Land Management Systems

The Bureau of Land Management's (BLM) automated land and mineral record system/modernization project is intended to improve BLM's ability to record, maintain, and retrieve land description, ownership, and use information. It is the largest system development project ever undertaken by BLM or the Department of the Interior. BLM and the prime contractor are now approaching the final stages of software development and the beginning stages of operational testing. This report discusses (1) whether risks remain that could seriously affect the project's performance, capability, or cost; (2) whether BLM is ready to deploy the project in fiscal year 1997; (3) the latest costs estimates for the project and reasons for any cost increases; (4) what Interior is doing to promote the use of the project by its other bureaus; and (5) whether other Interior bureaus are planning to use the project for their land management needs.

GAO noted that: (1) BLM has recently encountered problems with the ALMRS/Modernization development that increase the risk of degraded performance and capability, and these problems have already resulted in higher costs; (2) during expanded testing of the ALMRS/Modernization, BLM discovered that the system performed some functions more slowly than expected and did not process all transactions correctly during tests using an operationally-sized database; (3) BLM also recently suspended the development of an important reporting capability and substituted some standard reports which cost less and take less time to finish; (4) BLM and the prime contractor have progressed in correcting these problems; (5) although BLM is preparing to begin deploying ALMRS in FY 1997 after development and testing are complete, it will not be ready to deploy ALMRS until it has completed essential management plans, policies, or procedures to help ensure a successful transition and operating environment; (6) still lacking are a configuration management plan and a system security plan and security architecture; (7) also, transition and operations and maintenance plans are incomplete; (8) these tools are essential to help ensure system availability and performance and to avoid security and operational problems; (9) the modernization is now expected to cost about $537 million through FY 2002 or about 33 percent above the $403 million estimate provided to the Office of Management and Budget in 1993; (10) according to BLM's Assistant Director for Information Resources Management, some project costs were underestimated and some were not included in the original estimate; (11) project delays have also added to the increase; (12) the Assistant Director also stated that the estimate could change as BLM refines its life-cycle cost model; (13) Interior established a working group of representatives from each of its bureaus to study the feasibility of using ALMRS to support each bureau's requirements; (14) the preliminary study indicates that, with modification, ALMRS can be used to support the needs of all bureaus; (15) the Department has stated that it intends to use ALMRS to support the land title and record management responsibilities of all bureaus but is waiting for the successful completion of ALMRS and the results of the final study before issuing procedures on the use of ALMRS; and (16) in the interim, the Bureau of Indian Affairs has already declared that it will use as much of ALMRS as it can to meet its needs.

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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