The federal government plans to invest more than $89 billion on IT in fiscal year 2017. However, as we have previously reported, investments in federal IT too often result in failed projects that incur cost overruns and schedule slippages while contributing little to the mission-related outcome. For example: The Department of Defense’s Expeditionary Combat Support System was canceled in December 2012 after spending more than a billion dollars and failing to deploy within 5 years of initially obligating funds. The Department of Homeland Security’s Secure Border Initiative Network program was ended in January 2011, after the department obligated more than $1 billion to the program, because it did not meet cost-effectiveness and viability standards. The Department of Veterans Affairs’ Financial and Logistics Integrated Technology Enterprise program was intended to be delivered by 2014 at a total estimated cost of $609 million, but was terminated in October 2011 due to challenges in managing the program. The Office of Personnel Management’s Retirement Systems Modernization program was canceled in February 2011, after spending approximately $231 million on the agency’s third attempt to automate the processing of federal employee retirement claims. The tri-agency National Polar-orbiting Operational Environmental Satellite System was stopped in February 2010 by the White House’s Office of Science and Technology Policy after the program spent 16 years and almost $5 billion. The Department of Veterans Affairs’ Scheduling Replacement Project was terminated in September 2009 after spending an estimated $127 million over 9 years. These and other failed IT projects often suffered from a lack of disciplined and effective management, such as project planning, requirements definition, and program oversight and governance. In many instances, agencies had not consistently applied best practices that are critical to successfully acquiring IT investments. Federal IT projects have also failed due to a lack of oversight and governance. Executive-level governance and oversight across the government has often been ineffective, specifically from chief information officers (CIO). For example, we have reported that not all CIOs had the authority to review and approve the entire agency IT portfolio and that CIOs’ authority was limited. Recognizing the severity of issues related to government-wide management of IT, FITARA was enacted in December 2014. The law holds promise for improving agencies’ acquisition of IT and enabling Congress to monitor agencies’ progress and hold them accountable for reducing duplication and achieving cost savings. FITARA includes specific requirements related to seven areas. Federal data center consolidation initiative (FDCCI). Agencies are required to provide OMB with a data center inventory, a strategy for consolidating and optimizing the data centers (to include planned cost savings), and quarterly updates on progress made. The law also requires OMB to develop a goal for how much is to be saved through this initiative, and provide annual reports on cost savings achieved. Enhanced transparency and improved risk management. OMB and agencies are to make detailed information on federal IT investments publicly available, and agency CIOs are to categorize their IT investments by risk. Additionally, in the case of major IT investments rated as high risk for 4 consecutive quarters, the law requires that the agency CIO and the investment’s program manager conduct a review aimed at identifying and addressing the causes of the risk. Agency CIO authority enhancements. Agency CIOs are required to (1) approve the IT budget requests of their respective agencies, (2) certify that IT investments are adequately implementing OMB’s incremental development guidance, (3) review and approve contracts for IT, and (4) approve the appointment of other agency employees with the title of CIO. Portfolio review. Agencies are to annually review IT investment portfolios in order to, among other things, increase efficiency and effectiveness, and identify potential waste and duplication. In developing the associated process, the law requires OMB to develop standardized performance metrics, to include cost savings, and to submit quarterly reports to Congress on cost savings. Expansion of training and use of IT acquisition cadres. Agencies are to update their acquisition human capital plans to address supporting the timely and effective acquisition of IT. In doing so, the law calls for agencies to consider, among other things, establishing IT acquisition cadres or developing agreements with other agencies that have such cadres. Government-wide software purchasing program. The General Services Administration is to develop a strategic sourcing initiative to enhance government-wide acquisition and management of software. In doing so, the law requires that, to the maximum extent practicable, the General Services Administration should allow for the purchase of a software license agreement that is available for use by all Executive Branch agencies as a single user. Maximizing the benefit of the federal strategic sourcing initiative. Federal agencies are required to compare their purchases of services and supplies to what is offered under the Federal Strategic Sourcing initiative. OMB is also required to issue related regulations. In June 2015, OMB released guidance describing how agencies are to implement the law. OMB’s guidance states that it is intended to, among other things: assist agencies in aligning their IT resources to