An estimated $1.7 billion modernization effort at U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services suffers from unreliable schedules and cost estimates, says the Government Accountability Office.

In a report dated Nov. 22, GAO auditors say USCIS awarded in November 2008 a solutions architect contract worth approximately $500 million over a 5-year period (to IBM) before fully developing requirements for the modernization effort, which seeks to eliminate paper-based processes at the agency.

The contract is a "performance-based" one, meaning that USCIS told IBM the outcomes it wanted, leaving it to the company to identify and deliver the technology necessary to achieve those outcomes. It's a type of contracting methodology that GAO says has led to poor acquisition outcomes, at least at DHS.    

Since awarding the contract, the cost estimate has grown from $410.7 million from fiscal 2009 to 2013 to $703 million through just fiscal 2011, the report says. The most recent cost estimate pegs the cost of the system from fiscal 2006 through 2022 to be $1.7 billion, although GAO says the estimate is based on incomplete data.

The original contract also called for deployment of capabilities ("outcomes") to begin by September 2009 and be completed by 2013. Instead, the agency has delayed implementation of the project's first phase and reduced the scope of the first release, which in April was scheduled to occur in December.  

On reason for the decreases in scope is that once USCIS defined the costs associated with digitizing paper records, the agency "concluded that the original plans are not achievable within the associated budget," the report says.

For more:
- download the report, GAO-12-66 (.pdf)

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