GAO finds progress with FBI case management system

The FBI has made significant strides in turning around its troubled automated case management system, but additional steps are needed to keep better track of equipment, according to a watchdog agency report released on Tuesday.

The Government Accountability Office found that the FBI has improved considerably internal controls over the much-delayed system known as Sentinel. GAO did not find any questionable contractor payments or missing assets.

The report, however, identified material weaknesses in a number of areas, including an asset-tracking database developed and administered by the program's contractor, Lockheed Martin Corp.

"Our initial testing of this contractor database found that it was corrupted and did not agree with either [the Sentinel Program Management Office] or the supporting vendor invoices," GAO wrote in the report prepared for Senate Judiciary Committee ranking member Arlen Specter, R-Pa.

Project regulations required the FBI to establish its own database to track equipment purchases, but the agency decided to rely on the contractor's system, GAO said.

Sentinel's troubled history dates back to May 2001 when the FBI initiated the largest ever upgrade and modernization of its IT infrastructure and systems. The project, then known as Trilogy, was in part aimed at creating a state-of-the-art case management system. But the envisioned system -- later known as Virtual Case File -- was hampered by repeated delays and cost overruns, and in March 2005, the FBI called off the project. Four months later the bureau launched Sentinel.

The FBI awarded a cost-plus award fee contract to Lockheed Martin in March 2006 to manage and develop the redesigned and expanded automated case management system. Five other contractors were hired to provide administrative and engineering services for Sentinel -- two through cost-plus contracts and three using time and materials contracts. In both types of contracts, the government assumes most of the risk, increasing the need for robust government oversight, GAO noted.

GAO reviewed 157 invoices totaling about $83 million for the first phase of Sentinel. It found that steps taken by the FBI to strengthen internal controls, including establishing a Sentinel Program Management Office and hiring a full-time property manager, had reduced the risk of improper contractor payments. New internal policies, the report said, also were helping ensure that equipment purchases were properly authorized and inspected.

But, the report suggested that property controls still could be improved. GAO recommended that the program management office perform monthly reconciliations of key property records, establish a system to document the initial inspection of Sentinel assets, and verify that information in the Lockheed database is complete and accurate.

"If effective corrective actions are taken and properly implemented for these remaining areas of risk, we believe that the design and implementation of internal controls for the Sentinel project could serve as a model for FBI's invoice and property control in other projects involving contractors," GAO concluded.

The FBI, which concurred with the GAO's recommendations, estimated that Sentinel will be completed by May 2010 and will cost $425 million.