INFORMATION 

TECHNOLOGY

Key Federal Agencies 

Need to Address 

Potentially 

Duplicative 

Investments

Report to Congressional Requesters

September 2013

GAO-13-718

United States Government Accountability Office
United States Government Accountability Office

Highlights of GAO-13-718, a report to 

congressional requesters

September 2013

INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY

Key Federal Agencies Need to Address Potentially 

Duplicative Investments

Why GAO Did This Study

The federal government budgets more 

than $82 billion annually for IT. Given 

the magnitude of this investment, it is 

important that federal agencies avoid 

investing in duplicative systems to 

ensure the most efficient use of 

resources. GAO’s prior work has 

shown that agencies were funding IT 

investments that perform similar 

functions, thus raising concern that 

these agencies were investing in 

unnecessary systems. This work also 

raised questions about whether 

agencies have similar potentially 

duplicative investments in other areas. 

GAO was asked to review duplicative 

IT investments. The objective of this 

report was to identify whether there are 

other potentially duplicative IT 

investments at key federal agencies. 

To do so, GAO selected for review the 

three agencies with the largest amount 

of planned IT spending–-DHS, DOD, 

and HHS. GAO analyzed agency 

budgetary data (submitted to the Office 

of Management and Budget) that 

categorize investments by function to 

identify investments that performed 

similar functions. Such investments 

were further grouped by their specific 

mission purpose and discussed with 

agency officials, including whether they 

could be consolidated or eliminated.

What GAO Recommends

GAO recommends that DOD develop a 

plan and DHS and HHS conduct 

analyses to address the potentially 

duplicative investments identified in 

this report. DOD and HHS agreed with 

GAO’s recommendations but DHS 

disagreed. GAO believes that analysis 

by DHS on why one system would not 

support both agencies’ requirements is 

needed.

What GAO Found

Of the 590 information technology (IT) investments reviewed, GAO identified 12 

potentially duplicative investments at three key federal agencies—namely, the 

Departments of Homeland Security (DHS), Defense (DOD), and Health and 

Human Services (HHS). These investments accounted for about $321 million in 

reported IT spending for fiscal years 2008 through 2013. Of the 12 investments 

(as shown in the table below), GAO identified:

• two potentially duplicative investments at DHS that support immigration 

enforcement booking management, which includes the processing of 

apprehended illegal aliens suspected of committing criminal violations of 

immigration law;

• four such investments at DOD, which include two investments that track 

health care status of warfighters, with one since having been canceled, and 

two investments that manage dental care; and

• six potentially duplicative investments at HHS, which include four 

investments that support enterprise information security and two for Medicare

coverage determination.

Potentially Duplicative Investments by Agency and Investment Purpose

Dollars in millions

Agency Purpose

Number of 

investments

Planned and reported 

spending fiscal years 

2008 - 2013

DHS Immigration Enforcement Booking 

Management 

2 $ 30.27

DOD Health Care Tracking System 2 15.79

Dental Management 2 14.81

HHS Enterprise Information Security 4 256.59

Medicare Coverage Determination 2 3.79

Total 12 $321.25

Source: GAO analysis.

DHS officials said having the two immigration booking investments were due in 

part to one component agency’s unique requirements but were unable to provide 

analysis showing why one system could not satisfy the unique requirements. 

DOD officials recognized that the investments GAO identified were duplicative

and have canceled one of the health care systems and intend to consolidate the 

dental systems by 2015 but had not developed a plan on how this was to be 

accomplished. HHS officials disagreed that its information security investments 

were duplicative but nonetheless plan to review them by September 2013 to 

identify opportunities for consolidation. Regarding the Medicare coverage 

determination investments, HHS officials noted that they have consolidated 

several functions but could not provide documented justification for why the other 

functions were not consolidated. By addressing these duplications, the agencies 

will be able to provide assurance they are avoiding investing in unnecessary 

systems and thus saving resources.

View GAO-13-718. For more information, 

contact David A. Powner at (202) 512-9286 or 

pownerd@gao.gov.
Page i GAO-13-718 Information Technology

Letter 1

Background 4

A Small Number of the Agencies’ IT Investments Appeared to be 

Potentially Duplicative, but They Represent Significant Spending 9

Conclusions 13

Recommendations for Executive Action 14

Agency Comments and Our Evaluation 14

Appendix I Objective, Scope, and Methodology 17

Appendix II Additional Information on Potentially Duplicative 

Investments 20

Appendix III Comments from the Department of Defense 22

Appendix IV Comments from the Department of Homeland Security 24

Appendix V GAO Contact and Staff Acknowledgments 26

Tables

Table 1: Selected Agencies, Primary Function, and Subfunctions 

Used to Select IT Investments 2

Table 2: Number of Potentially Duplicative Investments Grouped 

by Purpose 10

Table 3: Selected Agencies, Primary FEA Function, and 

Subfunctions Used to Select IT Investments 18

Table 4: Potentially Duplicative Investments at DHS, DOD, and 

HHS 20

Contents
Page ii GAO-13-718 Information Technology

Abbreviations

CBP U. S. Customs and Border Protection

DHS Department of Homeland Security

DOD Department of Defense

FEA Federal Enterprise Architecture

HHS Department of Health and Human Services

ICE U. S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement

IT information technology

OMB Office of Management and Budget

This is a work of the U.S. government and is not subject to copyright protection in the 

United States. The published product may be reproduced and distributed in its entirety 

without further permission from GAO. However, because this work may contain 

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necessary if you wish to reproduce this material separately.
Page 1 GAO-13-718 Information Technology

441 G St. N.W.

Washington, DC 20548

September 12, 2013

Congressional Requesters

Federal agencies currently report spending more than $82 billion annually 

on information technology (IT). Given the magnitude of this investment, it 

is important that federal agencies avoid investing in duplicative 

investments, whenever possible, to ensure the most efficient use of 

resources. As a result, the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) 

requires federal agencies to report on their IT investments, including 

identifying the primary functions of each investment using OMB-defined 

categories—such as information and technology management, supply 

chain management, and human resource management.

