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70–872 2011

JOINT OVERSIGHT HEARING ON 

MANAGING COSTS AND MITIGATING DELAYS 

IN THE BUILDING OF SOCIAL SECURITY’S 

NEW NATIONAL COMPUTER CENTER 

JOINT HEARING 

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON SOCIAL SECURITY 

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON WAYS AND MEANS 

AND THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON 

ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT, PUBLIC BUILDINGS, AND 

EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT 

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON TRANSPORTATION AND 

INFRASTRUCTURE 

OF THE

U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

ONE HUNDRED TWELFTH CONGRESS 

FIRST SESSION 

FEBRUARY 11, 2011

Serial No. 112–SS1 

Printed for the use of the Committee on Ways and Means 

( 


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COMMITTEE ON WAYS AND MEANS 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON SOCIAL SECURITY 

SAM JOHNSON, Texas, Chairman 

KEVIN BRADY, Texas 

PAT TIBERI, Ohio 

AARON SCHOCK, Illinois 

ERIK PAULSEN, Minnesota 

RICK BERG, North Dakota 

ADRIAN SMITH, Nebraska 

XAVIER BECERRA, California 

LLOYD DOGGETT, Texas 

SHELLEY BERKLEY, Nevada 

FORTNEY PETE STARK, California 

COMMITTEE ON TRANSPORTATION AND INFRASTRUCTURE 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT, PUBLIC BUILDINGS, 

AND EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT 

JEFF DENHAM, California, Chairman 

TIMOTHY V. JOHNSON, Illinois 

RICK CRAWFORD, Arkansas 

RANDY HULTGREN, Illinois 

LOU BARLETTA, Pennsylvania 

BOB GIBBS, Ohio 

PATRICK MEEHAN, Pennsylvania 

RICHARD HANNA, New York 

JOHN L. MICA, Florida 

ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, District of 

Columbia, Ranking Member 

HEATH SHULER, North Carolina 

MICHAEL H. MICHAUD, Maine 

RUSS CARNAHAN, Missouri 

TIMOTHY J. WALZ, Minnesota 

DONNA F. EDWARDS, Maryland 

BOB FILNER, California 

NICK J. RAHALL, II, West Virginia 


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C O N T E N T S 

Page 

Advisory of February 11, 2011, announcing the hearing ..................................... 2 

WITNESSES 

The Honorable Patrick P. O’Carroll Jr., Inspector General, Social Security 

Administration ..................................................................................................... 8 

David Foley, Deputy Commissioner of the Public Buildings Service, U.S. 

General Services Administration ........................................................................ 17 

Kelly Croft, Deputy Commissioner, Social Security Administration ................... 23 

QUESTIONS FOR THE RECORD 

David Foley .............................................................................................................. 55 

Kelly Kroft ................................................................................................................ 58 

Patrick P. O’Carroll ................................................................................................. 73 


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JOINT OVERSIGHT HEARING ON 

MANAGING COSTS AND MITIGATING DELAYS 

IN THE BUILDING OF SOCIAL SECURITY’S 

NEW NATIONAL COMPUTER CENTER 

FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 11, 2011 

U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, 

COMMITTEE ON WAYS AND MEANS, 

Washington, DC. 

The subcommittees met, pursuant to call, at 10:05 a.m., in Room 

1100, Longworth House Office Building, the Honorable Sam Johnson [Chairman of the Subcommittee on Social Security, Committee 

on Ways and Means] presiding. 

[The advisory of the hearing follows:] 


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HEARING ADVISORY 

FROM THE COMMITTEE ON WAYS AND MEANS 

Chairman Johnson and Chairman Denham 

Announce a Joint Oversight Hearing on 

Managing Costs and Mitigating Delays 

in the Building of Social Security’s 

New National Computer Center 

February 4, 2011 

U.S. Congressman Sam Johnson (R–TX), Chairman of the House Committee on 

Ways and Means Subcommittee on Social Security, and U.S. Congressman Jeff 

Denham (R–CA), Chairman of the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure Subcommittee on Economic Development, Public Buildings, and Emergency Management, announced today that the Subcommittees will hold a joint oversight hearing on managing costs and mitigating delays in the building of the Social 

Security Administration’s (SSA’s) new National Computer Center (NCC). The hearing will take place on Friday, February 11, 2011 in 1100 Longworth House 

Office Building, beginning at 10:00 a.m. 

In view of the limited time available to hear witnesses, oral testimony at this 

hearing will be from invited witnesses only. However, any individual or organization 

not scheduled for an oral appearance may submit a written statement for consideration by the Committee and for inclusion in the printed record of the hearing. A 

list of invited witnesses will follow. 

BACKGROUND: 

Information technology (IT) is the foundation of the SSA’s ability to serve the public. Over the past decade, the SSA has migrated 95 percent of its workloads from 

a paper-based system to an electronic processing system. This year the IT infrastructure supports the payment of over $700 billion in benefits to 56 million people, 

completing an average of over 75 million business transactions per day. Along with 

maintaining earnings, benefit, and demographic information for most Americans, 

the SSA’s computers also house the electronic medical records of millions who have 

filed disability claims. In addition, over 1 billion data files are exchanged annually 

between the SSA, Federal, State, and local government agencies and businesses in 

order to administer Social Security benefits and other programs. 

Until January 2009, the SSA ran its nationwide computer operations from its Baltimore-based 30-year old NCC. Since then, a second state-of-the-art support center 

now runs approximately 35 percent of all workloads and is able to recover all critical 

systems and restore services within 4 days should a catastrophic failure of the NCC 

occur. 

As time passes, the risk of a failure at the NCC is increasing due to its aging 

electrical and mechanical infrastructure. Should an NCC failure occur, lengthy service disruptions would severely affect service to the American public and cost taxpayers millions of dollars. 

In February 2009, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 provided 

$500 million for the SSA to replace the NCC, the single largest building project 

funded under the Act. The General Services Administration (GSA) and the SSA are 

managing the development and construction of the new project, including the development of requirements for the new center and site selection. The project remains 

on budget but the projected date for complete commissioning of the new facility has 

been delayed one year to January 2015. 


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In announcing the hearing, Chairman Sam Johnson (R–TX) stated, ‘‘Information 

technology is the most important element in driving Social Security to deliver 21st century customer service. Taxpayers are investing in a $500 million upgrade and they will not tolerate cost overruns or further delays in 

another failed stimulus project. Neither will I.’’ 

‘‘We need to hold the General Services Administration accountable for 

this half billion dollar project,’’ Chairman Jeff Denham (R–CA) stated. ‘‘The 

agency needs to use the resources they were provided, stay on budget and 

get this project back on schedule.’’ 

FOCUS OF THE HEARING: 

The hearing will focus on the progress made by the SSA and the GSA to replace 

the NCC, including progress to date and reasons for project delays. The Subcommittees will also assess how the SSA and the GSA plan to avoid further delays and 

stay within budget. Finally, the Subcommittees will examine the SSA’s preparedness should an NCC failure occur. 

DETAILS FOR SUBMISSION OF WRITTEN COMMENTS: 

Please Note: Any person(s) and/or organization(s) wishing to submit for the hearing record must follow the appropriate link on the hearing page of the Committee 

website and complete the informational forms. From the Committee homepage, 

http://waysandmeans.house.gov, select ‘‘Hearings.’’ Select the hearing for which you 

would like to submit, and click on the link entitled, ‘‘Click here to provide a submission for the record.’’ Once you have followed the online instructions, submit all requested information. ATTACH your submission as a Word document, in compliance 

with the formatting requirements listed below, by the close of business on Friday, March 4, 2011. Finally, please note that due to the change in House mail policy, the U.S. Capitol Police will refuse sealed-package deliveries to all House Office 

Buildings. For questions, or if you encounter technical problems, please call (202) 

225–1721 or (202) 225–3625. 

FORMATTING REQUIREMENTS: 

The Committee relies on electronic submissions for printing the official hearing 

record. As always, submissions will be included in the record according to the discretion of the Committee. The Committee will not alter the content of your submission, 

but we reserve the right to format it according to our guidelines. Any submission 

provided to the Committee by a witness, any supplementary materials submitted for 

the printed record, and any written comments in response to a request for written 

comments must conform to the guidelines listed below. Any submission or supplementary item not in compliance with these guidelines will not be printed, but will 

be maintained in the Committee files for review and use by the Committee. 

1. All submissions and supplementary materials must be provided in Word format and MUST 

NOT exceed a total of 10 pages, including attachments. Witnesses and submitters are advised 

that the Committee relies on electronic submissions for printing the official hearing record. 

2. Copies of whole documents submitted as exhibit material will not be accepted for printing. 

Instead, exhibit material should be referenced and quoted or paraphrased. All exhibit material 

not meeting these specifications will be maintained in the Committee files for review and use 

by the Committee. 

3. All submissions must include a list of all clients, persons and/or organizations on whose 

behalf the witness appears. A supplemental sheet must accompany each submission listing the 

name, company, address, telephone, and fax numbers of each witness. 

The Committee seeks to make its facilities accessible to persons with disabilities. 

If you are in need of special accommodations, please call 202–225–1721 or 202–226– 

3411 TTD/TTY in advance of the event (four business days notice is requested). 

Questions with regard to special accommodation needs in general (including availability of Committee materials in alternative formats) may be directed to the Committee as noted above. 


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Note: All Committee advisories and news releases are available on the World 

Wide Web at http://www.waysandmeans.house.gov/

f 

. 

Chairman JOHNSON. Good morning. Welcome to the first hearing of the Ways and Means Subcommittee on Social Security in the 

112th Congress. I especially want to welcome the new members of 

our subcommittee and our colleagues from the Committee on 

Transportation and Infrastructure, the Subcommittee on Economic 

Development, Public Buildings, and Emergency Management, especially the new chairman, Jeff Denham, who is sitting right here. 

I also want to say how much I look forward to working with our 

new subcommittee ranking member and my good friend, Xavier 

Becerra. Thank you for being here. 

As our nation ages, more Americans are depending on Social Security benefits and the services they paid for through their hardearned wages. To deliver those benefits and services, Social Security needs technology that it can count on. 

