement opportunities within an approximately 4-year
period (i.e., by June 2015). The only improvement opportunity that DHS
determined would take longer than that was the End-to-End Hiring
improvement opportunity, which DHS had planned to implement by December
2016 (5\1/2\ years following the completion of the architecture).
Moving forward, we believe a reasonable time line for full
implementation of the 14 remaining improvement opportunities cannot be
determined until the Department implements our recommendation to
evaluate the strategic improvement opportunities and projects within
the blueprint. Specifically, we recommended that DHS complete this
evaluation to determine whether the opportunities, projects, and the
goals of the blueprint are still valid and reflective of DHS's current
priorities.\3\ Once this is complete, DHS should implement an
additional recommendation we made to update and maintain a schedule
estimate on when it plans to implement each of the strategic
improvement opportunities.
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\3\ GAO, Homeland Security: Oversight of Neglected Human Resources
Information Technology Investment Is Needed, GAO-16-253 (Washington,
DC: Feb. 11, 2016).
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Question 2. GAO briefly discusses the Performance and Learning
Management System or PALMS implementation at the Department. Please
describe the Department's progress in implementing the PALMS software.
Are there any components in particular that are behind in its
implementation plan?
Answer. PALMS is intended to provide an enterprise-wide commercial
off-the-shelf system that offers performance management capabilities,
as well as learning management capabilities to headquarters and each of
its 8 components. As of January 2016, of the 8 components and
headquarters, 5 (U.S. Customs and Border Protection, the Federal Law
Enforcement Training Center, headquarters, U.S. Citizenship and
Immigration Services, and the U.S. Secret Service) were planning to
implement both PALMS's learning and performance management
capabilities, 2 (the Federal Emergency Management Agency and U.S.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement) were planning to implement only
the learning management capabilities, and 2 components (the
Transportation Security Administration and the U.S. Coast Guard) were
not currently planning to implement either of these PALMS capabilities.
As of February 2016, the learning management capabilities had been
deployed to DHS headquarters and 2 components (the Federal Law
Enforcement Training Center and U.S. Customs and Border Protection). If
the system was deployed to all of its expected users for these 3
organizations, approximately 110,860 should be currently using the
learning management capabilities (approximately 36 percent of the total
number of expected users for these capabilities).
Regarding PALMS's performance management capabilities, as we
reported in February, these capabilities have not been fully deployed
to any of the components or headquarters, and it was unknown when they
would be fully deployed at most of the components.\4\
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\4\ GAO-16-253.
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When compared to the program's original August 2012 delivery
schedule (which included deploying both the learning and performance
management capabilities in one release), headquarters and all of the
components have experienced significant schedule slippages. For
example, DHS headquarters was originally planning to implement both the
learning and performance management capabilities by June 2013; however,
it did not deploy the learning management capabilities until over 2
years later--in October 2015. Moreover, as of January 2016, DHS did not
have a date for when it planned to fully deploy the performance
management capabilities to headquarters. PALMS program management
office officials attributed these slippages to multiple causes,
including the vendor's commercial off-the-shelf system not meeting
requirements, thereby requiring the vendor to customize the system in
order to satisfy them.
As a result, PALMS's current trajectory is putting the Department
at risk of not meeting its goals to perform efficient, accurate, and
comprehensive tracking and reporting of training and performance
management data across the enterprise; and consolidating its 9 learning
management systems into 1. Accordingly, it is important for DHS to
implement our recommendations to:
establish a time frame for deciding whether PALMS will be
fully deployed at the Federal Emergency Management Agency and
the U.S. Coast Guard; and
determine an alternative approach if the learning and/or
performance management capabilities of PALMS are deemed not
feasible for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the
Federal Emergency Management Agency, the Transportation
Security Administration, or the U.S. Coast Guard.
Question 3. Please describe how HRIT implementation, particularly
the PALMS program, fell short on IT acquisition best practices. What
areas should the Department focus on to get the program back on track
in the most cost-effective and efficient manner?
Answer. The Department did not fully implement several key IT
acquisition practices on HRIT and PALMS. Specifically, regarding the
overall HRIT investment, the Department did not:
update and maintain a schedule estimate for implementing
HRIT's strategic improvement opportunities;
develop a life-cycle cost estimate for the investment; or
track all costs incurred on the investment.
