A Senate committee unanimously approved two bills Wednesday intended to cut down on wasteful spending in the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) $7 billion major acquisition account by establishing a review board to overlook the process and creating a system to alert department officials and Congress of potential fraud and over-budget projects.
The Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee passed 13 bills by a voice vote, including the Department of Homeland Security Acquisition Review Board Act and the Reducing DHS Acquisition Cost Growth Act, both intended to amend the Homeland Security Act of 2002. The bipartisan bills were previously approved by the House, and will now move to the full Senate for a vote.
“I’m committed to joining my colleagues across the aisle to protect Missourians’ hard-earned taxpayer dollars from waste, fraud, and abuse, it’s one of the most important parts of my job,” Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.), ranking member on the panel, said in a statement. “The Department of Homeland Security has too often turned a blind eye to cost overruns on government contracts, and we can’t allow that to continue.”
If approved by the Senate, the DHS Acquisition Review Board (ARB) will have increased accountability within the department to conduct oversight of all acquisitions over $300 million. The under secretary of Management serves as the chairperson of the board, while the other board members consist of relevant department officials such as component heads.
The ARB is responsible for ensuring acquisition projects are meeting key requirements for the life cycle framework, determining whether potential contracts are executable and have the proper business strategy implemented, as well as supporting the authority of acquisition project managers. The board will also conduct systematic reviews of acquisitions and make sure that best practices are met for all deals.
The second bill aimed at the DHS spending, the Reducing DHS Acquisition Cost Growth Act, is meant to cut down incidences of fraud and waste by directing the department to inform its Inspector General (IG) and Congress when there are discrepancies in major acquisition deals or if a project is running over-budget.
According to the bill, program managers for major acquisition deals must notify the component acquisition executive about the program, the head of the component concerned, the executive director of the Program Accountability and Risk Management division, the under secretary for Management, and the deputy secretary of potential breaches no later than 30 days after its first noticed.
Subsequently if the breach would result in a cost increase of 15 percent or more for a program or there is a schedule delay of more than 180 days, the component acquisition executive must notify the DHS secretary and Inspector General no later than 5 business days after the discrepancy was initially reported.
An amendment added to the bill by committee member Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) calls on the DHS IG office to submit a report to the committee and the House Committee on Homeland Security, no later than a year after the bill is enacted, on the prevalence and impact of bid protests on the department’s acquisition process.