In prior work analyzing agency investments within the aforementioned 

three OMB categories, we reported in February 2012 that agencies, such 

as the Departments of Defense and Energy, were funding investments 

that perform similar functions, thus raising concern that these agencies 

were investing in unnecessary systems.1

At your request, this report provides the results of our review to identify 

the extent to which potentially duplicative IT investments exist within other 

OMB categories (e.g., defense and national security, health, and 

homeland security) at those key agencies that reportedly spend the most 

on IT.

Accordingly, we recommended 

that the agencies, among other things, address these potentially 

duplicative investments, and the agencies generally agreed with our 

recommendations.

2

 1

GAO, Information Technology: Departments of Defense and Energy Need to Address 

Potentially Duplicative Investments, 

Specifically, our objective was to identify whether there are 

potentially duplicative IT investments at these key federal agencies. To do 

this, we first selected for review the three agencies with the largest 

amount of planned IT spending—namely, the Departments of Homeland 

Security (DHS), Defense (DOD), and Health and Human Services (HHS).

GAO-12-241 (Washington, D.C.: Feb. 17, 2012).

2

For the purposes of our analysis, we considered “duplication” to occur when two or more 

agencies or programs are engaged in the same activities or provide the same services to 

the same beneficiaries.
Page 2 GAO-13-718 Information Technology

To identify potentially duplicative IT investments at these agencies, we (1) 

reviewed key OMB budgetary data to identify investments that were 

performing similar functions and (2) analyzed investment documentation 

and interviewed agency officials to assess whether such investments 

were duplicative and could be consolidated or eliminated. Specifically, we 

assessed investment data from an OMB document—called the exhibit 

53—which summarizes each agency’s annual planned (budgeted) IT 

investment spending and grouped individual investments at a high level 

by their primary functions and in a more detailed manner by 

subfunctions.3 We then selected for each agency, the two primary 

functions detailed on the exhibit 53 that had the largest amount of 

spending planned for fiscal year 2012. Within each function category, we 

further chose the two subfunction categories with the largest planned 

spending.4

Table 1: Selected Agencies, Primary Function, and Subfunctions Used to Select IT 

Investments

As a result of this analysis, we identified 590 investments, with 

total planned spending of $15.3 billion for fiscal year 2012, to be 

reviewed. The primary and subfunction categories selected for each of 

the three agencies are as follows:

Agency Primary function Subfunction

DHS Disaster Management Disaster Preparedness and Planning

Emergency Response

Homeland Security Border and Transportation Security

Key Asset and Critical Infrastructure 

Protection

DOD Defense and National Security Battlespace Networks

Command and Control

Health Health Care Administration

 3

The exhibit 53 identifies all IT projects—both major and non-major—and their associated 

costs within a federal organization. Information included on agency exhibit 53s is 

designed, in part, to help OMB better understand what agencies are spending on IT 

investments.

4

For DHS and DOD, we excluded from consideration those function and subfunction

categories selected in our February 2012 report (GAO-12-241) on federal IT duplication. 

In that report, DOD and DHS were evaluated within the following primary categories: 

information and technology management, human resource management, and supply 

chain management.
Page 3 GAO-13-718 Information Technology

Agency Primary function Subfunction

Health Care Delivery Services

HHS Health Population Health Management and 

Consumer Safety

Health Care Administration

Information and Technology 

Management

IT Infrastructure Maintenance

Information Security

Source: GAO analysis of OMB budget documents.

Note: Since the fiscal year 2004 budget cycle, OMB has required agencies to categorize their IT 

investments in their annual exhibit 53s according to primary function and subfunction.

Further, within each subfunction category, we then reviewed the name 

and narrative description of each investment’s mission purpose to identify 

similarities among related investments within each agency.5

Next, we compared the investments within these groupings to identify 

those that performed similar or overlapping functions. We then discussed 

these investments with the appropriate agency officials, including whether 

the investments could be consolidated or eliminated, and obtained 

additional information on each investment. Further, to identify any actions 

agencies had taken to address the potentially duplicative investments we 

identified, we assessed agency documentation (e.g., agency 

memorandums, project plans) and interviewed officials.

Once we 

identified investments that had such similarities, we grouped them by 

mission purpose into categories (referred to as purpose groups)—such as 

dental management and enterprise information security—that more 

specifically defined the purpose and mission of these similar investments.

We conducted this performance audit from November 2012 to September

2013 in accordance with generally accepted government auditing 

standards. Those standards require that we plan and perform the audit to 

obtain sufficient, appropriate evidence to provide a reasonable basis for 

our findings and conclusions based on our audit objectives. We believe 

that the evidence obtained provides a reasonable basis for our findings 

and conclusions based on our audit objective. See appendix I for a 

complete description of our objective, scope, and methodology.

 5

We did not review investments across agencies.
Page 4 GAO-13-718 Information Technology

Information technology should enable government to better serve the 

American people. However, according to OMB, despite spending more 

than $600 billion on IT over the past decade, the federal government has 

achieved little of the productivity improvements that private industry has 

realized from IT.6

Too often, federal IT projects run over budget, behind schedule, fail to 

deliver promised functionality, or are duplicative of other projects. In 

combating this problem, proper oversight is critical. Both OMB and federal 

agencies have key roles and responsibilities for overseeing IT investment 

management. OMB is responsible for working with agencies to ensure 

investments are appropriately planned and justified. Additionally, each 

year, OMB and federal agencies work together to determine how much 

the government plans to spend on IT projects and how these funds are to 

be allocated.