Additionally, for the PALMS program, DHS did not:
develop a complete life-cycle cost estimate for the program;
maintain a complete and accurate program schedule;
monitor total program costs; or
implement key risk management practices, such as regularly
tracking the status of its risks and mitigation efforts.
To get HRIT and PALMS back on track in the most cost-effective and
efficient manner, DHS should promptly address our 14 recommendations
that we made on each of these areas in our February report.\5\ To begin
with, DHS should focus in particular on re-evaluating its HRIT
strategic planning document (the Human Capital Segment Architecture
Blueprint) to determine whether the improvement opportunities and goals
of the plan are still valid and reflective of DHS's current priorities.
DHS should also re-prioritize the strategic improvement opportunities
to ensure that it is investing in and implementing the highest-priority
items first. Full implementation of our recommendations will help to
ensure that the overall investment receives necessary oversight and
attention, and will help address the ineffective management that HRIT
and PALMS have experienced to date.
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\5\ GAO-16-253.
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Question 4. One area GAO attributes to the limited progress of HRIT
implementation is the lack of involvement from the Executive Steering
Committee. Please state for this committee how you feel the Executive
Steering Committee can assist in HRIT implementation, for example, how
frequently should they be meeting, how frequently should they receive
status reports on the implementation, etc.?
Answer. As the HRIT investment's core oversight and advisory body,
the Executive Steering Committee can assist HRIT implementation by
ensuring the implementation of our 14 recommendations, such as being
consistently involved in overseeing and advising HRIT and approving key
program management documents, including HRIT's operational plan,
schedule, and planned cost estimate.
Regarding frequency of committee meetings and status reports,
consistent with DHS's guidance on oversight of high-risk investments,
the committee should be meeting and receiving status reports on the
HRIT investment at least on a monthly basis. DHS's Capital Planning and
Investment Control Guidance specifies that high-risk investments are to
be reviewed monthly. In our February 2015 High-Risk Report,\6\ we
highlighted the HRIT investment as a high-risk initiative with
significant issues requiring attention.
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\6\ Every 2 years at the start of a new Congress, GAO calls
attention to agencies and program areas that are high risk due to their
vulnerabilities to fraud, waste, abuse, and mismanagement, or are most
in need of transformation. As part of a new entry into the February
2015 update to our High-Risk Series focused on improving the management
of IT acquisitions and operations, HRIT was identified as an IT
investment--among others across the Federal Government--in need of the
most attention. See GAO, High-Risk Series: An Update, GAO-15-290
(Washington, DC: Feb. 11, 2015).
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Question 5. GAO lists 1 of out 15 improvement opportunities that
DHS fully implemented by November 2015, the HRIT intake process. Is the
Department close to full implementation on any of the remaining 14
opportunities? Of the remaining 14, which areas should DHS place
primary focus?
Answer. Of the 14 improvement opportunity areas that DHS has not
yet fully implemented, it has partially implemented 5 and has not yet
started to work on the other 9. Officials did not know when any of
these 14 improvement opportunity areas would be fully addressed. As we
reported in February, DHS has been primarily focused on implementing
PALMS--which aims to address the performance management improvement
opportunity area--rather than initiating additional HRIT strategic
improvement opportunities. Nevertheless, DHS is still far from fully
implementing this improvement area, as DHS has not determined when the
performance management capabilities of PALMS will be fully implemented
at headquarters and at most of the components.
To determine which improvement areas DHS should focus on going
forward, the Department needs to first implement our recommendation to
re-evaluate HRIT's strategic improvement opportunities to determine
whether they are still valid and reflective of DHS's current needs.
Once the Department has completed this evaluation, it should implement
our recommendation to re-prioritize the improvement opportunities to
determine the highest priority areas.
Question 6. The Department initiated the HRIT investment in 2003.
From 2003 to 2010, DHS made limited progress on the HRIT investment, as
reported by DHS's inspector general. In the IG's report, 11
recommendations were made to the chief human capital officer. We are
now in 2016 and still discussing shortcomings in HRIT implementation.
What is the Department doing wrong? Should its focus be shifted in
another area?
Answer. The Department's neglect of the HRIT investment and lack of
implementation of key IT acquisition practices, including developing
and maintaining a life-cycle cost and schedule estimate, have resulted
in DHS making very limited progress on the investment. In particular, a
key cause for the Department's minimal progress in implementing HRIT
was the lack of involvement of the HRIT executive steering committee--
the investment's core oversight and advisory body.