statutory establish government-wide IT management controls that will meet the law’s requirements, while providing agencies with flexibility to adapt to unique agency processes and requirements; clarify the CIO’s role and strengthen the relationship between agency CIOs and bureau CIOs; and strengthen CIO accountability for IT cost, schedule, performance, and security. The guidance includes several actions agencies are to take to establish a basic set of roles and responsibilities (referred to as the “common baseline”) for CIOs and other senior agency officials that are needed to implement the authorities described in the law. For example, agencies were required to conduct a self-assessment and submit a plan describing the changes they will make to ensure that common baseline responsibilities are implemented. Agencies were to submit their plans to OMB’s Office of E-Government and Information Technology by August 15, 2015, and make portions of the plans publicly available on agency websites no later than 30 days after OMB approval. As of May 2016, 22 of the 24 Chief Financial Officers Act agencies had made their plans publicly available. In addition, OMB recently released proposed guidance for public comment on the optimization of federal data centers and implementation of FITARA’s data center consolidation and optimization provisions. Among other things, the proposed guidance instructs agencies to maintain complete inventories of all data center facilities owned, operated, or maintained by or on behalf of the agency; develop cost savings targets due to consolidation and optimization for fiscal years 2016 through 2018 and report any actual realized cost savings; and measure progress toward defined performance metrics (including server utilization) on a quarterly basis as part of their data center inventory submissions. The proposed guidance also directs agencies to develop a data center consolidation and optimization strategic plan that defines the agency’s data center strategy for the subsequent 3 years. This strategy is to include a timeline for agency consolidation and optimization activities with an emphasis on cost savings and optimization performance benchmarks the agency can achieve between fiscal years 2016 and 2018. Finally, the proposed guidance indicates that OMB will maintain a public dashboard that will display consolidation-related costs savings and optimization performance information for the agencies. In February 2015, we introduced a new government-wide high-risk area, Improving the Management of IT Acquisitions and Operations. This area highlights several critical IT initiatives in need of additional congressional oversight, including reviews of troubled projects, an emphasis on incremental development, a key transparency website, reviews of agencies’ operational investments, data center consolidation, and efforts to streamline agencies’ portfolios of IT investments. We noted that implementation of these initiatives has been inconsistent and more work remains to demonstrate progress in achieving IT acquisition outcomes. Further, in our February 2015 high-risk report, we identified actions that OMB and the agencies need to take to make progress in this area. These include implementing FITARA, as well as implementing our previous recommendations, such as developing comprehensive inventories of federal agencies’ software licenses. As noted in that report, we have made multiple recommendations to improve agencies’ management of IT acquisitions and operations, many of which are discussed later in this statement. Between fiscal years 2010 and 2015, we made approximately 800 such recommendations to OMB and federal agencies. As of May 2016, about 33 percent of these recommendations had been implemented. Also in our high risk report, we stated that OMB and agencies will need to demonstrate measurable government-wide progress in the following key areas: implement at least 80 percent of GAO’s recommendations related to the management of IT acquisitions and operations within 4 years, ensure that a minimum of 80 percent of the government’s major acquisitions deliver functionality every 12 months, and achieve no less than 80 percent of the planned PortfolioStat savings and 80 percent of the planned savings for data center consolidation. One of the key initiatives to implement FITARA is data center consolidation. OMB established FDCCI in February 2010 to improve the efficiency, performance, and environmental footprint of federal data center activities. In a series of reports over the past 5 years, we determined that while data center consolidation could potentially save the federal government billions of dollars, weaknesses existed in several areas including agencies’ data center consolidation plans and OMB’s tracking and reporting on cost savings. In total, we have made 111 recommendations to OMB and agencies to improve the execution and oversight of the initiative. Most agencies agreed with our recommendations or had no comment. Most recently, in March 2016, we reported that the 24 departments and agencies participating in FDCCI collectively made progress on their data center closure efforts. Specifically, as of November 2015, agencies had identified a total of 10,584 data centers, of which they reported closing 3,125 through fiscal year 2015. Notably, the Departments of Agriculture, Defense, the Interior, and the Treasury accounted for 84 percent of these total closures. Agencies are also planning to close an additional 2,078 data centers—for a total of 5,203—by the end of fiscal year 2019.