Because I take technology needs of Social Security very seriously, 

last year I toured the National Computer Center in Baltimore, Social Security’s technological nerve center. This center allows the 

agency to process applications, pay benefits, and store secured data 

on most U.S. workers. Two weeks ago I also visited the second support center in North Carolina. Yet, as we know, Social Security’s 

30-year-old National Computer Center is past its prime, and that 

is why the Congress authorized $500 million of taxpayer funds to 

build a new state-of-the-art data center. 

Just over a year ago, our subcommittees held a similar joint 

hearing to check in on Social Security’s and the General Services 

Administration’s progress. Back then we couldn’t get good answers—I hope we can today—as to why they decided to locate the 

new center away from Social Security’s headquarters in Baltimore, 

which I found out just this morning that they have over a couple 

hundred acres up there. So I don’t know still today why we couldn’t 

have found a place there. 

Now the project is already delayed a year, and that is before a 

single shovel has hit the ground. All the while, the more time 

passes, the higher the risk of the National Computer Center failing. 

If any of you have ever been up there, it was a firetrap. And I 

think people fail to realize that if that place burned down, we 

would lose all our onsite Social Security records. That is why we 

built the second center down in North Carolina, which still hasn’t 

got the capability to come up immediately. 

While progress has been made, it would still take four days to 

restore critical operations, and that is not good enough, and Social 

Security knows it. Americans want, need, and deserve better, and 

today we will learn more about the plans to improve. 

Taxpayers are investing in a $500 million infrastructure upgrade. The last thing they deserve is another failed stimulus 

project due to further delays or future cost overruns. Social Security owes it to the American taxpayer to make good on this investment. 


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Today we need to find out whether GSA and Social Security are 

doing everything they know how to do to make this project right 

and on time, if not ahead of time. This project should have started 

yesterday. And I want to thank all the witnesses in front of me for 

joining us today and presenting their expert testimony. 

I would like to at this time ask Ranking Member Becerra, would 

you care to make a statement, sir? You are recognized. 

Mr. BECERRA. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

This is a timely topic for our first hearing. I appreciate, Mr. 

Chairman, that you are continuing the tradition of this subcommittee of conducting bipartisan oversight of the Social Security 

Administration (SSA) in the interests of the American people. 

The new data center that SSA is constructing in conjunction with 

the GSA, the General Services Administration, is vitally important 

to the continued operation of the Social Security Administration. 

Today, 54 million people rely on SSA to keep America’s promises 

to all Americans and to deliver each month the money they have 

earned and expect from their Social Security system. They have 

contributed for years into the system from their own paychecks. 

In addition, 160 million workers rely on SSA to keep accurate 

records of their earnings so, in the future, they will receive the full 

benefits they too have earned. We know they will receive the benefits they have earned because their contributions over the years 

have built up a trust fund with over $2.6 trillion in Treasury 

bonds, the safest investment there is, sought after by investors 

throughout the world. Today it is not an exaggeration to say that 

Social Security, and the Social Security number, touch virtually 

every American in this country. 

I think we can all agree about the importance of this data center, 

the replacement project itself, and of course, everything it means 

to the American people. SSA’s existing primary data center is nearing the end of its useful life and is increasingly vulnerable to catastrophic failure. Congress acted wisely by responding swiftly to the 

needs for the replacement center by providing full funding for construction and a down payment on equipping the center in the Recovery Act. 

This funding has allowed the project to get started immediately, 

which reduces the danger that SSA will be without full data center 

capability, and building the data center will create jobs that 

strengthen our economic recovery. I understand that there have 

been some delays in selecting a site for the new center, and I am 

pleased that things are once again moving ahead. 

I hope our witnesses will give us more information on the 

project’s timeline and budget, as well as their plans for preventing 

future delays. Keeping to project timelines is critical to ensuring 

that SSA can continue to effectively serve workers and beneficiaries today and in the future. 

I look forward to hearing a progress report on the project today. 

Mr. Chairman, I yield back. 

Chairman JOHNSON. Thank you, Mr. Becerra. 

Chairman Denham, welcome aboard. Congratulations. Would you 

like to make a statement this morning? You are recognized. 

Mr. DENHAM. Thank you. First let me start by thanking you, 

Mr. Chairman, for holding this joint hearing on managing costs 


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and mitigating delays in the building of the Social Security Administration’s National Computer Center. 

This is the second joint hearing of our subcommittees. We have 

had to provide oversight of this important project. The National 

Computer Center is critical to supporting all of SSA’s functions, including storing data and processing billions of transactions annually. 

The NCC must be reliable and operational 24/7, 365 days a year. 

However, the current data center is aging and outdated, lacking 

key redundancies and failing to meet current standards for data 

centers. 

The Recovery Act, which included the $500 million for the replacement of the NCC in SSA has engaged GSA in locating, designing, and building a new data center. Millions of Americans and employers rely upon the proper function of NCC every day. 

Unfortunately, only last week did GSA select a site, more than 

a year after the original date for site selection, and we know that 

delays often produce cost overruns. We must ensure this project is 

completed on time and within budget. We cannot afford any further 

slip in the timeline, and we cannot afford any added cost. The operations of this data center are too critical for the American people, 

and this project is too costly, to allow any more delays. 

The GSA and SSA must work together to identify risks in the 

process and either avoid or mitigate against them. I look forward 

to hearing from the witnesses today on this important issue. As 

well, I look forward to hearing what is going to happen with the 

current facility and the 260 acres that it sits on. 

We will also be focused on liquidating any unused, excessive, or 

surplus properties and those properties which are not deemed excess, surplus, or underutilized yet. We want to have a good track 

record moving forward. 

Thank you. 

Chairman JOHNSON. Thank you. I appreciate your comments. 

Ranking Member Holmes Norton, would you care to make a 

statement? You are recognized. 

Ms. NORTON. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. And I am 

pleased to sit with you, Mr. Chairman, and with our friends on the 

Ways and Means Social Security Subcommittee again to examine 

the process for replacing the Social Security Administration’s current data center. 

Today’s hearing is a followup to our December 15, 2009 hearing 

on whether to locate the NSC on the current campus in Woodlawn, 

Maryland or to ensure that a full and open competitive process is 

used for this significant project. The reason our subcommittee is 

here is that the Subcommittee on Economic Development, Public 

Buildings, and Emergency Management has jurisdiction over the 

General Services Administration now. 

This project was able to begin at all because it received $500 million in a direct appropriation to the Social Security Administration, 

so urgent was the need. And indeed, this is the largest single building funded under the Recovery Act. 

GSA assists agencies in construction when they get direct appropriations because these agencies are not in the business of building 

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volved in this project. It is very, very rare that there is a direct appropriation to an agency rather than to the GSA in order to do the 

work for the agency because of its expertise. 

After our last joint hearing and at our request, GSA conducted 

a feasibility study of the Woodlawn campus that examined the 

budget and schedule risks the project might face staying on or leaving the Woodlawn campus. As a result of the feasibility study, the 

GSA and SSA decided on an offsite location—away from the campus, that is—for the NSC because that option posed the least risk 

to both budget and schedule, they believe. 

The existing NCC, originally constructed in the 1970s, is housed 

in an antiquated building that is very energy-inefficient and otherwise in urgent need of replacement. A 2008 study commissioned by 

the SSA concluded that the NSC is an aging facility with significant electrical and mechanical challenges, including several single 

points of failure, that could force the NSC to point down should any 

of these points fail. 

This near-emergency situation requires GSA and SSA to stay on 

schedule. Both SSA and its inspector general believe that the 

present structure is inadequate to meet the service needs of a 21st 

century computer facility, and that it poses a significant risk to operations. In the present structure, the security of 460 million 

records of earnings and benefits data for almost 57 million beneficiaries and the continuity of operations are both at significant 

risk. 

After the decision was made to locate the NSC offsite, GSA narrowed the available sites to two locations, a new site in Woodlawn, 

Maryland and a site in Urbana, Maryland. Last week SSA and 

GSA notified Congress of their decision to locate the NSC at the 

Urbana, Maryland site 33 miles from SSA headquarters. 

The SSA IG believes that the site selected for NSC is acceptable 

because of its existing infrastructure and proximity to highways, 

although he apparently, in his latest report, has some compunctions. 

Today we will look closely at the site selected and will examine 

whether the critical project can stay on schedule and how GSA and 

SSA will mitigate risk. Among the most obvious questions is why 

GSA and SSA selected this site out of 150 sites that were initially 

considered, and why the agencies felt that this is the best side for 

the NSC. 

I look forward to learning more about this project from today’s 

witnesses, and I thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman JOHNSON. Thank you. 

Before we move on to our testimony, I want to remind our witnesses to limit their oral testimony to five minutes. And without 

objection, all written testimony will be made part of the permanent 

record. 

We have one panel today. Our witnesses are seated at the table: 

the Honorable Patrick O’Carroll, Inspector General of Social Security Administration—he made me coffee down in Carolina; David 

Foley, Deputy Commissioner of the Public Buildings Service, U.S. 

General Services Administration; and Kelly Croft, Deputy Commissioner, Systems, Social Security Administration. Thank you for 


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being here today, all three of you, and we appreciate your testimony. 

Mr. O’Carroll, you may proceed for five minutes. 

STATEMENT OF THE HONORABLE PATRICK P. O’CARROLL, JR., 

INSPECTOR GENERAL, SOCIAL SECURITY ADMINISTRATION 

Mr. O’CARROLL. Good morning, Chairman Johnson, Chairman 

Denham, Congresswoman Holmes Norton, Congressman Becerra, 

and members of both subcommittees. Thank you for the invitation 

to testify today. I would like to welcome the new members of the 

112th Congress and the new members of both subcommittees. 

The replacement of SSA’s National Computer Center, or NCC, is 

the agency’s most critical IT investment over the next five years. 

Several factors make building a new data center imperative for 

SSA. Those factors are: increasing agency workloads, expanding 

communication and data services, and structural and electrical capacity issues at the current NCC. 

The NCC is more than 30 years old and might soon be unable 

to support SSA’s operations, and as time passes, the risk of a 

lengthy outage at the aging data center increases. An extended outage at the NCC could have devastating consequences affecting the 

lives of Americans who depend on Social Security. 