As DHS described in its business justification for the HRIT
investment, limitations in the Department's human resources
environment, including fragmented systems and duplicative and paper-
based processes, are compromising the Department's ability to
effectively and efficiently carry out its mission. As such, it is
critical for the Department to maintain focus on this area and address
these issues. In particular, the Department needs to make the
implementation of our 14 recommendations a high priority to help the
investment address the long-standing issues in DHS's human resources
environment.
Question 7. GAO cites ``unplanned resource changes'' as one of the
reasons for the lack of progress made in the implementation of HRIT.
Please describe for the committee examples of the resources changes you
are referring to. What can the Department do better to fully implement
the remaining 14 improvement area opportunities in the appropriate rate
of time?
Answer. As we reported in February 2016, DHS elected to dedicate
the vast majority of HRIT's resources to implementing PALMS and
addressing its problems, rather than initiating additional HRIT
strategic improvement opportunities. Specifically, PALMS--which began
in July 2012--experienced programmatic and technical challenges that
led to years-long schedule delays. For example, while the PALMS system
for headquarters was originally planned to be delivered by a vendor in
December 2013, as of November 2015, the expected delivery date was
delayed until the end of February 2016--an over 2-year delay. HRIT
officials explained the decision to focus primarily on PALMS was due,
in part, to the investment's declining funding stream. However, in
doing so, attention was concentrated on the immediate issues affecting
PALMS and diverted from the other goals of HRIT.
To effectively implement the remaining 14 improvement opportunity
areas, DHS needs to fully implement our recommendations by taking
several key actions, including:
ensuring that the HRIT Executive Steering Committee is
consistently involved in overseeing and advising HRIT,
re-evaluating HRIT's strategic improvement opportunities to
determine whether they are still valid and reflective of DHS's
current needs,
re-prioritizing the improvement opportunities as needed to
determine on which ones to focus first,
developing a complete life-cycle cost estimate, and
updating and maintaining a schedule estimate for
implementation of the improvement opportunities.
Question 8. Of the 8 components, 2 components are not currently
planning to implement PALMS and another 2 components are only
implementing one of PALMS learning capabilities. Based on your review
of PALMS, is it necessary for every component to implement the program
in order to achieve maximum success? What impacts, if any, will the
Department see due to its lack of full participation from all the
components?
Answer. According to DHS, the Department initiated the PALMS
program to implement an enterprise-wide employee performance management
and appraisal solution that is to automate the Department's primarily
paper-based performance management processes. In addition, PALMS was to
provide a system to consolidate 9 existing learning management systems
into 1 system and enable comprehensive training reporting and analysis
across the Department. Such an approach can save resources and ensure
consistency across the Department.
However, as of November 2015, the Federal Emergency Management
Agency and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement were not yet
committed to implementing the PALMS performance management
capabilities, while the Transportation Security Administration and the
U.S. Coast Guard were not yet committed to implementing either of the
PALMS learning and performance management capabilities. As we reported,
until these components determine whether they will implement the
learning and/or performance management capabilities of PALMS, the
Department is at risk of implementing a solution that does not fully
address its problems. Moreover, until DHS determines an alternative
approach if one or both aspects of PALMS is deemed not feasible for all
components, the Department is at risk of not meeting its goal to enable
enterprise-wide tracking and reporting of employee learning and
performance management.
Question 9. Given the nature of the HRIT investment, explain to the
committee the effect this investment's non-performance has on the
capabilities and mission of the Department of Homeland Security as a
whole.
Answer. The HRIT investment is intended to address the fragmented
systems, duplicative and paper-based processes, and little uniformity
of data management practices that have plagued the Department since it
was first created in 2002. According to DHS, these issues with its
human resources environment are compromising the Department's ability
to effectively and efficiently carry out its mission. For example,
according to DHS, reporting and analyzing enterprise human capital data
are currently time-consuming, labor-intensive, and challenging because
the Department's data management largely consists of disconnected,
stand-alone systems, with multiple data sources for the same content.
Additionally, according to DHS, the Department does not have
information on all of its employees, which reduces its abilities to
strategically manage its workforce and best deploy people in support of
Homeland Security missions.
Further, the Department's strategic planning document noted that,
based on its current human resources environment, DHS, among other
things,
is unable to support enterprise reporting and has data
quality issues;
does not have enterprise-level performance information
available and lacks standardized performance measures across
the components;
incurs significant costs associated with maintaining 7
different systems for personnel action requests, and loses
efficiency due to duplicative data entry into multiple systems;
and
does not have a standardized approach to off-boarding at DHS
and there are time lags before selected systems recognize that
an employee has left DHS, which poses a risk of security
infractions.