OMB uses the following mechanisms and processes, among others, to 

help it fulfill its required oversight responsibilities for federal IT spending.

• Exhibit 53s and exhibits 300s. OMB requires 27 federal departments 

and agencies7 to provide information related to their IT investments, 

including agency exhibit 53s and capital asset plans and business 

cases (called exhibit 300s).8

• Federal Enterprise Architecture (FEA) initiative. In February 2002, 

OMB established the FEA initiative. According to OMB, the FEA is 

intended to facilitate governmentwide improvement through cross-

 6

OMB, 25 Point Implementation Plan to Reform Federal Information Technology 

Management (Washington, D.C.: December 2010).

7

The 27 agencies are the Agency for International Development; the Departments of 

Agriculture, Commerce, Defense, Education, Energy, Health and Human Services, 

Homeland Security, Housing and Urban Development, the Interior, Justice, Labor, State, 

Transportation, the Treasury, and Veterans Affairs; the Army Corps of Engineers; the 

Environmental Protection Agency; the General Services Administration; the National 

Aeronautics and Space Administration; the National Archives and Records Administration; 

the National Science Foundation; the Nuclear Regulatory Commission; the Office of 

Personnel Management; the Small Business Administration; the Smithsonian Institution; 

and the Social Security Administration.

8

Exhibit 300s provide a business case for each major IT investment and allow OMB to 

monitor IT investments once they are funded. Agencies are required to provide 

information on each major investment’s cost, schedule, and performance.

Background
Page 5 GAO-13-718 Information Technology

agency analysis and identification of duplicative investments, gaps, 

and opportunities for collaboration, interoperability, and integration 

within and across agency programs. The FEA is composed of five 

“reference models” describing the federal government’s (1) business 

(or mission) processes and functions, independent of the agencies 

that perform them; (2) performance goals and outcome measures; (3) 

means of service delivery; (4) information and data definitions; and (5) 

technology standards. Since the fiscal year 2004 budget cycle, OMB 

has required agencies to categorize their IT investments in their 

annual exhibit 53s according to primary function and subfunction as 

identified in the FEA reference models. Additionally, agencies were 

required to choose a subfunction for each investment related to the 

primary function.

• IT reform. In December 2010, the Federal Chief Information Officer 

issued a 25 Point Implementation Plan to Reform Federal Information 

Technology Management. This 18-month plan specified five major 

goals: strengthening program management, streamlining governance 

and improving accountability, increasing engagement with industry, 

aligning the acquisition and budget processes with the technology 

cycle, and applying “light technology” and shared solutions. As part of 

this plan, OMB outlined actions to, among other things, strengthen 

agencies’ investment review boards and consolidate federal data 

centers. The plan stated that OMB will work with Congress to 

consolidate commodity IT spending (e.g., e-mail, data centers, 

content management systems, and web infrastructure) to, among 

other things, eliminate duplication, under agency Chief Information 

Officers. Further, the plan called for the role of agency Chief 

Information Officers to focus more on IT portfolio management.

In April 2012, we reported on the federal government’s progress 

toward implementing these actions.9

 9

GAO, Information Technology Reform: Progress Made but Future Cloud Computing 

Efforts Should be Better Planned,

In particular, we found that OMB 

and key federal agencies had made progress on action items in the IT 

Reform Plan, but that much work remained to be done on action items 

such as completing data center consolidation plans and launching a 

forum for agencies to share IT management best practices. 

Accordingly, we recommended, among other things, that the agencies 

complete all key IT Reform action items; OMB agreed with our 

recommendation.

GAO-12-756 (Washington, D.C.: July 11, 2012).
Page 6 GAO-13-718 Information Technology

• IT operations and maintenance. With regard to identifying and 

eliminating duplication within existing IT legacy systems—commonly 

referred to as steady state investments—OMB issued the Capital 

Programming Guide that calls for agencies to analyze (via operational 

analysis) whether their steady state investments are continuing to 

meet business and customer needs and are contributing to meeting 

the agency’s strategic goals.10 More specifically, this guidance calls 

for agencies to perform operational analyses annually on each steady 

state investment and requires that each operational analysis address 

17 key factors, including cost, schedule, customer satisfaction, 

strategic and business results, financial goals, and whether the 

investment overlaps with other systems.

In October 2012, we reported that of five key agencies selected for 

review, only two had performed operational analyses, and these two 

agencies did not perform analyses on all their steady state 

investments.11 Further, of the analyses performed by the two 

agencies, none fully addressed the 17 key factors specified in OMB’s 

guidance. Consequently, we recommended that the agencies conduct 

annual operational analyses on all their steady state investments and 

in doing, fully address the 17 key factors. The agencies agreed with 

our recommendations and have taken actions, such as developing 

operational analysis guidance, to address them.

• PortfolioStat reviews. In March 2012, OMB launched the PortfolioStat 

initiative, which requires agencies to conduct an annual agencywide 

IT portfolio review to, among other things, reduce commodity IT12

 10OMB, Capital Programming Guide, Supplement to OMB Circular A-11, Part 7 

(Washington, D.C.: July 2012).

spending and demonstrate how their IT investments align with the 

agency’s mission and business functions. PortfolioStat is designed to 

assist agencies in assessing the current maturity of their IT 

investment management process, making decisions on eliminating 

11GAO, Information Technology: Agencies Need to Strengthen Oversight of Billions of 

Dollars in Operations and Maintenance Investments, GAO-13-87 (Washington, D.C.: Oct. 

16, 2012). 