Given the infrastructure concerns of the NCC, SSA has three 

main challenges to plan for over the next five years. Those challenges are: delivering the agency’s new National Support Center, or 

NSC, on time; maintaining the current NCC with repairs and improvements; and further developing reliable backup options if an 

extended NCC outage occurs. 

SSA and GSA recently announced it would locate the agency’s 

new NSC in Urbana, Maryland. GSA said it anticipates completing 

construction of the NSC by September 2014, and SSA expects to 

complete the IT migration of the facility by July 2016. 

For the project to be completed on time, GSA and SSA need to 

plan for contingencies that can arise during the construction and 

IT migration. Solutions to such contingencies should be determined 

in advance before the project stalls. These possible project delays 

might include: excavation challenges, problems with utility installations, or weather-related issues. SSA and GSA must also ensure 

that builders meet construction due dates. 

SSA’s timeline for project completion means relying on the current NCC for at least another five years. Therefore, SSA must do 

all it can to mitigate the risk of an extended NCC outage. 

Since 2009, SSA has taken many steps to address the structural 

and technical issues at the NCC. Those actions include: replacing 

electrical feeder cables and electrical panel breakers; replacing the 

NCC roof; monitoring the building’s foundation, plumbing, and 

HVAC system; and performing annual building inspections with 

technical experts. SSA performs proper maintenance of the NCC. 

For the facility to be maintained through 2016, the same level of 

management and oversight should continue until the new NSC is 

built and operational. 

If the NCC sustains an outage before the new data center is completed, the agency would then rely on the Second Support Center, 

or SSC, until data and applications are recovered. The SSC is a coVerDate Nov 24 2008 06:36 Dec 02, 2011 Jkt 070872 PO 00000 Frm 00012 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 I:\WAYS\OUT\70872.XXX GPO1 PsN: 70872

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processing center, but SSA has purchased equipment and is performing tests so the SSC will be able to operate as a fully functional backup data center within the next two years. 

Recent disaster recovery tests at the SSC show that SSA can recover critical operations in a little less than five days. Over the 

next year, the agency has said it plans to reduce that five-day period to about one day. 

SSA has also indicated it is exploring several options if an extended outage occurs at the NCC, including using generators or entering into a contract with alternate hot-site vendor. 

In conclusion, the sustainability and expansion of SSA’s IT systems are critical to the agency’s ability to meet its goals and fulfill 

its mission. That mission affects nearly all Americans every day. 

GSA and SSA need to present a clear strategic vision on how they 

will deliver the new data center on time and how to mitigate the 

risks of relying on the aging NCC. 

With long-term planning and proactive management, we should 

be able to avoid a repeat of the current situation at the NCC. My 

office will continue to work with you and SSA to make sure that 

this vitally important project is completed timely and efficiently. 

Thank you again for asking me to testify today, and I will be 

happy to answer questions. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. O’Carroll follows:] 


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f 

Chairman JOHNSON. Thank you, sir. I appreciate it. 

You indicated that—I know I am not supposed to ask questions 

yet, but I am going to. 

[Laughter.] 


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Chairman JOHNSON. You indicated that their recovery time is 

five days. And when I was down there, Mr. Croft, you indicated to 

me you thought they could do it in two. 

Mr. CROFT. Sir, we are at four days now, and we are working 

towards one. 

Chairman JOHNSON. Okay. Thank you. 

Mr. O’CARROLL. And when we did our report on this, sir, we 

observed the testing, which is what we are reporting. That was 

when they were at four-plus days, which is why we rounded it to 

five, but from talking to the agency, they have brought that five 

down to four. But at the time, it was still almost five days. 

Chairman JOHNSON. Okay. Four legislative days is five. 

Mr. Foley, you are recognized for five minutes. 

STATEMENT OF DAVID FOLEY, DEPUTY COMMISSIONER OF 

THE PUBLIC BUILDINGS SERVICE, U.S. GENERAL SERVICES 

ADMINISTRATION 

Mr. FOLEY. Thank you. Good morning, Chairman Johnson, 

Chairman Denham, Ranking Members Becerra and Norton, and 

Members of the Subcommittees. I am pleased to have the opportunity today to discuss the considerable progress GSA has made in 

delivery of the new SSA National Support Center. 

I am glad to report the project is on budget, and GSA and SSA 

have recently reached two significant project milestones in the site 

selection and procurement for the data center. After an extensive 

due diligence process, we recently announced the site selection of 

the new Support Center at Urbana in Frederick County, Maryland. 

Last month GSA also issued the first phase of our design/build construction solicitation. 

GSA and SSA are working closely together to ensure we achieved 

our new project milestones while remaining on budget and minimizing risks to deliver an efficient, modern, and secure data center 

to support SSA in meeting their mission goals and providing the 

best value to the taxpayers. 

GSA diligently sought locations that would meet SSA’s unique 

requirements for a data center. We conducted an extensive evaluation of potential sites within a 40-mile radius of Woodlawn, Maryland. We reviewed government-owned properties, contacted local 

communities, and requested expressions of interest through Federal Business Opportunities online. 

These efforts resulted in over 150 potential sites that were evaluated against specific criteria, including: site characteristics, location 

and accessibility, energy and utilities, security and operations, environmental impacts, local planning and development, land and 

site development costs, and schedule risks. 

In 2009, at these committees’ request, GSA conducted a study to 

examine the possibility of locating the new data center at the current campus. In April of the following year, we delivered this study 

which showed that building on the SSA campus would present significant concerns and high risk, including the possible disruption of 

mission-critical operations. 

Although GSA and SSA remain committed to the presence of 

SSA at the Woodlawn campus for current mission needs and future 

expansions, the study showed that the data center would be better 


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served at a new site where risk and cost would be minimized, and 

the data center could be completed more quickly. 

Upon the completion of this study and with the support of these 

committees, GSA continued to press forward with our review of potential sites. Our deliberative process led to a short list of two sites: 

Johnnycake Road in Baltimore County and Urbana in Frederick 

County. 

Given the importance of this project and the potential impacts of 

a site selection decision, GSA initiated an environmental assessment last August that we completed in January where the GSA solicited public comment and assessed all environmental impacts and 

advantages and disadvantages for each site. 

After a full and fair analysis and in coordination with SSA, GSA 

selected Urbana as the site for the new data center. This site will 

most effectively meet SSA’s needs and best serve the interests of 

the taxpayers. 

Urbana not only meets SSA’s requirements but offers a variety 

of benefits, including its physical site characteristics, available infrastructure, and favorable environmental conditions. Additionally, 

Urbana is most favorable in minimizing risks, cost, and schedule 

impacts. 

Now that we have announced the site, we are initiating the acquisition of the property, which we anticipate to be completed this 

June. We are also moving forward with the next phase of this 

project with the procurement for the design and construction of the 

facility. 

GSA and SSA worked collaboratively, consulting with leading 

data center experts to develop a program of requirements for a design/build solicitation. This POR was completed last August. The 

project will meet all of SSA’s requirements and all of the appropriate security and IT redundancy standards for a data center of 

this type, as well as achieve a minimum of LEED Gold certification 

and the goals of the executive orders for sustainability and energy. 

The National Support Center project is based on an integrated 

design/build delivery method that includes a design firm and a constructor contractor. GSA is using a two-phase procurement process 

that evaluates the contractor’s qualifications first to establish a 

short list of most highly qualified bidders, and then considers technical proposals and price in the second phase to achieve the overall 

best value for the government. This process began last month when 

GSA issued a request for qualifications, inviting contractors into 

the bidding process. 

We look forward to the next major milestones on this project. 

Phase 2 of the design/build solicitation is scheduled for April, site 

acquisition is scheduled for June, and award of the design/build 

contract is on track for next January, with substantial completion 

in September of 2014. 

GSA appreciates the opportunity to come here today to highlight 

the considerable progress we have achieved on this project. We look 

forward to continuing to work with you on the successful delivery 

of this data center. 

Chairman Johnson, Chairman Denham, Ranking Members 

Becerra and Norton, and Members of the Subcommittees, this conVerDate Nov 24 2008 06:36 Dec 02, 2011 Jkt 070872 PO 00000 Frm 00022 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 I:\WAYS\OUT\70872.XXX GPO1 PsN: 70872

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cludes my statement, and I will be pleased to answer any questions 

you may have. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Foley follows:] 


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Chairman JOHNSON. Thank you, sir. We appreciate your comments. 

Mr. Croft, thank you for being here, and you are recognized. And 

I appreciate your help down south. 

Mr. CROFT. Thank you. 

Chairman JOHNSON. Pleasure. 

STATEMENT OF KELLY CROFT, DEPUTY COMMISSIONER FOR 

SYSTEMS, SOCIAL SECURITY ADMINISTRATION 

Mr. CROFT. Chairman, Ranking Members, and Members of the 

Subcommittees, thank you for the opportunity to share information 

about our data center replacement project. My name is Kelly Croft, 

and I am the Deputy Commissioner for Systems at Social Security 

Administration (SSA). I have worked at the agency for 28 years 

and have been in my current job since January of 2010. I am responsible for safeguarding the information assets of Social Security, 

and also delivering information technology (IT) services across the 

agency. 

At Social Security, our reliance on technology has dramatically 

evolved since I joined the agency as a front-line public service 

worker in the 1980s. In those days, I took retirement and disability 

claims on paper forms and assembled cases in thick paper folders. 

Today, the vast majority of our work is electronic, and we are extraordinarily more efficient because of it. Our claims process is virtually paperless. We have a number of highly regarded Internet applications for public use, and it is not unusual for us to process 

over 150 million computer transactions in a single day. 

To be blunt, if our computer systems are down, then we are pretty much out of business. We can still talk to people in person and 

on the telephone, and we do have contingency arrangements to ensure established payments go out. But we cannot do things like 

compute and pay new claims, change direct deposit accounts, issue 

Social Security cards, or even answer specific questions about beneficiary records. Pretty much all we do relies on high availability 

computer systems. 

Even an hour of computer outage for us is a very big deal, and 

at the massive scale we operate on, with over 50 million seniors 

and disabled people to serve, an extended outage of multiple days 

would have national implications. 


