Most major projects at the Homeland Security Department will end up costing far more than initially estimated and will likely be late, finds a new Government Accountability Report.

In a review of 18 projects--16 of them major, two of them smaller--the GAO found that current acquisition cost appraisals can vary by as much as 564 percent from initial estimates--though the most common range is between 23 and 37 percent more than initial estimate. SBInet is the project that is 564 percent more than initial cost, with current estimates pegging its acquisition cost at almost $1.9 billion.

Two DHS projects are below initial acquisition cost estimates, the GAO report states: US VISIT's unique identity effort by negative 51 percent and the National Cybersecurity Protection System by negative 18 percent.

Of the reviewed projects, three are on time, too--though five are late by more than four years, with another eight being somewhere in between on time and four years late and the status of two being unknown, since their program offices didn't inform the GAO.

Among the reasons for the cost overruns and the lateness at DHS is that the department doesn't undertake some basic acquisition management practices, the GAO report finds. For example, baseline requirements made at a program's start were missing in over half of the GAO reviewed projects.

One project, modernization of the Traveler Enforcement Compliance System, did not have an approved baseline until more than six years after the project began (work on segment 1 and 2 of TECS modernization did not actually start until April 2008, however).

Other problems include an acquisition review board, limited by staffing and funding levels, that does not man major acquisition programs and no body at all to review projects for joint requirements. The DHS Joint Requirements Council stopped meeting in 2006, the report states.

DHS's lack of ability to conduct formal investment reviews have led some component heads to seek approval for projects directly from the deputy secretary. "As a result, some decisions were very informal and DHS officials said they did not always know whether a decision had been made," the GAO report states.

For more:
- download GAO report 10-588SP (.pdf)

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