12According to OMB, commodity IT includes services such as IT infrastructure (data 

centers, networks, desktop computers and mobile devices); enterprise IT systems (e-mail, 

collaboration tools, identity and access management, security, and web infrastructure); 

and business systems (finance, human resources, and other administrative functions).
Page 7 GAO-13-718 Information Technology

duplicative investments, and moving to shared solutions in order to 

maximize the return on IT investments across the portfolio. While 

OMB’s TechStat reviews are intended to examine IT performance at 

the specific project or investment-level, PortfolioStat reviews are 

intended to examine the portfolio as a whole and draw on the 

agency’s enterprise architecture to help identify and eliminate areas of 

duplication and waste. In March 2013, OMB reported that through its 

PortfolioStat effort, agencies had identified and committed to nearly 

100 opportunities to consolidate or eliminate commodity IT 

investments. OMB reports that PortfolioStat has the potential to save 

the government $2.5 billion over the next 3 years by, for example, 

consolidating duplicative systems.

During the past several years, we have issued multiple reports and 

testimonies and made numerous recommendations to OMB and federal 

agencies to identify and reduce duplication within the federal 

government’s portfolio of IT investments.13 For example, in September 

2011, we reported that results of OMB initiatives to identify potentially 

duplicative IT investments were mixed and that several federal agencies 

did not routinely assess their entire IT portfolios to identify and remove or 

consolidate duplicative systems.14

 13

Specifically, we found that most of 

OMB’s recent initiatives had not yet demonstrated results, and several 

agencies had not routinely assessed legacy systems to determine if they 

were duplicative. Accordingly, we recommended that OMB among other 

things (1) improve its agency guidance on identifying and categorizing IT 

investments and (2) require the agencies as part of their annual budget 

and IT investment submissions to report the steps they take to ensure 

their IT investments are not duplicative. OMB generally agreed with these 

two recommendations and to address them subsequently updated its 

GAO-12-210; GAO-11-826; GAO-11-262; GAO-10-701; Information Technology: 

Management and Oversight of Projects Totaling Billions of Dollars Need Attention, 

GAO-09-624T (Washington, D.C.: Apr. 28, 2009); Information Technology: OMB and 

Agencies Need to Improve Planning, Management, and Oversight of Projects Totaling 

Billions of Dollars, GAO-08-1051T (Washington, D.C.: July 31, 2008); Information 

Technology: Further Improvements Needed to Identify and Oversee Poorly Planned and 

Performing Projects, GAO-07-1211T (Washington, D.C.: Sept. 20, 2007); Information 

Technology: Improvements Needed to More Accurately Identify and Better Oversee Risky 

Projects Totaling Billions of Dollars, GAO-06-1099T (Washington, D.C.: Sept. 7, 2006); 

Information Technology: Agencies and OMB Should Strengthen Processes for Identifying 

and Overseeing High Risk Projects, GAO-06-647 (Washington, D.C.: June 15, 2006).

14GAO-11-826.

GAO Has Previously 

Reported on Potential IT 

Investment Duplication
Page 8 GAO-13-718 Information Technology

guidance to provide additional clarity on how agencies should 

characterize investments in order to enhance the identification of 

potentially duplicative investments.

In addition, in February 2012 we reported on potentially duplicative IT 

investments within DOD, the Department of Energy, and DHS.15

Most recently, we reported in April 2013 on the progress of federal 

agencies in reducing duplication and overlap in their IT data centers 

(defined as data storage facilities).

Specifically, we found that while DOD and the Department of Energy had 

various investment review processes in place that were partially designed 

to avoid investing in systems that were duplicative, we identified 37 

potentially duplicative investments, totaling about $1.2 billion for fiscal 

years 2007 through 2012. Accordingly, we recommended that the 

agencies utilize existing transparency mechanisms, such as the IT 

Dashboard, to report on the results of the department’s efforts to identify 

and eliminate, where appropriate, each potentially duplicative investment 

we identified, as well as any other duplicative investments. We also 

recommended that these agencies, among other things, report on the 

progress of their efforts to identify and eliminate duplication. The agencies 

generally agreed with our recommendations and have taken steps to 

address them. For example, DOD and the Department of Energy (1) are 

conducting portfolio reviews, as part of their established IT investment 

management processes, as means to identifying and eliminating IT 

duplication and (2) plan to report the results of these reviews via the IT 

Dashboard.

16 Specifically, we reported that 

although OMB’s goal (as specified in its February 2010 Federal Data 

Center Consolidation Initiative to guide agencies in consolidating data 

centers) was to close 40 percent, or 1,253 of the 3,133 total federal data 

centers by the end of 2015, with estimated cost savings of $3 billion,17

 15

nearly all of the agencies had yet to complete a data center inventory or 

related key plans essential to beginning consolidation. We also reported 

GAO-12-241.

16GAO, Data Center Consolidation: Strengthened Oversight Needed to Achieve Cost 

Savings Goal, GAO-13-378 (Washington, D.C.: Apr. 23, 2013).

17As of June 2013, the number of data centers being reported by agencies had grown to 

over 6,800 facilities—an increase of more than 3,600 facilities compared to OMB’s 

previous estimate.
Page 9 GAO-13-718 Information Technology

that while agencies had closed 420 data centers, this was 285 closures 

short of where OMB expected the agencies to be as of the December 

2012 time frame. Further, we found that OMB had not determined 

agencies’ progress against their cost savings goals because OMB had 

yet to determine a consistent and repeatable method for tracking cost 

savings. Consequently, we recommended that OMB, among other things, 

track and report on key performance measures and extend the time frame 

for achieving planned cost savings. OMB agreed with the first 

recommendation and plans to evaluate the second recommendation but 

did not provide a time frame for the evaluation’s completion.

