Military Personnel: DFAS Has Not Met All Information Technology Requirements for Its New Pay System: GAO-04-149R.

WAGE payment systems; UNITED States armed forces pay & allowances; UNITED States. Dept. of Defense; PUBLIC finance; PUBLIC administration

In early January 2003, we initiated a review of the Defense Integrated Military Human Resource System (DIMHRS) to get an understanding of the program, its goals, its present status, and the problems it is designed to resolve. During this review, we became aware that in April 2003 the Department of Defense (DOD) authorized the Defense Finance and Accounting Service (DFAS) to initiate a pilot project to demonstrate its ability to develop an interim military pay system, called Forward Compatible Military Pay, before DIMHRS is fully operational. DFAS maintains that an interim system should be developed as soon as possible for two reasons: (1) the planned personnel and pay system that DOD is currently developing as part of the larger DIMHRS will be implemented later than its projected target date of December 2006 and (2) the current military pay system--the Defense Joint Military Pay System--is aging, unresponsive, and fragile and has become a major impediment to efficient and high quality customer service. It is estimated that the Forward Compatible Military Pay system could be operational by March 2006 at a design and development cost ranging from about $17 million to $30 million. Since the planned interim Forward Compatible Military Pay system is considered an information technology acquisition program under DOD Acquisition Regulations, DFAS must comply with specific legal and administrative requirements before moving forward with the development of this project. In this regard, DFAS must comply with requirements contained in the Bob Stump National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2003, Office of the Under Secretary of Defense (Comptroller) Memorandum, and the Clinger-Cohen Act of 1996. In moving forward with the development of the Forward Compatible Military Pay system, DFAS has not complied with specific legal and administrative requirements applicable to DOD's information technology investments. It did complete cost and benefit, return on investment, and break-even point analyses as required by the Comptroller's memorandum. However, DFAS has not submitted the forward pay proposal to the responsible domain to determine its compliance with DOD's Business Enterprise Architecture, which guides DOD's investments in financial systems. Because DFAS has not submitted the proposal to the responsible domain, the DOD Comptroller has not met its responsibility under the authorization act to ensure compliance with the Business Enterprise Architecture. Further, DFAS has not completed the necessary documents to support compliance with the Clinger-Cohen Act. For example, DFAS has not completed the Acquisition Strategy or the Acquisition Program Baseline document, as required by DOD Acquisition Regulations. By failing to complete all required studies and analyses, DOD lacks assurance that it is meeting its goal of making quality information technology investments, as required. We are recommending that DFAS complete all required steps before proceeding with the Forward Compatible Military Pay project. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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