United States Government Publishing Office publisher pbl distributor dst United States Government Accountability Office Accounting and Information Management Division author aut Government Organization text government publication eng GAOREPORTS Legislative Agency Publications gao legislative 2010-08-12 U.S. Government Printing Office 1997-05-08 monographic deposited born digital 32 p. GA 1.13:AIMD-97-67 https://www.govinfo.gov/app/details/GAOREPORTS-AIMD-97-67 P0b002ee18037ef2b f:ai97067 DGPO 2010-08-12 2011-03-24 GAOREPORTS-AIMD-97-67 machine generated eng fdlp REPORT GAOREPORTS-AIMD-97-67 AIMD-97-67 Telecommunication equipment Federal procurement Cost control Interagency relations Cost effectiveness analysis Telecommunication Information resources management Data transmission FTS 2000 Federal Telecommunications System 2000 USDA Telecommunications Network Analysis Model Letter Report AIMD Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO reviewed efforts by the Department of the Interior and the Forest Service to reduce costs by consolidating their telecommunications services, focusing on whether Interior: (1) has consolidated and optimized telecommunications services to eliminate unnecessary services and maximize savings; and (2) and the Forest Service are sharing telecommunications services where they can.<p/>GAO noted that: (1) to its credit, Interior has undertaken a number of telecommunications cost-savings initiatives that have produced significant financial savings and helped reduce the Department's more than $62 million annual telecommunications investment; (2) however, Interior is not systematically identifying and acting on other opportunities to consolidate and optimize telecommunications resources within and among its bureaus or its 2,000-plus field locations; (3) the cost-savings initiatives that have been undertaken have generally been done on an isolated and ad hoc basis, and have not been replicated throughout the Department; (4) GAO did not review consolidation and sharing opportunities at all of Interior's field locations; (5) however, at the four sites GAO visited, GAO found that telecommunications resources were often not consolidated or shared, and bureaus and offices were paying thousands of dollars annually for unnecessary services; (6) Interior does not know to what extent similar telecommunications savings may exist at its other offices because it lacks the basic information necessary to make such determinations; (7) Interior and the Department of Agriculture (USDA) may also be missing opportunities to save millions of dollars by not sharing telecommunications resources; (8) even though the Departments have a 2-year old agreement to identify and act on sharing opportunities, little has been done to implement this agreement and, accordingly, only limited savings have been realized; and (9) moreover, while Interior and the Forest Service currently plan to collectively spend up to several hundred million dollars to acquire separate radio systems over the next 8 years, the Departments have not jointly determined the extent to which they can reduce these costs by sharing radio equipment and services. https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/GAOREPORTS-AIMD-97-67/html/GAOREPORTS-AIMD-97-67.htm https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/GAOREPORTS-AIMD-97-67/pdf/GAOREPORTS-AIMD-97-67.pdf GAO/AIMD-97-67 https://www.govinfo.gov/app/details/GAOREPORTS-AIMD-97-67 Letter Report GAO/AIMD-97-67; Telecommunications Management: More Effort Needed by Interior and the Forest Service to Achieve Savings; Telecommunication equipment Federal procurement Cost control Interagency relations Cost effectiveness analysis Telecommunication Information resources management Data transmission FTS 2000 Federal Telecommunications System 2000 USDA Telecommunications Network Analysis Model Volume 110 Page 684 110 Stat. 684 Public Law 104-106