Additionally, the above work and associated reports have been updated 

and summarized in our 2011, 2012, and 2013 duplication series which 

reported on opportunities that existed for federal agencies to reduce 

fragmentation, overlap, or duplication in key areas, including IT, in order 

to achieve greater efficiency and effectiveness.18

The three agencies in our review had some IT investments that appeared 

to be duplicative; of the total investments we reviewed, the number of 

such investments was small but represented a significant amount of 

spending. Specifically, of the 590 IT investments reviewed, we identified 

12 potentially duplicative investments (within 5 purpose groups) at DHS, 

DOD, and HHS which accounted for about $321 million in reported IT 

spending for fiscal years 2008 through 2013. (Our analysis and 

categorization of the 12 investments by common purposes is included in 

app. II). With regard to the 12 investments, we found, as shown in table 2, 

the following:

• two potentially duplicative investments totaling about $30 million at 

DHS that are used to “book” and process apprehended illegal aliens 

who are suspected of committing criminal and administrative 

violations, commonly referred to as immigration enforcement booking 

management;

• four such investments totaling about $31 million at DOD, which 

include two investments totaling $16 million that track health care 

 18GAO-11-318SP; GAO, 2012 Annual Report: Opportunities to Reduce Duplication, 

Overlap and Fragmentation, Achieve Savings, and Enhance Revenue, GAO-12-342SP 

(Washington, D.C. Feb. 28, 2012); GAO, 2013 Annual Report: Actions Needed to Reduce 

Fragmentation, Overlap, and Duplication and Achieve Other Financial Benefits, 

GAO-13-279SP (Washington, D.C.: Apr. 9, 2012).

A Small Number of 

the Agencies’ IT 

Investments Appeared 

to be Potentially 

Duplicative, but They 

Represent Significant 

Spending
Page 10 GAO-13-718 Information Technology

status of warfighters and two investments totaling $15 million that 

manage dental care; and

• six potentially duplicative investments totaling approximately $260 

million at HHS, which include four investments totaling $257 million 

that support enterprise information security and two totaling $4 million 

for Medicare Coverage Determination.

Table 2: Number of Potentially Duplicative Investments Grouped by Purpose 

Dollars in millions

Agency Purpose

Number of 

investments

Planned and reported 

spending fiscal years 

2008 - 2013

DHS 1. Immigration Enforcement Booking 

Management 

2 $ 30.27

DOD 2. Health Care Tracking System 2 15.79

3. Dental Management 2 14.81

HHS 4. Enterprise Information Security 4 256.59

5. Medicare Coverage Determination 2 3.79

Total 5 12 $321.25

Source: GAO analysis.

It is important that federal agencies avoid duplicative investments, 

whenever possible, to ensure the most efficient use of resources. As 

such, OMB has issued guidance to help agencies reduce duplicative IT 

investments.19

At DHS, the department had two potentially duplicative IT investments 

with the purpose of immigration enforcement booking; they are called E3 

and EAGLE and are used by DHS component agencies—namely, U.S. 

Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and U.S. Immigration and 

Customs Enforcement (ICE), respectively—to enforce immigration law, 

including the processing of apprehended illegal aliens who are suspected 

of committing criminal and administrative violations. These investments 

More specifically, our analysis (by agency) found the 

following for each of the investments addressed in the purpose groups 

specified in table 2.

 19OMB, 25 Point Implementation Plan to Report Federal Information Technology 

Management (December 2010); OMB, Capital Programming Guide, Supplement to OMB 

Circular A-11, Part 7 (July 2012).

DHS
Page 11 GAO-13-718 Information Technology

were potentially duplicative because they perform similar functions, 

including

• capturing biographic information on apprehended illegal aliens,

• recording illegal alien arrests and enforcement incidents,

• collecting biometric data on such aliens, and

• querying other law enforcement data sources about, among other 

things, prior arrests and outstanding warrants.

CBP and ICE officials disagreed that the investments are duplicative, and 

thus do not have plans to address them. Specifically, officials from CBP 

and ICE stated that E3 and EAGLE accommodate different work 

processes and requirements. For example, ICE officials stated that 

EAGLE is a customized interface designed to meet the needs of its 

investigative and detention mission. However, CBP and ICE officials 

agreed that the systems do capture common data elements that are 

stored in a single, shared database.20

At DOD, the department had two potentially duplicative investments in 

Health Care Tracking and two in Dental Management. Specifically, the 

two Health Care Tracking investments—namely, the Warrior Care and 

Transition System and Clinical Case Management Information 

In addition, in 2007, CBP and ICE 

planned to jointly develop the E3 project. Specifically, according to the E3 

project charter (dated February 2007) and project plan (dated June 2007), 

the goal of the investment was to jointly develop a system to replace the 

then legacy booking management system being used at the time by both 

agencies. Although ICE subsequently withdrew from the project citing 

risks with the intended modernization approach and unique requirements 

that would not be addressed by the new system, it was not able to 

provide evidence corroborating its concerns with the modernization 

approach or an analysis showing that its requirements could not be 

satisfied by the new (E3) system. Further, as part of its development of 

EAGLE, ICE did assess three alternatives to the legacy booking 

management system, including E3 but concluded that adopting E3 also 

had significant cost and schedule risks. Nevertheless, ICE was not able to 

provide the costs associated with each of the alternatives other than 

EAGLE and thus could not corroborate their assessment that EAGLE was 

the most viable alternative.

 20E3 and EAGLE store data in the Enforcement Integrated Database—owned and 

operated by ICE. 

DOD
Page 12 GAO-13-718 Information Technology

Technology Initiative—manage wounded soldier health care through their 

transition back into active duty status or as veterans. DOD officials 

agreed that these investments had areas of duplication, and stated that 

they recently canceled the Clinical Case Management Information 

Technology Initiative, in part to address this duplication.