Without successfully implementing HRIT or a similar Department-wide
solution, DHS will be limited in its ability to address the issues
described above.
Questions From Chairman Scott Perry for Chip Fulghum
Question 1. Mr. Fulghum's testimony indicated that DHS made the
deliberate decision to halt other HRIT strategic improvement
opportunities in order to pursue PALMS. However, GAO's report indicates
that this was not the case. Please explain the discrepancy.
Answer. The GAO Report cites, ``DHS elected to dedicate the vast
majority of HRIT's resources to implementing PALMS and addressing its
problems, rather than initiating additional HRIT strategic improvement
opportunities'' (pg. 18). Additionally the report cites, ``HRIT
officials attributed the lack of schedule updates to the investment's
focus shifting to the PALMS program when it started experiencing
significant schedule delays (pg. 21).'' These statements/assertions
agree with the testimony of the DUSM. PALMS implementation was the No.
1 priority of the HRIT program since it began in 2012.
Question 2. In May 2013, DHS established a blanket purchase
agreement that obligates funds when orders are placed for each
component to use when implementing PALMS. This agreement was valued at
$95 million. However, GAO reported that only a handful of components
expected to implement any part of PALMS services. As a result of the
delayed implementation, has the estimated value increased in the last 3
years since the blanket purchase agreement was established?
Answer. At the time of the ETMS award, based on the schedule
included in the acquisition and procurement documentation, it was
always expected that all components would implement all of the ETMS/
PALMS services. Currently, 3 years after contract award, PALMS value
has limitations that prevent the entire systems' implementation. PALMS
is comprised of 2 modules; Learning Management and Performance
Management. PALMS deployed in; CBP, HQ, and FLETC in 2015 with ICE,
CIS, and USSS implementations scheduled for 2016 and includes; only the
LMS module. The performance management module currently is in pilot and
scheduled for full performance evaluation life cycle completion by
September 2016. Once the system is complete with both modules, then a
value assessment of PALMS services can be achieved.
Question 3. Did any senior officials receive performance
compensation/bonuses for their management of HRIT at any point? If so,
who approved such awards?
Answer. Yes, senior officials who were responsible for HRIT
received performance-related compensation based not just on HRIT
responsibilities, but on all of the core competencies and performance
objectives for which they were responsible. Awards were recommended by
chief human capital officers who are no longer employed at DHS.
Performance awards for all senior executives must also receive the
concurrence of a Performance Review Board (PRB).
Question 4. DHS reported that HRIT was necessary to address
security risks that employees separating from the Department pose.
Specifically, DHS reported that there are no automated triggers that
notify when an employee separated from the Department and that it
relies largely on the initiative of the departing employee to make such
notification. DHS concluded that this could allow employees access to
sensitive systems after they have separated from the agency.
How often do these instances occur?
What is DHS's current ``off-boarding'' process for employees?
What steps has the Department taken to mitigate this type of
security risk?
How does the use of multi-factor authentication mitigate this
significant problem?
Answer. DHS is not aware of any specific instances where a departed
employee has accessed sensitive systems.
The Department's progress in multi-factor authentication requires
the use of not only a DHS-issued badge, but an accompanying pin or
other unique identifier. By ensuring the badge is turned in as a part
of the exit procedures, this eliminates one critical element of the
multi-factor authentication.
Each component takes this risk seriously, and monitors internally.
As an initiative under the cyber work within OCIO, the Department is
currently conducting a pilot to deactivate all departing employees and
contractors upon separation.
DHS components have the flexibility to tailor their individual off-
boarding processes. These processes typically include a current
employee receiving and certifying the employee has turned in their
equipment, badges, and other DHS-issued equipment. The components
submit the Standard Form 52 to human resources to process their
separation action in all human resources systems and the badges are
turned in, and access to DHS offices and systems are inactivated.
Question 5. GAO reported that DHS made limited progress in
achieving its 2 performance metrics and associated targets for the HRIT
program. These included reducing the number of component-specific human
resource IT systems by 46% and increasing the number of Department-wide
HRIT services by 38% by the end of fiscal year 2016. However, DHS has
barely made progress in meeting these goals. How realistic are these
goals? What specific steps does DHS plan to take to meet these targets?
