Without more specific and accurate information on  the immediate and long-term goals of the program and the outcomes  expected from its resulting efforts, NARA will be hindered in effectively  monitoring and reporting on the cost, schedule, and performance of the  ERA system, and congressional appropriators will lack information  necessary to evaluate the agency’s requests for funds. Although NARA certified that the EOP portion of the ERA system had  achieved initial operating capability as planned in December 2008, the  system has been of limited use because of delays in ingesting electronic  records into the system. This major  information system is estimated to cost more than $550 million and is intended to  preserve and provide access to massive volumes of all types and formats of electronic  records, including presidential records, independent of their original hardware or software. As mandated by the Omnibus Appropriations Act, NARA is required to submit an  expenditure plan before obligating multiyear funds for the ERA program. Objectives, Scope, and Methodology    determine whether NARA’s fiscal year 2009 expenditure plan satisfies the    provide an update on NARA’s progress in implementing our prior expenditure plan    provide any other observations about the expenditure plan and the ERA  acquisition. To assess compliance with the legislative conditions, we    reviewed NARA’s fiscal year 2009 exhibit 300 submissionto OMB to determine  the extent to which the agency has complied with OMB’s capital planning and  investment control requirements;     obtained and reviewed data on NARA’s enterprise architecture to determine the  status of the agency’s enterprise architecture efforts;     reviewed NARA’s enterprise systems development life cycle methodology that  includes processes for managing system investments, configuration management,  and risks, and reviewed related documentation concerning how these processes  were implemented for the ERA project, such as minutes of oversight boards and  the risk management plan;    reviewed internal assessments of ERA;     obtained and reviewed OMB’s approval of the expenditure plan; and     reviewed and analyzed the fiscal year 2009 expenditure plan submitted by the  agency in March 2009. develop n exhiit 300, o known as the Cpitl Asset Plnd Business CasSummry, to justify ech reqt for jor informtion technology invetment. In addition, we interviewed NARA officials. NARA’s fiscal year 2009 plan satisfies the six legislative conditions contained in the 2009  Omnibus Appropriations Act. NARA implemented one of the recommendations we made last year, and partially  implemented the other:     We recommended that NARA develop a risk mitigation plan to ensure indexing and  searching of records from the Bush Administration in the event that the EOP  system was not complete in time for the January 2009 presidential transition. We recommended that, to improve the utility of information provided to Congress,  NARA include summary measures of project performance against ERA cost and  schedule estimates in its monthly reports. The plan does not specifically identify  whether completed increments included all previously planned functionality or what  functionality will be provided in future increments. For example, the plan does not  specify what outcomes NARA expects to achieve with the remainder of its fiscal  year 2009 funding. NARA’s expenditure plan states that it relies on Earned Value Management (EVM),  an important tool for project management and control that is intended to provide,  among other things, objective reports of program status. However, NARA is fully  addressing only 5 of the 13 practices required to effectively implement EVM, which  limits the reliability of its progress reports. Without consistently following these best practices, NARA will be  hindered in accurately monitoring and reporting on the cost, schedule, and  performance of the ERA system. Less  than 3 percent of the Bush Administration electronic records NARA received have  been successfully ingested into the system. In the interim,  NARA is primarily supporting search, processing, and retrieval of presidential  records using the replicated systems described in the risk mitigation plan we  recommended the agency develop last year, which cost less than $600,000 to put  in place, compared to nearly $40 million it has obligated for EOP. Until NARA  completely and accurately ingests the Bush Administration presidential records into  EOP, it will be unable to use the system for its intended purpose and will incur  additional costs maintaining the systems it is now using to support requests for  these records. NARA lacks a contingency plan for the ERA system in the event of a system failure  or disruption. While NARA identified 11 security weaknesses related to  contingency planning during acceptance testing and listed actions planned to  address them, NARA has completed only one of the 11 planned actions. Further,  NARA does not have a fully functional backup and restore process for the ERA  system, a key component of planning for system availability in the event of a failure  or disruption. Increment 2 includes the EOP system, which was designed to handle records from  the Executive Office of the President. Observation 4: NARA lacks a contingency plan for ensuring continuity of the ERA system.
Why GAO Did This Study

Since 2001, the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) has been developing an Electronic Records Archive (ERA) to preserve and provide access to massive volumes of electronic records independent of their original hardware and software. The ERA system is to include a base system for federal records and a separate system for presidential records, known as the Executive Office of the President (EOP) system. The 2009 Omnibus Appropriations Act requires NARA to submit an expenditure plan for ERA to congressional appropriation committees. GAO's objectives were to (1) determine whether NARA's fiscal year 2009 plan meets the legislative conditions set forth in the 2009 Omnibus Appropriations Act, (2) provide an update on NARA's progress in implementing recommendations made in GAO's review of NARA's 2008 expenditure plan, and (3) provide any other observations about the expenditure plan and the ERA acquisition. To do this, GAO reviewed the expenditure plan, interviewed NARA officials, and reviewed program data and documentation.

What GAO Found

NARA's fiscal year 2009 expenditure plan satisfies the six legislative conditions in the 2009 Omnibus Appropriations Act. NARA implemented one of GAO's prior recommendations and partially implemented the other. Specifically, NARA developed a risk mitigation plan for the EOP system in the event that it was not ready in time for the presidential transition in January 2009. In addition, NARA began including summaries of performance against ERA cost and schedule estimates in its monthly reports to Congress. However, during its review, GAO found methodological weaknesses that could limit NARA's ability to accurately report on program cost, schedule, and performance. GAO made four observations on NARA's expenditure plan and the ERA acquisition: (1) The expenditure plan does not specifically identify whether completed system increments include all planned functionality or what functionality will be included in future increments, including the outcomes NARA expects from the remainder of its fiscal year 2009 funding. Until NARA fully describes the outcomes expected from this funding, Congress will lack important information for evaluating the agency's requests for funds. (2) The expenditure plan states that it relies on Earned Value Management (EVM), a tool for project management intended to provide objective reports of program status. However, NARA is not fully implementing practices necessary to make effective use of EVM, limiting the reliability of its progress reports. Without consistently following these best practices, NARA will be hindered in accurately monitoring and reporting on the cost, schedule, and performance of the ERA system. (3) Although NARA certified initial operating capability for the EOP system in December 2008, less than 3 percent of the electronic records from the Bush Administration had been ingested into the system at the time of GAO's review, and NARA did not expect the remainder to be ingested until October 2009. In the interim, NARA is using systems developed in accordance with its risk mitigation plan to support the search, processing, and retrieval of presidential records. These systems cost less than $600,000, compared with the $40 million NARA has obligated for the EOP system. Until NARA completely ingests the Bush Administration records into EOP, it will be unable to use the system for its intended purpose. (4) NARA lacks a contingency plan for the ERA system in the event of a failure or disruption. While NARA identified 11 security weaknesses related to contingency planning during system testing and planned actions to address them, it has completed only 1 of the 11 planned actions. Further, NARA does not have a fully functional backup and restore process for ERA, a key component for ensuring system availability. Until NARA fully develops and tests a contingency plan, it risks prolonged unavailability of the ERA system in the event of a failure or disruption.