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The hubs for our entire IT infrastructure are our two data centers, one in Maryland and one in North Carolina. Data centers are 

special buildings that require significantly more security and mechanical features than normal office space. For example, data centers should have sophisticated electrical systems and generators. 

They should also have advanced fire suppression systems. In addition, the equipment in data centers produce large quantities of 

heat, so they need extremely robust air conditioning. 

Our North Carolina center opened in 2009, and it is a modern, 

well-designed facility. On the other hand, our Maryland center is 

30 years old, and the building is fraying. I want to emphasize that 

the computers inside our Maryland center are modern; but if the 

building fails because of a plumbing, heating, ventilating, and air 

conditioning, or electrical breakdown, it won’t matter how capable 

the computers are. They simply won’t work. 

Both of our centers function 24/7 and process a portion of our 

daily computing workload. Both also have the reserve capacity to 

run the critical systems of the agency in the event of a long-term 

outage at the sister facility. If we lost our Maryland data center, 

it would currently take us four days to recover critical operations 

in North Carolina. We are working to lower our recovery time to 

just one day. 

As bad as any days of national outage would be, we would also 

be left with just one remaining data center and no viable backup 

for that. In light of the wake-up call that came with 9/11 and for 

something as important to the country as the delivery of Social Security services, it is crucial that we always have a viable backup 

position. 

We were relieved when Congress appropriated $500 million in 

2009 to replace our aging Maryland facility with a state-of-the-art 

data center, a facility that we expect will faithfully serve the American public for decades, just like our old building has. 

We are relying on the expertise of our General Services Administration (GSA) colleagues to manage the process for acquiring land 

and building our replacement data center. We provided our requirements to GSA, and I assure you we seek only a safe, energyefficient, and modern data center that will be sized to handle current and projected computing workloads for the agency. 

As a final note, we all worry about the length of time a large government building project like this takes. The current schedule will 

not provide me keys to the new center until January of 2015, and 

then it will take my staff up to 18 months to safely move all of our 

extensive operation out of the old building and into the new. 

In Social Security, we will do everything we can to ensure our 

old building continues to function while we wait. Although we cannot do large-scale building improvements without unacceptable impact to our operations, we will continue to undertake smart, costeffective maintenance work. 

We strongly appreciate the support we have received from the 

Congress. I look forward to your questions, and will do my best to 

answer them. Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Croft follows:] 


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f 

Chairman JOHNSON. Thank you, sir. I appreciate your testimony. I want to thank you all for your testimony. We appreciate 

you being here today. 

To make sure everyone has a chance to ask questions, I am going 

to limit my time for questions to five minutes, and ask Chairman 


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Denham and the ranking members to limit their time to five minutes. 

Mr. Foley, Social Security is supposed to get the keys to the new 

center in January 2015, and that is a year later than originally 

planned. And the way you talk, it sounds like to me you are about 

to delay it another year. Can you talk to that question? 

Mr. FOLEY. We are on schedule to turn the keys over to them. 

As I mentioned, construction would be complete in September of 

2014. There is some commissioning of the major building systems, 

as Mr. Croft, my colleague, testified. 

The data center is a complicated operation and complicated 

building system, so we have to do all the testing to make sure that 

it will work and support their operations. But we don’t anticipate 

any further delays as we move forward on the project. 

Chairman JOHNSON. Well, why can’t you move it faster? I 

mean, you know where the site is. Why are you waiting until June 

to purchase it? 

Mr. FOLEY. We are actually in the acquisition for the site phase. 

We are moving forward on the procurement for the construction. So 

we are moving forward on all of those. It will take us, we think, 

that long to actually complete the acquisition. 

I should say, though, that GSA is committed to looking for every 

opportunity to accelerate the project wherever possible. We are 

looking at multiple avenues to do that, whether it is exploring incentive clauses, potentially, in the construction contract. 

Once we have a contractor on board, we can clearly work with 

them to look at phasing and sequencing, delivery of long lead items 

to see where we can actually cut time out of the construction schedule, although I should note that as you look at reducing time 

frames, that also increases, potentially, project risk. So we have got 

to make sure we do our due diligence and look for those tradeoffs. 

But we do recognize the urgency of this facility, and are committed to looking for every way we can to accelerate. 

Chairman JOHNSON. Okay. Well, I just wonder why you are 

waiting until July to confirm the site and, you know, get it bought. 

Why is it taking you that long? 

Mr. FOLEY. Well, we are actually in the acquisition phase right 

now, so we are working to acquire—— 

Chairman JOHNSON. You just think it would take that long to 

get it done? 

Mr. FOLEY. Well, there are a couple of things that have to happen with the site. We actually have to do some of the subdivision 

of the site. They have to bring some of the infrastructure in before 

we can actually acquire the site and actually transfer the deed to 

the Federal Government. We will have a purchase agreement in 

place prior to that. 

Chairman JOHNSON. You got a fixed price? 

Mr. FOLEY. We are in negotiations now. 

Chairman JOHNSON. Okay. Mr. O’Carroll and Mr. Croft, do you 

see how we can make up for lost time any other way? 

Mr. O’CARROLL. Well, Chairman, as you are well aware, we are 

very concerned with the parallel issues that are coming up with the 

aging NCC, and we are encouraging both SSA and GSA to look for 


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any opportunity they can to trim down on the time it takes to do 

this. 

But at the same time, we don’t want any corner-cutting or any 

degradation in terms of the services or the quality of the work. So 

I can assure you we have a contractor who is going to be taking 

a look and making sure that they are staying on schedule, and any 

opportunity to cut that time will be encouraged. 

Chairman JOHNSON. So we have a contractor already? 

Mr. O’CARROLL. We have a contractor. It is called Strategic eBusiness Solutions, that works for us. One of our concerns was at 

the beginning, when we began our oversight, we didn’t—we have 

IT expertise on our audit staff, but we don’t have experience with 

state-of-the-art IT, or data facility construction. 

So we went to Strategic e-Business, and they have a subcontractor called Fortress International that they are using, both of 

which have done a lot of work with computer centers and redundant computer centers. We are going to have them taking a look. 

We don’t know whether we are going to put it out to them or to 

another contractor. But we will have a three-stage process taking 

a look at the next several years out. 

Chairman JOHNSON. Do we know when construction will begin? 

Mr. FOLEY. We are looking at award of the design/build contract 

next January. Depending on the design period, one of the advantages of design/build is it actually allows us to streamline the process, and they can begin some of the site work and construction 

prior to the final design. 

But until we actually have some of the preliminary design and 

know what it looks like, we don’t have an exact date on when we 

will begin moving dirt on the site. 

Chairman JOHNSON. Is there any reason why we can’t duplicate the site down in Carolina? 

Mr. FOLEY. I am not familiar with all of the specific characteristics, but I think Mr. Croft can talk to some of the differences. 

Mr. CROFT. Yes. First, sir, to your overall question about speeding it up and making sure it goes well, I will say we are committed 

to keeping up with David and his team. I think it is a really good 

team. They have some very good people on it, as do we. And we 

are going to keep a lot of oversight on this. 

But I would also say we want to be careful we don’t bottleneck 

it by continuing to second-guess all the decisions that the experts 

have made as they have been working through this process. 

Regarding whether we can duplicate North Carolina, I believe we 

will end up looking something like what you saw in North Carolina. And, by the way, we very much appreciated your time to come 

down and look at the facility. I think the computer space will be 

about the same size. 

I think this building will have some more robust infrastructure 

to it. You may remember going down in those industrial rooms in 

the basement of the building in North Carolina. I think the new 

one will have more size and heft in the industrial part. But ultimately, I think it will look a lot like what you saw in North Carolina. 


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But we are really going to rely on the expert designers and architects. Also, we are looking for a lot more energy efficiency in this 

building, even more so than what you saw in North Carolina. 

Chairman JOHNSON. Well, do they have all the equipment to 

fit the building out when we get it done? 

Mr. CROFT. Well, no. We will have to go through a very long 

process to actually move all that equipment that you saw in Baltimore into—— 

Chairman JOHNSON. You are not going to use that old stuff, 

are you? 

Mr. CROFT. I am going to use some of it. Right. I am not going 

to use stuff that is obsolete. But some of it is very current and very 

modern, and it would cost a lot of money just to set aside equipment that still runs well. 

Chairman JOHNSON. Well, it is going to cost to move it, too. 

Thank you for your comments. 

You are recognized, Mr. Chairman Denham. 

Mr. DENHAM. Thank you. 

Mr. O’Carroll, the uninterrupted power supply system that supports the power of the current facility is over 30 years old. Many 

of the parts are no longer manufactured, and the service contract 

expires in 2012, well before the new data center will be completed. 

You described the importance of the UPS system in the SSA 

plans to do—what are you going to do after 2012? 

Mr. O’CARROLL. Chairman, on the technical part of it, I am 

going to defer to Mr. Croft. 

But on the oversight part of it, which is what we have been 

doing, Lockheed Martin did a study on the NCC. They identified 

the uninterrupted power supply as an issue. There is a single 

source of power going to the NCC at the moment, which is another 

risk. 

And what we are concerned with is the aging of the uninterrupted power supply that they have. I am told that SSA has engaged with a contractor that is going to be able to extend the life 

of the uninterrupted power supply that they have. 

And then also, we are monitoring SSA’s progress in getting an 

alternate source of power, which we highly support. 

And I will let Mr. Croft give you more of the technical details on 

the uninterrupted power supply. 

Mr. CROFT. Yes, Mr. Chairman, just a general comment. We 

have done an awful lot of things to the building that have extended 

the capacity, if you will, of electrical distribution in particular, 

which was the main concern with that 2012 date that you referenced in your question. We have taken action to mitigate that. 

So that is not one of our major concerns at the moment. 

But our major concerns are things like uninterruptible power 

supply, the plumbing in the building, the HVAC in the building, 

the fire suppression. These are original to the building, and we will 

do what we can to maintain them, but the longer we go, the higher 

risk there is that they will fail. 

Mr. DENHAM. And if the system does fail, how long would the 

North Carolina system be able to fully support the entire process? 