Answer. We agree that the original performance goals are
unrealistic. The Strategic Improvement Opportunities (SIOs) are
currently under review and are in the process of being re-baselined and
evaluated by the Executive Steering Committee. DHS expects revised
performance metrics to be available at the end of June 2016.
Question 6. Because PALMS encompasses 2 separate projects and
delivers 2 distinct capabilities, it is easy for progress in one area
to appear to count as progress in the other area. However, when viewed
separately, it is clear that the implementation of learning management
capabilities has just begun, while performance management capabilities
have not yet been implemented at all. When does DHS expect to fully
implement the learning management capabilities of PALMS as well as the
performance management capabilities?
Answer. PALMS full functionality is expected to be completed by
fiscal year 2017. Since addressing the challenges that caused the
slowdown, the learning management capabilities of the PALMS system were
deployed at Customs and Border Protection (CBP) in July 2015; at DHS
Headquarters (HQ) in October 2015; and most recently at the Federal Law
Enforcement Training Center (FLETC) in December 2015. As such, the
PALMS learning management capabilities are fully implemented at CBP,
HQ, and FLETC. In total, the usage of the PALMS learning management
module at CBP, HQ, and FLETC has resulted in more than 350,000 course
completions. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is scheduled for
deployment in the third quarter of fiscal year 2016. U.S. Citizenship
and Immigration Services (USCIS) and U.S. Secret Service (USSS) are
scheduled for deployment in the first quarter of fiscal year 2017. The
Transportation Security Administration (TSA), Federal Emergency
Management Agency (FEMA), and the U.S. Coast Guard (USCG) are
performing their analyses and are on schedule for an implementation
decision by May 30, 2016. DHS has moved forward with the implementation
of the performance management capabilities in PALMS, with an initial
pilot being conducted within the Headquarters. This Pilot includes a
full year performance evaluation period (October through September)
Performance Plan development, mid-year reviews, and final evaluation.
Barring any unforeseen challenges in meeting the requirements, this
portion of the project remains on track for the delivery of the full
operating capability per the current schedule of September 2016.
Question 7. DHS's effort to field PALMS includes implementing a
commercial off-the-shelf software product that is to be provided as a
service. If the system is a commercial off-the-shelf system, why is has
it been so challenging to implement? To what extent did the Department
determine the requirements for the system, prior to selecting a vendor
to deliver the capability?
Answer. We agree that implementing PALMS has been a challenge to
the Department. Invoking a Commercial Off-the-shelf Software (COTS) or
Software as a Service (SaaS)--commercially-available software for
customers delivered over the web means that all component business
processes would be standardized since all components would be using the
same application. Unfortunately, the business processes for the LMS and
Performance Management are performed differently at the component level
which caused the delay in implementation.
Question 8. The HRIT investment is currently rated as being a
``medium-risk'' investment on the Office of Management and Budget's IT
Dashboard; however, this rating is representative of only HRIT's
Performance and Learning Management System (PALMS) and not the entirety
of the HRIT investment. Why is this rating not representative of the
entire HRIT investment, including reflecting the lack of progress made
to date in implementing HRIT and the lack of a plan to date for how to
proceed with the investment?
According to DHS's guidance, investments that are designated by DHS
as being ``high-risk'' are to be evaluated by OCIO on a monthly basis,
and ``medium-risk'' investments are to be evaluated on a quarterly
basis. Based on the issues reported by GAO on HRIT and PALMS, it does
not appear as though ``medium-risk'' is an accurate designation. Why is
this investment not designated a ``high-risk'' investment?
Answer. We agree that the HRIT investment, including but not
limited to the PALMS project, should be designated a high risk and will
make the appropriate changes.
Question 9. In January 2015, DHS shifted its IT strategy from
acquiring assets to acquiring services. According to DHS, this shift
will require a significant change in DHS's IT workforce's skillsets.
GAO concluded that this shift will need to be closely managed in order
to succeed. Why did DHS shift its strategy? What, if any, are the
impacts on costs? What steps will DHS take to oversee this shift in
strategy? Who within DHS will own this process?
Answer. OCIO shifted its strategy to better leverage the open
market place for the delivery of enterprise systems and services, based
in part by the increase in FedRamp approved commercial cloud services
and offerings, and based on best practices learned working with the
U.S. Digital Services.
Based on pilots and early implementations using commercial cloud
offerings, OCIO anticipates that this shift in strategy will result in
lower overall total cost and reduce the time for higher-quality
services.
