“The simultaneous launches of New Pricing, STAR, Occupancy Agreements, and a host of other re-engineered business line processes and software constitutes the most significant change to the way PBS does its business since the creation of the Federal Buildings Fund.” The mission of PBS is to effectively manage over 8,000 owned and leased federal real properties in the United States. PBS had previously used a computer program called PLUS+ to track and manage its real properties. In 1994, PBS’ Central Office decided that the systems it used to support its mission were antiquated and needed to be replaced. New software was needed to support real property inventory, leasing, space assignments, and billing-related activities. PBS did market research analyses from March 1994 through October 1995, evaluating various real estate software packages. In March 1994, PBS began its initial efforts to obtain new software. It published a notice in the Commerce Business Daily seeking sources to supply software products to support management operations for leased and owned public buildings. Two responses to this notice were received. However, PBS determined that neither of these sources met its functional needs. PBS also hired a contractor to identify any existing property management software that might meet its needs. The contractor developed a list of 400 software products that it said spanned all facets of PBS’ business functions. Using PBS’ needs as criteria, this list was reduced to 36 products, then to 6 products for further study. However, PBS concluded that none of these products was capable of satisfying all of its minimum requirements, such as the ability and capacity to concurrently manage over 8,000 owned and leased properties. During discussions with real estate companies and Fortune 500 companies about real estate practices and procedures, PBS discovered a proprietary system called Permanent Record of Managed Property Transactions (PROMPT). This system had been implemented by AT&T during the summer of 1994. According to PBS officials, PBS ran a 4-month pilot test in 1995 on PROMPT. During this test, 30 percent of PBS’ data were diagrammed and selected data elements on leases and space assignments, as well as other areas, were entered into the system. The test was completed in October 1995. PBS concluded that although PROMPT could meet its needs, the data were not in the format that it wanted. In July 1996, an acquisition plan for STAR was approved by GSA’s Associate Administrator for Acquisition Policy. This plan called for a sole source contract with AT&T for the use of PROMPT, which PBS renamed STAR. On January 17, 1997, the contract, which included a license agreement granting use of PROMPT in perpetuity unless canceled by the licensee, was signed with AT&T. The contract was for labor hours on a best-effort performance basis to convert PROMPT version 2.7 into STAR, which met PBS’ requirements. The base contract was for $8.3 million. Of this amount, $4.3 million was for the perpetual right to use the national license; the remaining $4.0 million was for software maintenance, a STAR reference guide, training courses and manuals, technical support services, hotline support, and travel. The contract also included several options. If all of these options were exercised, the total cost of the contract would have been $17.0 million. On October 19, 1998, the quantities in one of the options—option four—were increased adding 1,000 users, 310 training classes, 2,900 sets of training manuals, and 23,200 staff hours of technical support. This raised the value of the contract to $21.8 million, which was an increase of $4.8 million. PBS began rolling out STAR in October 1997, and it was available in all regions by January 1998. The first rent bills generated by STAR were sent to agencies in July 1998. PBS officials said that the introduction of STAR, among other things, has led to a cultural change that has had many effects in PBS. The officials noted that three changes particularly, affected the realty specialists who maintain STAR. First, realty specialists are now required to enter the data directly into the STAR system; second, they are to be held directly responsible for data accuracy; and third, they are responsible for billing the client agencies. In the past, the realty specialists filled out data entry sheets and data entry clerks entered the data. It was not clear at that time who was responsible for the data accuracy. Further, in the past, realty specialists were not involved in the actual billing of the clients. To determine what functions STAR performs, we observed how STAR operates; interviewed officials responsible for the development of STAR; and reviewed contract documents, training manuals, and the draft desk reference manual for STAR. To identify problems that users were experiencing using STAR, we judgmentally selected four regions, two of which were identified by PBS officials as having problems implementing STAR, one that was the lead region for STAR, and one from which congressional staff had received complaints. We also included the headquarters unit to get its perspective on STAR. PBS officials identified the users of STAR at these locations, of which realty specialists and realty assistants were identified as the major users. We then interviewed 128 users, 81 of which were realty specialists or realty assistants, in the 5 locations and asked them about the problems they have had using STAR. Our results cannot be projected to the total universe of STAR users. Further, we reviewed Help Desk reports that organized user complaints about STAR into subject categories. Because of the way that the issues were categorized in the report and the actual number of items reported to the Help Desk—almost 8,000—we were not able to directly compare our interview-identified problems with those reported to the Help Desk. However, we discussed the problems that users had identified in our interviews, and problems that had been reported to the Help Desk, with the STAR project manager. Further, we reviewed some Help Desk reports that showed specific problems identified. To identify the steps that PBS has taken or is taking to deal with user problems, we interviewed officials who were responsible for addressing STAR problems and reviewed documents on changes being made to correct problems and improve STAR. Finally, to determine what PBS has done or plans to do to ensure STAR data integrity, we interviewed officials and reviewed plans addressing PBS’ efforts to ensure that STAR data are accurate, reliable, and consistent. We did not independently assess the accuracy, reliability, and consistency of STAR data. We did our work at GSA/PBS Headquarters and the National Capital Region in Washington, D.C.; the Southeast Sunbelt Region in Atlanta, GA; the New England Region in Boston, MA; and the Mid-Atlantic Region in Philadelphia, PA. Our work was done in accordance with generally accepted government auditing standards. We requested comments on a draft of this report from the Administrator of GSA. GSA’s written comments are discussed at the end of this letter. STAR is a real estate inventory management software application that maintains data on projects, leases, buildings, and space assignments that is, who is in what space—in an integrated database environment. The data in STAR have been used to generate bills to clients for their assigned space, develop budget plans, track and manage leases, and evaluate performance. STAR’s input/output functions include direct on-screen access to the data, the ability to update the data, access to standard reports, and the ability to sort data and create ad hoc reports. To develop the fiscal year 2001 budget, STAR data are being used to support the development of the over $5.5 billion rental revenue estimate and as the basis for the Galaxy system’s roughly $3.1 billion estimate of PBS lease expenditures. STAR has seven major modules: (1) Space Management, (2) Client Billing, (3) Project Administration, (4) Billing, (5) Work Queue, (6) Administration, and (7) Reports. Table 1 describes each of these modules. Each of these modules has data entry screens. For example, the Space Management module has a Building Details screen for entering specific building information and a Lease Details screen for entering specific lease information. STAR is supported by a contractor-operated Help Desk to aid users if they have problems with the STAR modules and screens. PBS identified the following benefits of STAR. Movement of data and information systems closer to the end user. Direct access to project, lease, building, and space assignment data. Electronic notification of expiring leases, unassigned space, and other information. Integration of information technology into business practices. Direct input eliminates the need for data transcribers and precludes duplicative keypunching. Easy report generation and exporting of data to another program. No need to memorize data element numbers, it uses English. Tutorials on policies and procedures can be placed into help screens of the system. Will allow for direct update of agency information. Improves corporate competitiveness. In the future, PBS hopes to expand STAR’s capabilities by adding more features, such as direct access by an agency to view the information that STAR maintains concerning the agency’s assigned space. The 128 users we interviewed identified problems they had experienced using STAR as well as several benefits they saw being derived from the use of STAR. Of the problems identified by users, 17 were mentioned by at least 10 of the users. One problem was mentioned by only one user but was included in this report because it involves accounting for rent revenues. According to the STAR project manager, each type of problem that was reported to us had been reported to the STAR project team through the STAR Help Desk and logged into 16 categories.