Mr. CROFT. It will be able to support us indefinitely. The issue 

then, Mr. Chairman, would be that we would be left without a 


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backup to that. So we would have to be scrambling to come up with 

a viable backup to North Carolina at that point. 

But the center in North Carolina is big enough now—has enough 

capacity—to be able to run the critical systems of the agency. And 

with a little bit more time, we would even be able to bring back 

our non-critical systems in the agency. So it is our ultimate risk 

mitigation. 

Mr. DENHAM. Thank you. 

And Mr. Foley, I thought you said in your testimony that this 

project would be on budget and on time? 

Mr. FOLEY. We will meet our milestones from this point forward. Obviously, there have been some delays, and we are looking 

to make up the time. But as far as budget, yes. We are still on 

budget. 

Mr. DENHAM. And time, even after the one-year delay? So you 

don’t plan on making up the one-year delay, but you do plan on 

being on time this point forward? 

Mr. FOLEY. Yes. As far as physical construction of the factory, 

we are about 11 months behind our original schedule. But we believe we can make that, and we are looking for every opportunity 

to accelerate, if possible. 

Mr. DENHAM. So final completion of construction? 

Mr. FOLEY. September of 2014. 

Mr. DENHAM. And up and running completely, 100 percent 

transition? 

Mr. CROFT. We would take keys to the building—to use my 

term—in January of 2015 because, as David said, there would need 

to be testing of the building systems to make sure that they were 

ready to accept the equipment. 

And then we will transition in phases. We have said it will take 

us up to 18 months to transition the entire facility over. We will 

be running out of both facilities for some period of time. We will 

do everything we can to beat that 18-month period, and as we get 

closer, we will do a lot more precise planning and see how well we 

can do to beat 18 months. 

Mr. DENHAM. And at what point was this project started, or the 

need identified? 

Mr. CROFT. I believe it tracks back to a study that would have 

come out in early 2008. 

Mr. DENHAM. So nearly a decade, by the time it was identified 

and the new system will be up and running. 

Just a couple quick followup questions to Mr. Foley. In your site 

selection, any other existing properties that you identified that are 

existing public properties today? 

Mr. FOLEY. We did screen for available public properties. The 

Woodlawn campus, obviously, was the most logical choice, and we 

did study that. But as I mentioned in my testimony, because of the 

additional risk due to schedule, cost, and disruption of critical services for SSA, we decided that a new site would be more appropriate 

and would allow us to deliver the facility more quickly. 

Mr. DENHAM. No other public properties anywhere in the area? 

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Mr. DENHAM. I would like to see a list of the specific sites and 

how you went about that process. 

Chairman JOHNSON. Thank you. 

Mr. Becerra, you are recognized for five minutes. 

Mr. BECERRA. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

And thank you to the three of you for your testimony and constant vigilance on this issue. I want to say that we appreciate that 

you have been very forthcoming in the constant efforts that we 

have engaged in within this committee to try to work hand in hand 

with you to move forward with this project. 

I think everyone understands how important it is to get it done 

right. We can’t have any kind of failure, the way we saw with the 

IRS with its computer system, because in your case, people on a 

monthly basis depend on you being able to operate. So we thank 

you for the work you have been doing. 

I also want to mention that I know that we worked hand in hand 

with you in the whole process of site selection. We were somewhat 

concerned that you go forward with the best site, and so I know 

that especially in 2009, we were constantly asking, are you sure 

you are going to do it the right way? Are you sure you are going 

to have good sites to select from? 

So I want to thank you for having gone through the additional 

analysis that you undertook. And I suspect we probably feel more 

confident today that the site that was selected was the best site 

that we could go with. Is that the case? Yes? 

[A chorus of ayes.] 

Mr. BECERRA. Good. Do you have the funding that you need to 

continue to move forward? Yes? So if we could just say that for the 

record. Mr. Foley? Mr. Croft? 

Mr. FOLEY. Yes. For the construction phase, we do. 

Mr. CROFT. Yes, sir. We do. 

Mr. BECERRA. Are you still on budget? I think I heard you, Mr. 

Foley, say that you are still on budget? 

Mr. FOLEY. We are. 

Mr. BECERRA. So because we took a while on that site selection, 

that moved us back a ways, about a year, in terms of when you 

would complete the project. But in terms of the budget, you feel 

like we are still on budget? 

Mr. FOLEY. Yes. 

Mr. BECERRA. Good. And the consequences: If you didn’t have 

your money, what would happen if you didn’t have the money to 

move forward? 

Mr. FOLEY. I mean, obviously, if we didn’t have the money to 

move forward and award construction, the project would grind to 

a halt. I think as far as the consequences on operations, I would 

leave that to Mr. Croft to discuss. 

Mr. BECERRA. Mr. Croft. 

Mr. CROFT. Well, sir, if the project came to a halt, the risk 

would just continue to grow of a significant failure with the current 

building. It is that simple. It is a risk-based decision. It gets worse 

and worse the longer we go. 

Mr. BECERRA. And I know the initial estimates of the first data 

center were that by 2013, you would max out on capacity. And I 


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know you have done some things to gain some additional capacity 

there, and we now have the second site, which helps us. 

But even then, you need to have that redundancy so you can 

move forward. So if you have collapse at one site, while you could 

continue after, as you say, four days to get back up and running, 

you are still not running the way, operationally, we would want to 

have a center that controls so much data would have to. 

Mr. CROFT. Yes. In the four-day time frame, we use the term 

‘‘critical systems.’’ And these are the core systems that, in your districts, your field office staffs use to process the claims and do all 

the things that the public is really looking for. 

We have other activities and systems that are important to us 

but would not be in that four-day critical period of recovery. For 

example, we would bring up some of our management information 

systems and things like that. 

But yes, we do have the capacity in the second site now to be 

able to recover all of that. 

Mr. BECERRA. Not only would you go down, I suspect pretty 

much every one of our district offices would go down as well because I doubt that there are many offices that don’t handle, as a 

significant part of their work, these Social Security claims, disability and otherwise. 

Mr. CROFT. Right. They could still interact with the public. If 

the outage was going to be for a full four days, they could take 

claims, conceivably, on paper the way we used to in the olden days. 

But then they would have to transcribe it back—— 

Mr. BECERRA. Don’t take us back to those olden days, please. 

Mr. CROFT. Right. I mean, they could. We wouldn’t be shut 

down. They would still talk to the public. They just wouldn’t be 

able to actually transact anything. 

Mr. BECERRA. Let me ask one last question, and I think, Mr. 

Foley, you probably can answer this best. Given the extensive work 

that was done in selecting the site, do you anticipate any protests 

at this stage on the selection itself? 

Mr. FOLEY. I believe we learned last night that there has been 

a GAO protest filed. I think the important part for us to focus on 

is that the site selection is not on the critical path at this point for 

the procurement. We are moving forward with a two-phase source 

selection, and so the first phase is all about finding qualified contractors who can design and build this facility. So we can narrow 

that down to the most qualified candidates. 

So we do anticipate—and I believe there has been a protest filed. 

Based on the process that we used, we are confident we will prevail 

on that protest and that it won’t impact the schedule at this point. 

Mr. BECERRA. Do you mind, please, keeping this committee informed about the progress on that protest and any protests that 

may come along the pike? 

Mr. FOLEY. Absolutely. 

Mr. BECERRA. Thank you very much. 

I yield back, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman JOHNSON. Thank you, sir. 

Ms. Holmes Norton, would you care to comment? 

Ms. NORTON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 


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Last thing we want is more delay on this project. But remembering that what concerned both subcommittees before was site selection, I am concerned with the report that we got just yesterday 

from the inspector general and with reconciling what is in that report with the testimony of Social Security; specifically, the change 

in the criteria used in site selection, which you, Mr. O’Carroll, indicate is somewhat problematic. 

For example, the three finalists, three final sites, have one, two, 

and even three secondary criteria, while several of the unsolicited 

sites had only one documented secondary criteria conflict. Now, you 

changed, apparently—the team changed some mandatory to secondary. 

Now, to keep us from talking jargon, Mr. O’Carroll, Mr. Croft, explain what secondary and mandatory are, and why the team in the 

process of selection would change from one category to another, or 

recategorize in the way you did. 

Mr. O’CARROLL. Congresswoman, I will take the first crack at 

it before I turn it over to Mr. Croft. 

There are a couple issues, and you said that probably the biggest 

one is documentation. And our concern, as we have been monitoring this project throughout, is with a couple things. 

One, we don’t sit at the same table with GSA and SSA as these 

decisions are being made. And that is probably good for the sake 

of independence. We are not part of the process. We are just evaluating it. 

One of the biggest concerns with regard to evaluating it is the 

timely receipt of the information. And then also, the documentation 

that we get. And that is where a couple of our issues have come 

up—the documentation on the decision-making. Many times the 

documentation has been lacking. 

And another issue is that we try to be ahead of the curve. One 

of the biggest complaints about inspectors general is what they call 

the ‘‘gotcha’’ mentality, that we wait until things go wrong and 

then we point it out. What we are trying to do here is point out 

issues before they go wrong. 

We have had a couple instances where by the time we got the 

information, a decision has already been made. And that is what 

happened with this report—the decisions had been made. The site 

had been selected. And subsequent to the decision, we issued our 

report where we flagged the issue. A year ago there were 14 different sites that were being evaluated, and they were being discarded based on different secondary criteria and primary criteria 

that were being considered. They kept narrowing it down. And 

then it got down to the three sites. 

And what our concern was, was there any one of the ones that 

were discarded beforehand that would have been better than the 

three that were selected? And that is what the substance of our report was. 

Ms. NORTON. Well, it raises a question, and maybe Mr. Croft 

and Mr. Foley can make us understand it. It raises some question 

when you change the criteria. You know, you change the criteria 

in the middle of the game and you can get any site you want. 

So changing criteria is very bothersome. And I would like to 

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of site selection. I mean, that is pure and simple what I am interested in. 

Mr. FOLEY. I will answer first because I think a lot of the site 

selection process falls under GSA. 

Ms. NORTON. Yes. 