Progress on this shift in strategy will be overseen and managed by
the OCIO along with its governing body, the DHS CIO Council. Progress
on reduction in costs or decrease in time to delivery services will be
measured and reported using the PortfolioStat process and our
Performance Measures Implementation.
Questions From Ranking Member Bonnie Watson Coleman for Angela Bailey
Question 1. The Department has identified a wide range of human
capital needs, particularly the size of the workforce, its deployment
across the Department and components, and the knowledge, skills,
abilities, and diversity needed within the workforce. However, as of
September 2015, DHS had yet to fully implement a workforce-planning
model to properly plan for current and future organizational and
workforce needs. Please describe for the committee the current time
line for completing a comprehensive workforce plan. What areas do you
anticipate being primary areas of focus, whether it be hiring needs,
employee morale improvement, and/or diversity?
Answer. Response was not received at the time of publication.
Question 2. In 2011, the Department established a human capital
strategic plan and has made some progress in its implementation.
However, the Department has considerable work ahead to improve employee
morale, which has decreased each year since the plan was implemented in
2011. Please describe to the committee what you've done to address
employee morale since your appointment and how you plan on addressing
it further in the future?
Answer. Response was not received at the time of publication.
Question 3. PALMS intended to provide an enterprise-wide system
that offers performance management capabilities as well as learning
management capabilities to headquarters and each of its components.
However, there is uncertainty about whether the PALMS system will be
used Department-wide to accomplish these goals. Of the 8 components, 2
components are not currently planning to implement PALMS and another 2
components are only implementing one of PALMS learning capabilities.
Can PALMS be beneficial to the Department if every component does not
implement the software? If the goal is to provide across-the-board
performance management, is that even possible without each component's
involvement?
Answer. Response was not received at the time of publication.
Question 4. One particular area in the 15 strategic improvement
opportunities addresses end-to-end hiring, a seamless, efficient, and
transparent hiring process. According to GAO, this area has not even
been partially implemented by the Department, which may have resulted
in delayed hiring. Please provide the committee with an update on this
improvement area and your plan to ensure its full implementation as
quickly as possible.
Answer. Response was not received at the time of publication.
Question 5. In 2015, the Department shifted its IT paradigm from
acquiring assets to acquiring services. This shift will require a major
transition in the skill sets of DHS's IT workforce. The Department will
need to effectively hire, train, and manage those new skill sets.
Please provide your strategy in addressing the Department's new focus
on services, discussing in particular recruitment and retention
efforts.
Answer. Response was not received at the time of publication.
Question 6. According to GAO, the PALMS PMO, which is responsible
for overseeing the PALMS implementation projects across DHS, conducted
reviews to monitor the program's performance, but did not consistently
document the results of the program's progress and milestone reviews.
Please update the committee on the status of PALMS, particularly its
performance in milestone and progress reviews. Do you still believe
PALMS will be beneficial for the Department's tracking of personnel
performance?
Answer. Response was not received at the time of publication.
Question 7. According to the GAO report, DHS's off-boarding process
poses an unacceptably high risk of security infractions, including
former employees continuing to log on to the network, use email
accounts, and access information that is considered off-limits to the
general public, due to its paper-based and manual process. Please tell
the committee what steps have been implemented to improve the off-
boarding process. What is the length of time former employees maintain
system credentials?
Answer. Response was not received at the time of publication.
Question 8. The Office of Personnel Management's Federal Employee
Viewpoint Survey data continues to show that DHS's scores steadily
decrease in all four dimensions of the survey's index for human capital
accountability and assessment. Do you believe the PALMS program will
assist in employee morale and accountability? What other areas do you
feel can help improve morale at the Department?
Answer. Response was not received at the time of publication.
Question 9. This committee has asked DHS components and the
Inspector General questions about personnel data. Some of these
questions could not be answered mainly because DHS did not have the
data. What are you doing in your capacity as chief human capital
officer to ensure that the components with which you are working are
now keeping the adequate records to track personnel data?
Answer. Response was not received at the time of publication.
Question 10. This committee understands that a bulk of reforming
the HRIT investment has been delegated to the chief information
officer, who was not present for the hearing. Since you have been named
chief human capital officer, have you been able to give your input into
reforming the HRIT investment? What type of input have you given and
when do you expect the committee to see improvements?
Answer. Response was not received at the time of publication.
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