The two dental management systems—called Corporate Dental 

Application and Dental Common Access System—support and service 

the oral health of operational personnel, including the collection and 

management of oral health data, and updating readiness. These 

investments were potentially duplicative because they perform similar 

functions for each of the armed services.21 Department officials stated 

that when the systems were originally being deployed to the various 

armed services, the department did not consider deploying a common 

solution. Specifically, the Navy deployed its system in 2000 and the Army 

deployed its system in 1998 to meet their services’ specific dental system 

requirements.22

At HHS, the department had four potentially duplicative investments in 

Enterprise Information Security and two supporting Medicare Coverage. 

The four information security investments maintain and secure the 

operations and assets of HHS and its components.

DOD officials agreed that these systems are potentially 

duplicative and said to address this duplication, the department plans to 

migrate to a single system across all armed services. DOD officials stated 

that they plan to complete this migration by fiscal year 2017 and recently 

signed a memorandum of understanding (dated February 2013) on how 

they plan to share data between the systems until the migration is 

completed. In addition, according to these officials, DOD has developed a 

draft plan for how this migration is to be completed, but the plan has yet 

to be approved, and DOD was unable to provide us with documentation 

of this effort.

23

 21The Corporate Dental Application is used by the Army and Air Force, and the Navy uses 

the Dental Common Access System.

These investments 

22The Air Force started transitioning to the Corporate Dental Application in 2003 and 

finalized this transition in 2011.

23The investments are: (1) Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services - The Center for 

Consumer Information and Insurance Oversight Enterprise IT Security Program; (2) Indian 

Health Service – IT Security Program; (3) Health Resources and Services Administration 

– Office of Information Technology Federal Information Systems Security Program; and 

(4) HHS - Secure One.

HHS
Page 13 GAO-13-718 Information Technology

were potentially duplicative because they had overlapping products and 

solutions which were procured separately to address similar requirements 

across HHS and its components. Department officials stated that, 

although the information security investments appear to be duplicative on 

the surface, these investments are not analogous to a system but, rather, 

fund information security functions, such as personnel, policy, and 

oversight for each component. Nonetheless, HHS officials stated that the 

department is currently conducting a review, to be completed by 

September 2013, to identify opportunities for consolidation of information 

security activities across its components. As part of this, officials said that 

HHS plans to use the Chief Information Security Officer council to gather 

uniform toolsets that can be used across the department to improve 

efficiencies.

The two Medicare coverage management systems—which are called the 

National Coverage Determination and Local Coverage Determination 

databases—collect and disseminate information regarding Medicare 

coverage on national and local levels, as well as Medicare policy and 

other related information to the public via a website. These systems were 

potentially duplicative because they store and disseminate similar 

Medicare information to the public, but are maintained separately by the 

same contractor. Department officials stated that the department has 

consolidated certain functions of the systems, such as help desk 

functions and website management, to reduce duplication and create 

efficiencies. With regard to the other functions, the officials said that they 

determined that consolidating these functions would be more costly than 

keeping them separate, due to issues such as differences in mandated 

processes, security requirements and the size and complexity of the 

systems, but were not able to provide documentation showing this cost 

analysis.

To the credit of DHS, DOD, and HHS, the vast majority of the IT 

investments examined did not appear to be duplicative. Nonetheless, 

those few identified as being potentially duplicative represent significant 

financial investments on behalf of these agencies and appeared in part to 

be unnecessary. In selected cases, DOD and HHS are acting to address 

and eliminate duplicative investments. In other instances, DHS, DOD, and 

HHS have not yet demonstrated evidence of plans to do so. As a result, 

the agencies cannot provide assurance they are not spending resources 

on duplicative investments.

Conclusions
Page 14 GAO-13-718 Information Technology

To better ensure agencies avoid duplicative investments, we recommend 

that the Secretary of Homeland Security direct appropriate officials to:

• address the potentially duplicative investments identified in this report, 

including assessing the extent to which a single system could meet 

CBP and ICE immigration enforcement booking requirements.

We recommend that the Secretary of Defense direct appropriate officials 

to:

• develop and document a plan on how the department intends to 

migrate its single dental system solution to all the services.

We recommend that the Secretary of Health and Human Services direct 

appropriate officials to:

• assess whether it would be cost effective to consolidate the remaining 

functions of the Medicare coverage determination systems.

In commenting on a draft of this report, DOD and HHS agreed with our 

recommendations. Specifically, 

• In its written comments, DOD concurred with our recommendation. 

The department added that the Air Force and Army have already 

transitioned to the single dental system solution (the Corporate Dental 

Application). It also noted that the Navy is to do the same in fiscal 

year 2015 (with the exception of ship-based installations of the system 

which are not to be completed until fiscal year 2017 due to the ships’ 

limited availability for scheduling the installations). DOD’s comments 

are reprinted in appendix III.

• In comments provided via email from its GAO audit liaison within the 

Office of the Chief Information Officer, HHS also concurred with our 

recommendation.

DHS, in its written comments—which are reprinted in appendix IV—stated 

it did not concur with our recommendation because the EAGLE and E3 

investments have been reviewed by the DHS Chief Enterprise Architect 

and have been through DHS’s annual IT review processes and were 

found not to be duplicative. Specifically, DHS said that EAGLE and E3 

share the same database, and the applications that access it were 

developed separately to facilitate mission-specific functions for ICE and 

CBP agents.

Recommendations for 

Executive Action

Agency Comments 

and Our Evaluation
Page 15 GAO-13-718 Information Technology

While we recognize that ICE and CBP developed their applications 

separately to facilitate mission-specific functions, we also note that these 

applications perform similar functions, such as capturing biographic 

information on apprehended illegal aliens, recording illegal alien arrest 

and enforcement incidents, and collecting biometric data on such aliens. 