Mr. FOLEY. As far as changing the primary and secondary criteria for the site selection, it was done very early on the process—— 

Ms. NORTON. So give us examples of primary and of secondary. 

Mr. FOLEY. Primary are sort of the critical go/no-go. So does the 

site have the appropriate infrastructure? Can it provide the utilities to the site? All of those sorts of things. Secondary criteria are 

things like access to the site and other criteria that are nice to 

have but not critical to the operation of the factory. 

And so as we were beginning the process and before we began 

evaluating any of the offers, we recognized that some of the criteria 

that we had as primary criteria were narrowing the number of 

available sites. We wanted to maximize competition, and we looked 

for other ways to mitigate some of the risks that were raised by 

some of these primary criteria. 

So before we did any evaluation of any of the sites, we did 

change one of the criteria to a secondary. But that was really done 

so we that could maximize the number of available sites and the 

competition and find the most appropriate site with the least 

amount of risk so we could deliver it as quickly as possible for SSA. 

Ms. NORTON. Generally, when GSA builds—am I out of time? 

Chairman JOHNSON. You can go ahead and ask one more. 

Ms. NORTON. I will just ask this remaining question, then, and 

I thank you for your indulgence, Mr. Chairman. 

Generally, of course, when GSA puts out an RFP, one of the criteria is proximity to mass transportation. Is there any proximity to 

mass transportation? Do these workers have proximity to mass 

transportation where they are now located? How will they get to 

the site? 

Mr. FOLEY. I would defer to Mr. Croft on the current mass 

transportation. We did evaluate all of the sites. The data center is 

a little bit of a unique facility in that the density and utilization 

and number of employees is less than, say, a typical office building 

that GSA—— 

Ms. NORTON. How many employees? 

Mr. CROFT. In the new facility, my staff would be about 79, and 

then there would be additional facility staff, guards, things like 

that. And remember, these are three shift, 24/7 operations. 

Chairman JOHNSON. Tell you what, the gentlelady’s time is expired. Can you submit that answer in writing? 

Mr. FOLEY. Certainly. 

Ms. NORTON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

The projected number of employees for rotating shifts at the national Support Center (NSC) to provide coverage 24 hours a day, 

7 days a week, and 365 days a year is 208. Of these, 97 will be 

Federal employees and 111 will be contractors. 

Chairman JOHNSON. Mr. Brady, you are recognized. 

Mr. BRADY. Thank you, Chairman Johnson, Chairman Denham. 

Thank you for hosting this hearing. Nice to see you again, 


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Mr. O’Carroll. Appreciate it. Look forward to working with you 

again this session. Mr. Foley, Mr. Croft, thanks for being here. 

You know, our seniors just depend upon getting their checks on 

time and accurately, plus Social Security and the data you have 

play a critical role with other federal, state, and local agencies. So 

this is a critical issue. 

When natural disasters in California collapsed roads and bridges, 

when the Minneapolis bridge, an I–35 construction flaw, collapsed, 

the Federal Government worked with remarkable speed, knowing 

that truly they didn’t have an option and they needed to move 

quickly. 

I am not saying we have a natural disaster on our hands. But 

obviously, we are on borrowed time with the aging NCC system as 

it is today. Mr. Foley and Mr. Croft, why can’t we apply those principles to getting this project back at least to its original timetable 

in moving forward just to ensure that we have bought ourselves 

again more time to prevent anything from happening that really 

would have pretty critical impacts? Mr. Foley? 

Mr. FOLEY. Certainly. As I said, we are committed to looking for 

every avenue to accelerate, and we are exploring all those. I think 

we have an aggressive schedule for the delivery of the data center 

on the construction side. And, you know, as with any project, there 

are clearly components of risk as we move forward through the procurement phase and through the construction phase. 

But we are taking every step we can to mitigate those. So on the 

procurement side, we have detailed criteria, and we have a wellestablished process for the procurement, and we are confident that 

we can move through that quickly without any delays. 

On the construction side, the two components, typically, where 

you see opportunities for delay are when you have an issue with 

the contractor. And so by going for the two-phase source selection 

where we get only the most qualified contractors, we think we are 

mitigating that risk as we move forward. The second phase or the 

second place where you often see delay is in changes in requirements, and we have worked extremely closely with Social Security 

to ensure that we have a well-developed program of requirements. 

And so I think we are—we don’t anticipate any further delays. 

And as I said, we are looking at all avenues we can to accelerate 

on the construction side, and I think on the migration side as well. 

Mr. BRADY. On the construction side, of the elements that go 

into, both acquiring the site, designing and building, construction, 

as you said—and obviously, Mr. Croft, you have got the installation 

as well—what are the greatest risk factors for further delay in your 

experience with other projects? Where do we see the most risk in 

something slowing us down further? 

Mr. FOLEY. I mean, I think I mentioned them previously. The 

two places where we see risk are during the procurement, where 

you have a risk, potentially, for a protest among the unsuccessful 

bidders—— 

Mr. BRADY. And how much could that delay it? 

Mr. FOLEY. I think we are hopeful that we can move through 

that process fairly quickly. You know, it could be a matter of 

months to just a matter of weeks. We know we have got a good 


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process in place, so we hope to keep that to a minimum and we 

hope we wouldn’t have any protest on the award. 

On the construction side, the biggest risk is typically where you 

have changes of requirements. So as you get through the design 

and into construction—— 

Mr. BRADY. And does that hinge, really, on the coordination between Social Security and GSA? 

Mr. FOLEY. Absolutely. And that is where our close working relationship has proved beneficial. We have a well-detailed program 

of requirements, and we are working in close coordination to make 

sure that we don’t have any delays as we move through the construction side. 

Mr. CROFT. Mr. Brady, I echo what David said. We have invested massive amounts of time working with the GSA team to 

make sure that that program is complete and will not be an impediment to this project. 

So we are very, very much in the middle of this, and we will commit to keeping up with our colleagues from GSA. 

Mr. BRADY. Thank you. What is the degree of certainty that we 

will get this building to Social Security in January 2015? And what 

is the degree of certainty we will finish the IT and systems 18 

months later? 

Mr. Foley, is it 100 percent? Ninety percent? Eighty percent? 

Seventy percent? Your experience with other projects, what should 

we expect? 

Mr. FOLEY. Based on my experience, we do have an aggressive 

schedule, in part because we recognize the criticality of this. I 

think because of all the coordination and in part because of some 

of the environmental work and things that we need to know a little 

extra time up front, we are fairly confident that we can certainly 

deliver within the schedule we currently have and because of the 

risk mitigation that I mentioned up front. 

Mr. BRADY. How comfortable? 

Mr. FOLEY. We are very comfortable we could deliver that. 

Mr. BRADY. Eighty percent comfortable? A hundred percent 

comfortable? 

Mr. FOLEY. I would say at least 80 percent and more. 

Mr. BRADY. I knew you didn’t want to give that number. 

[Laughter.] 

Mr. BRADY. But for our own sake, I wanted to know just what 

this comfort level was. 

Mr. FOLEY. I had to try. 

Mr. BRADY. I am over time, Mr. Chairman. Do you want to answer quickly, Mr. Croft? 

Chairman JOHNSON. Thank you. Go ahead. 

Mr. CROFT. Well, for IT migration, I am extremely comfortable 

that we can make it within the 18-month time frame. And I am 

not a betting person, but I would bet we will substantially beat it. 

Chairman JOHNSON. Well, I am concerned that you are moving 

some of the equipment from the old facility to the new one, and I 

don’t know how you are going to make that transition on time. I 

hope you can. 

Mr. Stark, do you care to question? 

Mr. STARK. Not at this point, Mr. Chairman. 


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Chairman JOHNSON. Thank you. 

Mr. Paulsen, do you care to—— 

Mr. PAULSEN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman JOHNSON. Thank you. 

Mr. PAULSEN. I just have maybe a couple of questions. Part of 

it has been the reassurance, obviously, of the members of this committee, and I am just learning about the timelines that are around 

the data centers that are out there. But let me just understand, 

maybe, some more of the impact because I am learning exactly all 

about the Social Security and the data that is kept there. 

But Mr. Croft, knowing that what you are doing right now, you 

are doing everything possible, right, that you can to prevent the 

aging NCC from failing, if it were to fail this year—let’s just say 

it failed. And I know there is a four-day backup plan that comes 

up. And I visit my local Social Security office the next day. 

I mean, what would I find if I went in there the next day after 

a failure? Would I be able to file a claim? Would I be able to change 

the bank to where my checks get sent? Would I be able to do that? 

Would I be able to file an appeal that day if a claim was denied, 

for instance, or would it take a long period of time? Just help me 

sort out what might happen. 

Mr. CROFT. Yes, sir. I appreciate the question. 

First, if we had a situation like that, one of the first things we 

would be doing, of course, is communicating, not only to our own 

management team and workforce but also to the communities. We 

would be sending out information about the likely outage and the 

impact on operations. And for people that can wait to come file a 

claim or do things with us, we would be encouraging them to wait 

until we are back up and operational. 

If you came into the office, though, and our systems were down, 

you could file a claim. We couldn’t process it, though. You could file 

a claim on paper. We might take information from you to protect 

your filing date to make sure you don’t lose any benefits and so 

forth. 

We could take information from you related to changing a direct 

deposit, but we couldn’t actually process that, either. We would 

wait until the system was up, and then we would have to work to 

key that information in and process it at that time. 

So we would be there. We would be able to talk to people. We 

could take information from people. We could actually take paper 

claims and things like that. But we could not process them until 

the system was back up. 

Mr. PAULSEN. So it sounds like essentially you are going to 

have a backlog occur until everything starts up again? 

Mr. CROFT. A tremendous backlog would build up very quickly. 

Chairman JOHNSON. Mr. Croft, can I interrupt you a minute? 

I thought you told me that a certain percentage of the system was 

running in Carolina now. 

Mr. CROFT. It is. That is correct. 

Chairman JOHNSON. And those would not be affected, would 

they? 

Mr. CROFT. Yes. The things that are in Carolina would not be 

affected. That is correct, sir. 


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Chairman JOHNSON. So take the State of Texas, for example, 

which you are doing down there. If the main center went down, 

Texas would not be affected. Is that true? 

