The General Accounting Office is recommending that Congress cut off funding for a $3 billion initiative to modernize Agriculture Department facilities around the country.
In a new report ("USDA Service Centers: Multibillion Dollar Effort to Modernize Processes and Technology Faces Significant Risks," AIMD-98-168), GAO criticizes USDA's management of a project designed to improve customer service at 2,500 field offices by creating one-stop service centers for farmers. The centers would rely heavily on new computer systems. GAO finds fault with USDA's reengineering schedule, investment analysis, resource planning, project management structure and procurement model.
"Even if it spends billions of dollars on its service center [information technology] modernization, the department may not obtain an adequate return on its investment nor meet the needs of its customers or achieve the [Agriculture] Secretary's vision of one-stop service," GAO says. "Congress may wish to limit IT funding for the USDA service centers to only that necessary to bring mission-critical systems into compliance with year 2000 requirements, implement cost-effective efforts that support ongoing operations and maintenance, and develop and document a concept of operations and the new mission-critical business processes necessary to provide one-stop service."
The service center project, on which USDA expects to spend more than $3 billion from 1996 to 2011, will be the department's largest-ever modernization. USDA will buy 7,000 personal computers, 21,000 laptops, 10,000 personal data assistants, 24,000 printers and thousands of cellular phones, global positioning satellite instruments and digital cameras.
The effort, said GAO, is suffering from several fundamental problems:
- USDA is acquiring new technologies without first reengineering its processes. Under the Clinger-Cohen Act, agencies are supposed to restructure their administrative processes before making major IT investments. "When IT projects precede business process redesign, they typically fail or reach only a fraction of their potential," GAO says.
- The department is not using cost, benefit, risk and performance information to control and evaluate projects.
- USDA does not have a comprehensive plan for the project, identifying critical milestones and resources.
- Managers are not purchasing new technology in increments, with performance measures for each increment to justify further acquisitions.
- Agency leaders have not designated a project manager and assigned responsibility and authority to senior executives.
In addition, while USDA expects savings of $5.5 billion through 2001 from reducing 19 million staff hours a year, the department has no plans in place to downsize its staff, GAO says.
While GAO presents the service center modernization as a classic case of federal mismanagement of information technology, USDA counters that it has learned from others' mistakes.
USDA Deputy Secretary Richard Rominger questioned GAO's findings in a letter to Assistant Comptroller General Gene L. Dodaro. Rominger said USDA has made executives accountable for the modernization's results. He also questioned GAO's assertion that business processes must be reengineered before technologies are purchased.
"An incremental and parallel approach is the best way to proceed, given the massive business processes involved and the changing technology which will allow USDA to achieve efficiencies and savings as we move through the reengineering process," Rominger wrote.
Rominger also objected to GAO's recommendation that funding for the modernization be cut off.
The GAO report "fails to recognize USDA's progress, and suggests that we are proceeding down a high-risk path that will not lead to success," Rominger says. "Limiting IT funding at this critical juncture would essentially shut down much of the reengineering and technical development work that is underway."
But GAO dismissed Rominger's defense.
"Although some of the steps being taken by USDA are helpful, they will not and do not correct the persistent weaknesses we identified," GAO said.
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