We also note (and discuss in the report) that ICE was unable to provide 

analyses showing, among other things, that its specific requirements 

could not be satisfied by the E3 system. Until such an assessment is 

performed, DHS cannot provide assurance that it is not spending 

resources on duplicative immigration enforcement investments. 

DOD, HHS, and DHS also provided technical comments, which we 

incorporated as appropriate.

If you or your staff have any questions on the matters discussed in this 

report, please contact me at (202) 512-9286 or at pownerd@gao.gov. 

Contact points for our Offices of Congressional Relations and Public 

Affairs may be found on the last page of this report. GAO staff who made 

major contributions to this report are listed in appendix V.

David A. Powner

Director, Information Technology

Management Issues
Page 16 GAO-13-718 Information Technology

List of Requesters

The Honorable Thomas R. Carper

Chairman

The Honorable Tom Coburn, M.D.

Ranking Member

Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs

United States Senate

The Honorable Claire McCaskill

Chairman

Subcommittee on Financial and Contracting Oversight

Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs

United States Senate

The Honorable Susan M. Collins

United States Senate
Appendix I: Objective, Scope, and 

Methodology

Page 17 GAO-13-718 Information Technology

Our objective was to identify whether there are potentially duplicative 

information technology (IT) investments at key federal agencies. More 

specifically, it was to identify the extent to which potentially duplicative IT 

investments exist within Office of Management and Budget (OMB) 

defined categories—such as defense and national security; disaster 

management; health; and homeland security—at the key agencies that 

reportedly spend the most on IT.1

To identify potentially duplicative IT investments at the agencies, we (1) 

reviewed key OMB budgetary data to identify investments that were 

performing similar functions and (2) analyzed investment documentation 

and interviewed agency officials to assess whether such investments 

were duplicative and could be consolidated or eliminated. Specifically, we 

assessed investment data from a key OMB document—called the Exhibit 

53 which summarizes each agency’s annual planned (budgeted) IT 

investment spending and groups individual investments at a high level by 

Federal Enterprise Architecture (FEA)

To do this, we first selected for review 

the three agencies with the largest amount of planned IT spending during 

fiscal year 2012—namely, the Departments of Homeland Security (DHS), 

Defense (DOD), and Health and Human Services (HHS).

2 primary functions and in a more 

detailed manner by FEA subfunctions. We then selected for each agency, 

the top two FEA primary functions detailed on the exhibit 53 that had the 

largest amount of spending planned for fiscal year 2012. Within each 

function category we further chose the top two subfunction categories 

with the largest planned spending.3

 1

For the purposes of our analysis, we considered “duplication” to occur when two or more 

agencies or programs are engaged in the same activities or provide the same services to 

the same beneficiaries.

As a result of this analysis, we 

identified 590 investments, with total planned spending of $15.3 billion for 

fiscal year 2012, to be reviewed.The following table displays the 

agencies, primary FEA functions, and FEA subfunctions we selected.

2

The FEA is intended to provide federal agencies and other decision makers with a 

common frame of reference or taxonomy for informing agencies’ individual enterprise 

architecture efforts and their planned and ongoing investment activities, and to do so in a 

way that identifies opportunities for avoiding duplication of effort and launching initiatives 

to establish and implement common, reusable, and interoperable solutions across agency 

boundaries.

3

For DHS and DOD, we excluded from consideration those functions and subfunctions 

selected in our February 2012 report on potentially duplicative IT investments.

Appendix I: Objective, Scope, and 

Methodology
Appendix I: Objective, Scope, and 

Methodology

Page 18 GAO-13-718 Information Technology

Table 3: Selected Agencies, Primary FEA Function, and Subfunctions Used to 

Select IT Investments

Agency FEA primary function FEA subfunction

DHS Disaster Management Disaster Preparedness and Planning

Emergency Response

Homeland Security Border and Transportation Security

Key Asset and Critical Infrastructure 

Protection

DOD Defense and National Security Battlespace Networks

Command and Control

Health Health Care Administration

Health Care Delivery Services

HHS Health Population Health Management and 

Consumer Safety

Health Care Administration

Information and Technology 

Management

IT Infrastructure Maintenance

Information Security

Source: GAO analysis of OMB budget documents.

Note: Since the fiscal year 2004 budget cycle, OMB has required agencies to categorize their IT 

investments in their annual exhibit 53s according to primary function and subfunction as identified in 

the FEA reference models. Additionally, agencies were required to choose a subfunction for each 

investment related to the primary function.

This nongeneralizable sample of 590 IT investments was 8 percent of the 

7,272 investments agencies reported on their exhibit 53s.The investments 

we reviewed represented approximately 10 percent of DOD’s IT portfolio 

in terms of number of investments that it reports to OMB, 31 percent of 

HHS’s, and 33 percent of DHS’s.

Within each subfunction, we then reviewed the name and narrative 

description of each investment’s purpose to identify similarities among 

related investments within each agency.4

 4

We did not review investments across agencies.

Once we identified investments 

that had such similarities, we grouped them by mission purpose into 

categories (we described as purpose groups)—such as dental 

management and enterprise information security—that more specifically 

defined the purpose and mission of these similar investments.
Appendix I: Objective, Scope, and 

Methodology

Page 19 GAO-13-718 Information Technology

Next, we compared the investments within these groupings to identify 

those that performed similar or overlapping functions. We then discussed 

these investments with the appropriate agency officials, including whether 

the investments could be consolidated or eliminated, and obtained 

additional information on each investment. This included reviewing and 

assessing agencies’ rationales for having multiple systems that perform 

similar functions. Further, to identify any actions agencies had taken to 

address the potentially duplicative investments we identified, we 

assessed agency documentation (e.g., agency memorandums, project 

plans) and interviewed officials. We also interviewed agency officials to 

identify the actions taken to consolidate, eliminate, or modify such 

investments.

