Norbert Vint, acting Office of Personnel Management inspector general, has issued a report that says OPM has not followed “proper” capital planning procedures for a project to modernize the agency’s information technology systems.
Vint informed acting OPM Director Beth Cobert in a memo dated May 18 that his office also found the agency did not examine if migrating its technical systems to an infrastructure-as-a-service platform was the best strategy to meet the agency’s Infrastructure Improvement Project goals.
He added the business case that OPM attached to its fiscal year 2017 budget request contains unsubstantiated project cost estimates due to the agency’s failure to complete inventory and technical assessments.
“As a result of OPM’s failure to perform proper capital planning activities.. we continue to believe that there is a very high risk that the project will fail to meet its stated objectives of delivering a more secure environment at a lower cost,” Vint wrote in the memo.
He urged the agency to develop “realistic” lifecycle cost estimates for the IT modernization effort as well as complete an “analysis of alternatives” required by the Office of Management and Budget.