DHS’s seven operational components, listed along the bottom of figure 1, lead the department’s frontline activities. As described in DHS’s Quadrennial Homeland Security Review Report, the department has five core missions: (1) preventing terrorism and enhancing security, (2) securing and managing our borders, (3) enforcing and administering our immigration laws, (4) safeguarding and securing cyberspace, and (5) ensuring resilience to disasters.focuses on two areas: (1) providing essential support to national and economic security, such as maximizing the collection of customs revenue, and (2) maturing and strengthening DHS, such as enhancing shared awareness of risks and threats. DHS’s eight support components provide resources, analysis, equipment, research, policy development, and In addition to the five missions, DHS support to help ensure the operational components have the tools and resources to accomplish DHS’s missions. Figure 1 shows DHS’s organizational structure. Appropriation account and PPA: Congress appropriates funds to DHS in appropriations accounts that authorize it to incur obligations and make payments (expenditures) from the Treasury for specified purposes.These appropriations accounts are further broken down by program, project, or activity (PPA). PPAs are identified in conference reports and in the President’s budget submission. In addition, each DHS component explains its funding request by PPA in DHS’s congressional budget justification. PPAs are intended to provide a meaningful representation of the operations financed by the account. PPAs are not standard among DHS components. For example, the Transportation Security Administration’s PPAs generally align with its programs (e.g., Screening Partnership Program and Secure Flight), whereas the Coast Guard’s PPAs align with expense type. For example, the Coast Guard’s Operating Expenses account consists of the following six PPAs: military pay and allowances, civilian pay and benefits, training and recruiting, operating funds and unit-level maintenance, centrally managed accounts, and depot-level maintenance. In addition, the number of appropriations accounts and PPAs each component has varies. For example, the President’s fiscal year 2013 budget submission requested funding for the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center in a total of two appropriations accounts and three PPAs. In contrast, the budget submission requested funding for FEMA in a total of nine appropriations accounts and 19 PPAs. We previously found that there are limitations to using account structures to identify and analyze M&A spending.appropriation account structure was not constructed to delineate program and administrative expenses. In particular, (1) the budget does not identify an administrative account for all agencies, (2) similar expenses are categorized differently across agencies and within the same agencies from year to year, and (3) administrative accounts do not include all administrative expenses of an agency. See appendix I for more details on the limitations of using appropriations accounts and PPAs to identify M&A spending. Specifically, we found that the Object classification: Object classes are numbered categories used in budget preparation to classify obligations by the types of goods or services purchased by the federal government. Obligations are commitments that create a legal liability of the federal government for the payment of goods and services. For example, an agency incurs an obligation when it places an order, signs a contract, purchases a service, or awards a grant. Obligations may also include interagency transactions where funds are transferred from one appropriation account to another. Object class information is mandated by law, which requires the President’s budget to present obligations by object class for each account. In DHS’s annual congressional budget justification, components break down their funding requests for each PPA by object class. The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) established five major object classes; by number, they are as follows: 10, personnel compensation and benefits; 20, contractual services and supplies; 30, acquisition of assets; 40, grants and fixed charges; and 90, other. See appendix I (table 5) for a description of the major object classes. These major classes are divided into smaller classes. For example, object class 20 includes 21, travel and transportation of persons; 24, printing and reproduction; and 26, supplies and materials. See figure 2 for examples of the contractual services and supplies object classification for DHS. We previously found that object class data have limitations when used to identify and analyze obligations of an M&A nature.not an object class exclusively for M&A activities, so obligations for M&A For example, there is activities cannot be separated from obligations for mission activities. See appendix I for more details on the limitations of using object class data to identify M&A spending. Components use financial systems to track obligations and expenditures by account and PPA, as well as object classification. The term “financial system” includes an information system, composed of one or more applications, that is used for collecting, processing, maintaining, transmitting, or reporting data about financial events; supporting financial planning or budgeting activities; accumulating and reporting costs information; or supporting the preparation of financial statements. Of the 15 DHS components, 6 own and operate financial systems. The remaining components, with the exception of the Office of Inspector General, which relies on the Department of the Treasury, are customers of those 6 components that own and operate their own financial systems For example, the Coast and serve as internal shared service providers.Guard owns and operates a financial system, and TSA and the Domestic Nuclear Detection Office are customers of the Coast Guard. Each of the 6 components that own financial systems use different software or versions of software. Table 1 depicts which DHS components own financial systems and which are customers that use those systems. In addition to the financial systems components utilize to track budget execution, DHS utilizes the FYHSP System PDM to develop the FYHSP report to Congress and assist the department with budget formulation. In response to DHS’s Bottom-Up Review, which called for the capability to better align DHS’s budget with its missions, PA&E developed the FYHSP System PDM.submit their resource allocation plans to request funding for future years. Financial systems use the appropriation structure specified by Congress for budget execution, while the PDM captures DHS’s programmatic The PDM is a data collection tool for components to structure used for resource formulation, managerial decision making, performance management, and articulating outcome-oriented mission programs to the public. The eight DHS components we reviewed define M&A spending differently. According to component officials, the components can identify M&A spending, but they do not do so because they are not required to by the department. In addition, the methods for identifying M&A spending vary among components. Components also have varied ability to report consistent, reliable M&A data, limiting the data available from fiscal years 1999 through 2013. Because components define M&A differently, have different methods for identifying spending, and limitations exist in obtaining data, it is not possible to compare components’ M&A spending data from fiscal years 1999 through 2013. Officials from all eight DHS components we reviewed provided us different definitions of M&A activities and told us that they can identify spending on M&A activities. (See table 2.) Four of the eight components in our review—FEMA, FLETC, ICE, and TSA—define their M&A activities according to the activities funded through their appropriations accounts and PPAs that are M&A in nature (i.e., activities of a support nature such as planning and budgeting, legal support, and IT infrastructure), while the other four—Coast Guard, DMO, CBP, and USSS—each define M&A activities differently and their definitions are not tied to activities in specific appropriation accounts or PPAs. For example, TSA officials stated that TSA’s M&A activities are those found within its Transportation Security Support appropriations account, specifically the following three PPAs: Headquarters Administration, Human Capital Services, and Information Technology. These three PPAs fund TSA’s headquarters and support functions. Alternatively, the Coast Guard does not have an M&A PPA. According to Coast Guard officials, the Coast Guard’s M&A activities are those associated with headquarters and its service centers, such as personnel support and finance, which support the entire Coast Guard and cannot be attributed to a single unit or mission. Unlike officials in other components, DMO officials said that they consider all of DMO’s activities to be M&A in nature, and therefore all of its spending to be M&A. DHS components are not required by the department to identify M&A spending as they obligate or expend funds, and as a result, none of the eight components we reviewed currently do so. However, all the components said they can identify M&A spending. Seven of the components would use their financial systems to identify M&A spending, while one component would use its cost model. However, methods for identifying spending vary among components. For example, FEMA officials said they can obtain M&A data from object classes within FEMA’s financial system, while Coast Guard officials said that they can use expenditures by cost centers and ICE officials said that they can calculate obligations and expenditures by PPA. Alternatively, officials from one component, CBP, said that CBP can use its cost model, which aligns costs with activities—but is separate from its financial system—to identify M&A spending. Table 2 summarizes how DHS components we reviewed define and would identify M&A activities and spending. DHS components have varied ability to report consistent, reliable M&A data, limiting the data available from fiscal years 1999 through 2013.