Year 2000 Computing Challenge

The Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) has managed its business continuity planning efforts in accordance with the structure and process recommended by GAO's business continuity and contingency planning guide and it has made progress toward completing Year 2000 business continuity plans. DEA had planned to complete development of its business continuity plans by early September 1999 and to test them by the end of November 1999. DEA's development of its plans is about four months behind GAO's recommended date, and its testing milestone is about two months behind GAO's recommended date. Despite the progress so far, DEA is running late and still has many important tasks to complete. Its plans for completing these tasks leave little time to address any schedule slippage.

GAO noted that: (1) DEA has managed its business continuity planning efforts in accordance with the structures and processes recommended by GAO's business continuity and contingency planning guide and it has made progress toward completing year 2000 business continuity plans; (2) DEA plans to complete development of its business continuity plans by early September 1999 and to test them by the end of November 1999; (3) DEA's development of its plans is about 4 months later than GAO's April 30, 1999, recommended date and its testing milestone is 2 months behind GAO's recommended date of September 30, 1999; (4) while progress has been made, DEA is, nevertheless, running late, and still has many important tasks to complete and its plans for completing these tasks leave little time to address any schedule slippage; and (5) therefore, it is important that DEA's leadership continues to monitor its business continuity planning efforts to ensure that any deviations from plans are identified and that corrective actions are taken immediately to ensure that this very important year 2000 risk mitigation process is completed on time.