Mr. CROFT. What we showed you there was the printing of Social Security cards for Texas. We could still print Social Security 

cards if we had the new information coming in. The main thing 

that is in North Carolina is all the medical evidence associated 

with our disability process, which is a huge growth area for us. 

That would still be up and operational. 

But a lot of the online types of system and the claims systems 

that the question referred to, they are dependent on the National 

Computer Center at this time. So they would be down under the 

scenario that the question—— 

Chairman JOHNSON. For four days, according to you, five according to him? 

Mr. CROFT. Four days to me, and working towards one. 

Chairman JOHNSON. Thank you. 

Mr. PAULSEN. Mr. Croft, let me just follow up, too. So if I am 

a business owner and I am using the E-Verify system, participating 

in that—that is the voluntary program that allows me to verify 

work authorization of my new hires—will I be able to verify new 

hires during that time frame? 

Mr. CROFT. Yes, you will. That is one of the redundant systems 

between the two data centers. If it happened tomorrow, it would require some additional work from our colleagues at the Department 

of Homeland Security (DHS) to point their system to North Carolina. But we are all set up and ready to do that. 

Mr. PAULSEN. And if I was going to call on like the 800 number, for instance, would I get an answer on the phone? Would I be 

able to conduct business or be a part of that? 

Mr. CROFT. Yes. Yes, sir. Our phones would work, but our staff 

would have limited ability other than to talk to you and take information from you. For example, they would not be able to pull up 

your master beneficiary record to answer questions with specificity 

about your claims or your benefits. 

Mr. PAULSEN. And maybe just I will close here. But let me ask 

you this, too. With the timelines, and you say you are reasonably 

sure that you can meet the current timelines even though we have 

already been delayed, but if everything is completed with the new 

center and there was an outage, is it going to be the same fourday backup? Or is it going to be we are going to have a backup now 

and we are not going to have that time frame to meet an emergency if there was an outage? 

Mr. CROFT. Yes. We are at a four-day recovery time now, and 

we have an active project, irrespective of the replacement data center project, to drive that down to one day. And we will make that, 

as we have said, by the end of fiscal year (FY) 2012. And I believe 

we will actually beat that one as well, Mr. Johnson. 

But we will be driving that down. So we will be at a one day recovery time if either of our centers fail. 

Mr. PAULSEN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman JOHNSON. Thank you. 

Ms. Berkley, do you care to question? 


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Ms. BERKLEY. I do indeed, and thank you very much for holding this hearing. And thank you, gentlemen, for being here. 

We are in the process of building a VA medical center in my congressional district. There are three buildings 147 acres, and it is 

the first new construction in the VA in 20 years. It is a massive 

undertaking. So I very much appreciate what you are doing and 

how you are doing it. 

One of the questions that many people in my community would 

ask when we got the timeline on how long it would take to build 

these facilities was if we could build a 5,000-room hotel in Las 

Vegas in 18 months, how is it that this is going to take so long? 

But now that it is nearing completion and I see what went into 

creating these buildings, I understood why it took as long as it did. 

So I fully appreciate your need to do your due diligence and 

produce a building that is going to not only be functional and safe, 

but will be with us for many decades to come. 

I also realize how challenging site selection is because I grew up 

in my congressional district. I know every inch of it. And I had 

many suggestions for the appropriate site for this VA medical center. And as each one of my suggestions was shot down, I also came 

to appreciate that even though it was not even on my radar screen, 

the site that we chose was perfect for the function of these buildings. And we are going to be creating a whole new city within a 

city once this is up. So I want to thank you for doing your work. We were able to build this VA center with a $600-million earmark. And I am a great proponent of earmarks, although they 

seem to have fallen out of fashion lately. But what I was astounded 

is when we were talking about it being on time and being on budget, and I thought that was just great. 

A few years after the start, I came to realize that there was an- other $100 million that was needed for equipment and furniture 

and training and hiring, because we are going to be hiring a thousand people. 

Do you need additional resources from the Federal Government? 

Do we have to appropriate it? Is it now up to your Social Security 

Administrator to come and make the request? Where are we in 

that process? 

Mr. CROFT. Yes. Thank you. Out of the $500 million that have 

been appropriated for this project, $100 million is to be used as the 

down payment, if you will, for the actual outfitting of the building 

with IT, the transition of the IT, and so forth. 

And at the time that this was done, we estimated that it could 

cost upwards of $350 million altogether to do a full transition from 

the old building to the new. So what we will be doing is making 

requests as part of our budget process. 

I believe you will start seeing requests from us, based on current 

timeline, in FY 2013/2014/2015, possibly 2016 as well, to cover the 

additional costs associated with transitioning all of the IT from the 

old building into the new and establishing that as a fully functioning new data center. 

Ms. BERKLEY. And I am glad you brought that up because 

there have been a couple of questions asked about the effectiveness 

and the cost-effectiveness of transferring existing equipment from 

the old building to the new. 


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I am sure you have done a cost study on this, and is it less expensive to do this than purchase new? 

Mr. CROFT. It will be for equipment that still has a lot of—— 

Ms. BERKLEY. Life? 

Mr. CROFT. Correct. That is right. And we will be doing much, 

much more precise planning, actually starting later this year and 

getting into next year, as we actually are getting closer and closer 

to being able to take over this facility. 

We will develop a master plan. We will start working through 

our budget cycles. We buy a lot of things, a lot of hardware, a lot 

of IT equipment anyway. What we’re trying to do is time our regular refreshments of equipment. 

If we can extend some of our equipment a little bit longer in the 

old building so that we can just ride our normal budget cycles for 

equipment that we were going to replace anyway and have it go 

directly into the new facility, that will be a way for us to cut down 

on that cost and make it go smoother. 

Ms. BERKLEY. Thank you. 

Mr. O’Carroll, in my final moments, seconds, you know the situation in my district, with the unprecedented growth and the amount 

of backlog we have and the lines that we have. If we roll back our 

budgets to 2008 numbers, what will that do to the people in my 

congressional district that depend on Social Security? 

Mr. O’CARROLL. Congresswoman, I think that is an issue that 

Social Security is looking very hard at—what is going to happen to 

customer service. When you take a look at the last two years, the 

growth that SSA has had, the expectations now of the public are 

higher because backlogs have dropped, service has improved. If 

there are going to be budget cuts obviously it is going to have an 

effect on customer service. 

One other thing we are always very concerned with is stewardship. One of my concerns is that stewardship not decrease. SSA 

should do its due diligence to make sure that the right people are 

getting the right benefits, and that that doesn’t suffer, because oftentimes stewardship suffers whenever customer service gets higher priority. 

Ms. BERKLEY. So penny wise and pound foolish? 

Mr. O’CARROLL. Yes. 

Chairman JOHNSON. The gentlelady’s time has expired. Thank 

you. 

Mr. Smith, you are recognized. 

Mr. SMITH. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you to the 

panel for sharing your expertise and insights here. It has been interesting to listen to this now that the 2008 spending levels have 

been injected into this hearing and the stimulus funds and so forth. 

But I can’t help but think that the whole process—and I am fairly new to this project—but looking at the delays, and then the 

extra funds being directed to that and maybe not even speeding 

things up—and I don’t want to go there necessarily. I am curious 

as to how the process could be streamlined in the future. I have 

talked to private contractors who say that government projects 

tend to take a long time, therefore cost more money, or vice versa. 

And so if you could speak to something that could be done, perhaps—and maybe not even being able to respond to that today, but 


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for the record in the future—how can we get to the bottom of some 

of these things, the delays? And I am not faulting any one particular person or agency. 

It is just that there seems to be so much placed into the decision 

that it becomes so burdensome. Then it is delayed. It is more expensive. Service perhaps could suffer, and efficiency overall is lost. 

Can any of you speak to that in a brief moment? 

Mr. FOLEY. I will take the first shot at it. I think there are 

unique requirements to building a federal facility. In particular, 

the data center is a complicated facility unlike a traditional or typical office building, even the ones that GSA builds for many of our 

other customer agencies. 

So the timeline on this project is longer just simply because of the type of facility. When you are building a $400- or $500-million 

project, including equipment and all the technology that has got to 

go into there, the building mechanical systems are much more complicated. The phasing and sequencing is much more complicated. 

And so it does take a longer period of time. 

There are also requirements that the Federal Government has 

for additional security—redundancy on the systems, which I defer 

to my colleague at Social Security to discuss a little more—but that 

are more complicated, require more due diligence than perhaps a 

typical private sector facility might go through. So I don’t know if 

you—— 

Mr. CROFT. I appreciate your question. I am not an expert on 

this process. I do find it daunting, and I really respect my colleagues for the way they maneuver through it. It is an extensive 

process, and I don’t have words of wisdom about it, to be honest, 

Congressman. 

Mr. O’CARROLL. Mr. Smith, I am also in that same position— 

what we are doing is monitoring. What we are trying to do with 

our monitoring process is not to impede, not to delay the project, 

and do everything that we can to keep it on schedule. 

But we have the same role of oversight. So I guess the best thing 

I can say, Mr. Smith, is I can assure you that the oversight role 

isn’t going to be a lag indicator on the future of this project. 

Mr. SMITH. Okay. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman JOHNSON. Just know that I understand duplication 

in effort in these kind of buildings. And there is a lot of technology 

going in there, and backup power, backup generators, backup this, 

backup that. And it is great that you are considering all those 

things. 

Mr. Rangel, do you care to question? 

Mr. RANGEL. Mr. Chairman, thank you, and Congressman Norton for having this hearing. I only want—— 

Chairman JOHNSON. Microphone. 

Mr. RANGEL. I only want to take advantage of this moment to 

thank the panel of the great job that they are doing for hundreds 

of millions of Americans that we don’t say thank you enough. But 

their lives and their families have been affected. 

And I think the Social Security Act is one of the highest moments of our nation and the Congress. And continue your good 

work, and count on our support. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 


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Chairman JOHNSON. Thank you, sir. You lost your words, huh? 

You can talk longer if you want to. 

Mr. RANGEL. No, no. I really think, when you are hearing 

things positive, progress is being made, you don’t go backwards. 

You just thank them and move on. 

