Morale at the State Department's Office of Consular Systems and Technology is "best described as mixed," due to the leadership of its director, Kirit Amin, says a State Department inspector general audit.

The report, from May 2011 but released publically June 13, says that some staff within the office find Amin's management style stimulating and challenging, while others resent it.

"Even those who admire the director's leadership and accomplishments most, view his emotional outbursts as embarrassing and inappropriate," the report states. At times, Amin has issued what the report calls diktats to his staff, prohibiting or restricting their contact with other State Department organizations. At one point, the Visa Office was the subject of such a diktat, the report adds.

Matters came to a head in fall 2010 when Amin's superiors decided to take action after reports of another angry outburst directed against individual office employees during a meeting.

Since then, matters appear to have cooled somewhat, although some CST employees told auditors that they "hoped" that the improvement in atmosphere would continue after the inspector general team's departure.

CST is the information technology arm of the State Department's Office of Consular Affairs; in fiscal 2010, its operating budget was about $266 million, of which it spent $226 million on contracts including for support staff. The office currently consists of 68 full time equivalent civil service positions along with 850 contractors hired under nearly 30 contracts, the report says. CST is funded by visa fees, so doesn't receive congressional appropriations.

The audit also finds that interaction between CST and CA has been spotty. The report says the fault lies on both sides, stating that CA officials should make their priorities clearer, while chastising CST for taking decisions without coordinating with business process owners or operators. "One such decision seriously affected billing operations at the National Visa Center and required significant effort to redress," the report states.

Systems development lifecycle practices at CST also require better formulation, the audit finds. Some CST divisions are using elements of a development lifecycle, while others use none at all. The report cites development of a system for reporting the birth of American citizens abroad as an example of the adverse effects stemming from lack of a standardized lifecycle process. Ownership of the system's development and deployment shifted throughout, and the business units requirements were not clearly communicated. As a result, CST designed and tested a system for a printer that did not match the printer model identified and already procured by the users, the report states.

The report makes 35 recommendations along with six informal recommendations; no formal response from the State Department was included with the audit.

For more:
- download the report, ISP-I-11-51 (.pdf)

Related Articles:
At the State Department, 'the worst' TechStat experience yielded good results 
Visa waiver countries not sharing terrorist watch list info, says GAO 
Chinese hackers penetrate personal Gmail accounts of senior federal officials