We conducted this performance audit from November 2012 to September

2013 in accordance with generally accepted government auditing 

standards. Those standards required that we plan and perform the audit 

to obtain sufficient, appropriate evidence to provide a reasonable basis 

for our findings and conclusions based on our audit objectives. We 

believe that the evidence obtained provides a reasonable basis for our 

findings and conclusions based on our audit objective.
Appendix II: Additional Information on 

Potentially Duplicative Investments

Page 20 GAO-13-718 Information Technology

Table 4 provides information on the 12 potentially duplicative IT 

investments at DHS, DOD, and HHS we identified as potentially 

duplicative within the selected FEA categories (e.g., Health, Homeland 

Security, and Information and Technology Management).

Table 4: Potentially Duplicative Investments at DHS, DOD, and HHS

Agency Similar purpose

Component/bureau –

investment title Description FEA category

Planned and 

reported 

spending 

fiscal years 

2008 – 2013

(in millions)

DHS Immigration 

Enforcement 

Booking 

Management

CBP - E3 E3 is designed to support agents and 

officers during intelligence, 

apprehension, prosecution, and 

enforcement activities with modules for 

processing arrests, assaults, and 

biometrics. 

Homeland 

Security

$23.60

Immigration 

Enforcement 

Booking 

Management

ICE - EAGLE EAGLE is designed to provide, among 

other things, an alien processing and 

booking system that supports criminal 

and other arrests with faster processing 

times and improved biometrics 

collection. It is also designed to (1) 

operate over wireless connections and 

(2) integrate with other ICE applications.

Homeland 

Security

6.67

DOD Health Care 

Tracking System

DOD-wide - Army 

Warrior Care and 

Transition System

Army Warrior Care and Transition 

System is to provide the Army’s Warrior 

Transition Units and Community Based 

Warrior Transition Units with a 

standardized IT capability to manage 

and track Warriors in Transition.

Health 6.84

Health Care 

Tracking System

DOD-wide - Clinical 

Case Management 

Information Technology 

Initiative

This investment is to provide IT 

capabilities to support the capture and 

use of data to enhance the seamless 

transition of the recovering service 

member through the continuum of care.

Health 8.95

Dental Management DOD-wide - Corporate 

Dental Application

The Corporate Dental Application is a 

database of the oral health status for 

active duty soldiers within the Army. It is 

a clinical scheduling system to be used 

by health care providers to enter their 

workload/procedure treatment codes, 

and it updates dental readiness.

Health 9.82

Dental Management DOD-wide - Dental 

Common Access 

System

The Dental Common Access System is 

a Navy Medical data management 

system that is to collect and manage 

dental data via a web-based repository.

Health 4.99

Appendix II: Additional Information on 

Potentially Duplicative Investments
Appendix II: Additional Information on 

Potentially Duplicative Investments

Page 21 GAO-13-718 Information Technology

Agency Similar purpose

Component/bureau –

investment title Description FEA category

Planned and 

reported 

spending 

fiscal years 

2008 – 2013

(in millions)

HHS Enterprise 

Information Security

Centers for Medicare 

and Medicaid Services -

The Center for 

Consumer Information & 

Insurance Oversight 

Enterprise IT Security 

Program

This investment aims to maintain, 

update, and institutionalize a 

comprehensive IT security program.

Information and 

Technology 

Management

14.97

Enterprise 

Information Security

Indian Health Services -

IT Security Program

This investment’s goal is to create 

information security policy and guidance, 

manage centralized resources, and 

provide training for employees and 

contractors.

Information and 

Technology 

Management

37.02

Enterprise 

Information Security

Health Resources and 

Services Administration 

- Office of Information 

Technology Federal 

Information Systems 

Security Program

This program is to provide IT security to 

the component’s IT infrastructure, major 

applications, and all component 

information that is collected, processed, 

transmitted, stored, or disseminated.

Information and 

Technology 

Management

8.91

Enterprise 

Information Security

HHS - Secure One Secure One is an enterprisewide IT 

security program designed to protect the 

information and resources of HHS.

Information and 

Technology 

Management

195.69

Medicare Coverage 

Determination

Centers for Medicare 

and Medicaid Services -

National Coverage 

Determination Database

This database is to collect and 

disseminate all information collected 

during national coverage determinations 

for Medicare services via a web-based 

front-end search.

Health 0.83

Medicare Coverage 

Determination

Centers for Medicare 

and Medicaid Services -

Local Coverage 

Determination Database

This database is used to develop, 

maintain, access, and publish local 

coverage determinations for Medicare 

services.

Health 2.96

Source: GAO analysis.
Appendix III: Comments from the Department 

of Defense

Page 22 GAO-13-718 Information Technology

Appendix III: Comments from the 

Department of Defense 
Appendix III: Comments from the Department 

of Defense

Page 23 GAO-13-718 Information Technology
Appendix IV: Comments from the Department 

of Homeland Security

Page 24 GAO-13-718 Information Technology

Appendix IV: Comments from the 

Department of Homeland Security
Appendix IV: Comments from the Department 

of Homeland Security

Page 25 GAO-13-718 Information Technology
Appendix V: GAO Contact and Staff 

Acknowledgments

Page 26 GAO-13-718 Information Technology

David A. Powner, (202) 512-9286 or pownerd@gao.gov

In addition to the contact named above, individuals making contributions 

to this report included Gary Mountjoy (Assistant Director), Scott Borre, 

Rebecca Eyler, James MacAulay, and Teresa Smith.

Appendix V: GAO Contact and Staff 

Acknowledgments

GAO Contact

Staff 

Acknowledgments

(311282)
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