Chairman JOHNSON. They do do good work in my view. 

Mr. Berg, you are recognized. 

Mr. BERG. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Again, I want to thank 

you for all the work you put into this. In my real life I am involved 

in commercial real estate, and so I am somewhat familiar with the 

private sector. 

And I just had a couple of just big picture questions. How big is 

the facility, and what is our cost per square foot in the new facility? 

Mr. CROFT. I believe the building will be approximately 400,000 

gross square feet. 

Mr. FOLEY. I think it is, 400,000 square feet. And I think the 

overall total construction cost, including management and inspection and the design services, is about $381 million. So I don’t have 

my calculator here to do the quick math, but we can certainly provide the estimated construction cost per square feet for you. 

Mr. BERG. Well, obviously, one of the things that is of concern 

to everyone here is what might be in jeopardy if we have a crash 

in the current facility, and really what is going on. 

The other thing that I see is obviously our economy is in a slump 

now. And we look at this project and we say, when will the bulk 

of the jobs actually be out there receiving paychecks, and how can 

we speed that up? 

And I am not going to go through all the timetable and everything you are doing because again, as you look at that, we can 

argue about that and talk about that. But in my experience—and 

I am just going to kind of lay out an analogy. I don’t know if this 

is true or not. 

But I think when it comes to government projects, there is kind 

of a private sector construction world out there, and there is kind 

of a way they do things, whether it is a data center or office building or warehouse, that they have timetables and what they go 

through. 

And to some degree, it seems like through the government, when 

we are doing construction projects, we are saying, okay. We don’t 

really care about how the industry normally does this. We are the 

government, and here is how we do this, and we are so concerned 

about having everything accounted for and everything competed for 

that we end up, in my opinion, sometimes taking twice as long for 

a construction project that ultimately costs us more because of the 

delays. 

My other concern is in our effort to make everything fair for 

every contractor, we end up not having that many contractors compete because they are like, I don’t want to do all that paperwork 

and spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to get in the game 

when there is only a 10 percent chance that I will get it. Instead 

of doing that, I am just going to do my normal work. 

So maybe just—again, I am kind of stepping back. And not to 

pick on this project, but if we were going to kind of rethink how 


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we do major construction projects like this in a way that would be, 

again, two years rather than five years, I am asking for ideas or 

what you might think could be done differently from out standpoint 

to deliver, again, the same results, but faster. 

Mr. FOLEY. Sure. I think that first I should note we have 

brought in expertise from the private sector, from folks who build 

data centers all the time, because this is a unique, highly complicated project. 

So we are using our expertise, SSA’s expertise of their requirements, and we have brought in consultants who are experts in 

terms of data centers to help with that, to make sure that we 

aren’t adding things to the process and help make sure that we do 

that. 

As far as your concern about how do we make sure that we get 

competition because of the process and all of that, that is one of 

the benefits of our two-step source selection, where we don’t require as much detail up front before we narrow the list down. 

So you get to a short list of folks, so they know I am not one of 

50 competing. I think, based on our experience with other Recovery 

Act projects, we are confident that we are going to get good competition on this project. 

And so I think there are differences between private sector and 

government, but we are always looking for opportunities and ways 

that we can streamline, and do it in the most efficient manner. But 

we do have certain rules, regulations, and a certain duty as the 

Federal Government to make sure that there is a fair opportunity 

for all entities to compete in this. 

Mr. BERG. Mr. Chairman, let me reask that question. First of 

all, I am not asking you to defend anything. 

Mr. FOLEY. Okay. 

Mr. BERG. I trust that you are making a good decision. I trust 

that you have great contractors. I understand the process, and 

someone can have a dispute or a protest and it screws things up. 

My question to you is, again, on the big picture, if we said this 

had to be done in two years rather than five years, is there anything that you can think of that says, you know, we could streamline this by removing some of these obligations or requirements? 

That is my question to you. 

Mr. FOLEY. I mean, I think the longest parts in the process are 

through the environmental phase, which you are well aware of, you 

know, through any private development as well. Through the procurement, there are additional rules and regulations that do take 

a little bit longer for the government because we do have to have 

full and open competition as opposed to being able to go out to two 

or three contractors and say to do that. And so that does add time 

to the process. 

As far as construction goes, we are hiring a private sector contractor to build the building, and so I hope that our actual construction time frame and the process we are using, design/build, 

is—it is common practice in private sector real estate. And so I 

think that portion of the process is fairly similar. So I think it really is on the front end where it is a little bit different. 

Mr. BERG. Thank you. Just one followup? Or am I out of time? 

Chairman JOHNSON. Go ahead. What have you got? 


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Mr. BERG. My question is, what is the plan for the property that 

you are going to be moving out of? 

Mr. FOLEY. Sure. 

Mr. BERG. And that may have been already addressed. If so, I 

apologize; you don’t need to respond to that. But we don’t want to 

wait. 

Mr. CROFT. No. It hasn’t been asked, sir. We are going through 

a master planning process on the campus. The building will stay 

in use. It probably will need to have some renovations once the IT 

is out of it. Again, the plumbing and all that stuff is original to the 

building. 

My speculation would be it will be an office building for Social 

Security workers in Baltimore. 

Chairman JOHNSON. Yes. That is another issue we need to look 

at. Thank you for bringing it up. Your time is expired. 

I am going to allow Mr. Denham, the chairman, to ask one more 

question. 

Mr. DENHAM. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Actually, my question 

is the same as Mr. Berg’s question, which I don’t think was fully 

answered. I understand that there is going to be tenant improvements on the facility, on the building itself. But this is a 260-acre 

piece of property, is it not? 

Mr. FOLEY. I believe that is correct. Yes. 

Mr. DENHAM. What are we going to do with the rest of that 

property? 

Mr. FOLEY. The Woodlawn campus has multiple SSA facilities 

on it, you know, as far as the operations there. But we have an operations center that we have just recently completed a major renovation on. There is the Altmeyer Building as well. 

And so there are multiple other uses for the SSA headquarters. 

We are utilizing the site in a multiple of capacities. We are, as Mr. 

Croft said, in the master planning—— 

Mr. DENHAM. Is it 100 percent utilized? 

Mr. FOLEY. I believe so, yes. 

Mr. DENHAM. 260 acres, no vacant land out there? 

Mr. FOLEY. Oh, there is additional land. 

Mr. DENHAM. So it is not 100 percent utilized? 

Mr. FOLEY. The buildings themselves are, yes. But there is additional land. 

Mr. DENHAM. And what are we doing with the land? 

Mr. FOLEY. Right now, I mean, it is just buffer area around the 

campus. 

Mr. DENHAM. Could it be utilized for something other than 

buffer? 

Mr. FOLEY. As a part of the study, one of the things we did look 

at was the ability to build on some of these portions. The topography and other things create some challenges. But as a part of the 

master plan, we will be looking at how we can better utilize the 

facility and the possibility for future growth and expansion of SSA 

at the Woodlawn campus. 

Mr. DENHAM. Are there houses on that property? 

Mr. FOLEY. I believe there are. 

Mr. DENHAM. Individual dwellings? 

Mr. FOLEY. I believe there are contiguous—— 


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Mr. DENHAM. I believe there are, too. Any reason why we 

couldn’t utilize the rest of the 260 acres to develop that area, put 

houses on there, and sell it off to some private developer that may 

be able to provide housing for that community? 

Mr. CROFT. Well, part of the issue, Congressman—and we 

would love to have you come out to the campus if you want to look 

at it. 

Mr. DENHAM. I would love to visit. 

Mr. CROFT. A lot of it is parking, parking lots and so on. 

Mr. DENHAM. 260 acres of parking lots? 

Mr. CROFT. But there is also quite a lot of woodland area. But 

a lot of that has been buffer around the computer center, the National Computer Center. 

Mr. DENHAM. But we are now moving the computer center. 

Correct? So we would not need the large buffer zone, and we would 

be able to develop that property, sell the property off. I am curious 

of what the timeline is to sell the property and to better utilize the 

existing facilities. 

It is also my understanding that a number of the facilities on 

there we lease from private individuals for SSA. Correct? 

Mr. CROFT. Not on the campus, no. 

Mr. DENHAM. Obviously, which is even a bigger problem. We 

are leasing property outside of the campus even though we have 

got 260 vacant acres there. We are leasing property. Are we going 

to now move those individuals into the location that we are moving 

out of once the tenant improvements are done? 

Mr. FOLEY. That is part of the master planning process. So we 

are looking at the best way to accommodate the overall needs on 

the site. 

Mr. DENHAM. I would like to take a look at the entire plan and 

have that available to our committee. My assumption is that we 

are not going to fully utilize the 260 acres, so I would like to see 

what the opportunities would be to sell off that property and what 

it could be used for. 

And then finally, I am assuming—— 

Chairman JOHNSON. I would like for you to respond to both 

committees in that regard, please. 

Mr. DENHAM. Thank you. 

Contingency on the overall project, I assume, is 10 percent contingency? 

Mr. FOLEY. I believe so, yes. 

Mr. DENHAM. So $50 million, there could be an opportunity to 

reprogram $50 million, assuming you come in on budget. 

Mr. FOLEY. At the end of the process, yes. 

Mr. DENHAM. Just as a statement, it is my understanding that 

in the past, when money is reprogrammed, it does not always go 

back through this committee, even though you have the obligation 

to bring it before this committee. This committee will make sure 

that we follow up on every project to make sure that every contingency comes through this committee as well as Appropriations. 

Thank you for my time. 

Chairman JOHNSON. Thank you, sir. I appreciate the question. 

And thank you all for your presence here today and your comments. Thank you all, and the subcommittees will continue to monVerDate Nov 24 2008 06:36 Dec 02, 2011 Jkt 070872 PO 00000 Frm 00058 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 I:\WAYS\OUT\70872.XXX GPO1 PsN: 70872

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itor your progress, both of us, to make sure the project is done 

right, within budget, and completed on time, if not ahead of time. 

I appreciate all of my members who joined us. At this time, the 

committee stands adjourned. 

[Whereupon, at 11:34 a.m., the subcommittees were adjourned.] 

[Questions for the record follow:] 


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