DOD Information Services

This is one in a series of GAO reports on the financial operations of the Defense Department's (DOD) working capital funds. (See GAO/AIMD/NSIAD-97-74, Mar. 1997; GAO/AIMD/NSIAD-98-24, Oct. 1997; and GAO/AIMD/NSIAD-98-118, June 1998.) This report focuses on the Defense Information Services business area, which provides the military and federal agencies with a wide range of information technology products and services, including telecommunications services, mainframe data processing, and database management. The business area operates under the working capital concept, in which customers are to be charged the full costs of services provided. It is managed by the Defense Information Systems Agency. For fiscal year 1998, DOD estimated that the business area will have reported revenue of about $2.7 billion. GAO discusses (1) the Agency's price-setting process, (2) its reimbursement for services provided, and (3) the accuracy of the Agency's financial management information.

GAO noted that: (1) DISA has difficulty: (a) setting prices for information technology services that result in the recovery of the full cost of doing business; (b) getting reimbursed for the services it provides; and (c) producing reliable financial information on the Defense Information Services business area; (2) these weaknesses impair the business area's ability to focus management attention on the full costs of carrying out operations and managing those costs effectively; (3) DISA is embarking upon a major effort to consolidate its Defense megacenters (DMC) and increase their efficiency by allowing them to specialize in mainframe processing and thereby lower their prices; (4) by consolidating the mainframe processing from the current 16 DMC sites to 6 and optimizing mainframe operations, DISA anticipates that planned savings will be passed on to its customers through reduced prices; (5) however, the reported cost of doing business varies considerably from computer center to computer center; (6) an analysis of the cost differences would provide management the opportunity to understand the cases of the differences and thereby help identify inefficiencies and make improvements in the services provided; (7) the DMCs have difficulty estimating future workload; in fiscal year 1997, the Department of Defense's (DOD) records showed that the estimated versus actual workload varied from 15 percent to 174 percent for individual centers; (8) because the DMCs underestimated the amount of work they would perform in fiscal year 1997 for IBM and UNISYS mainframe services, they reported a net profit of $90 million, which is 13 percent of the reported fiscal year 1997 revenue of approximately $682 million; (9) in setting prices for telecommunications services, the Communications Information Services Activity did not incorporate about $137 million of costs related to transitioning independent networks to DISA's new common-user network, prior-year losses, and overhead expenses; (10) because these costs were not included, the prices charged for services were not based on the full costs incurred; (11) since business area costs were offset by appropriations, its prices were further understated; (12) as of January 1998, DISA reports showed that 31 percent of the business area's receivables, or about $173 million, had been outstanding for more than 60 days; and (13) weaknesses within DISA's internal control and accounting systems have hindered the development of accurate financial reports.

Recommendations

Our recommendations from this work are listed below with a Contact for more information. Status will change from "In process" to "Open," "Closed - implemented," or "Closed - not implemented" based on our follow up work.

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