The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is doing a better job justifying some of its expenditures under the Secure Border Initiative (SBI) but its spending plan is still lacking in terms of how it links to an overall secure border strategy and it doesn’t allow progress against program goals to be easily measured, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) says in a letter to the House and Senate Appropriations Homeland Security Subcommittees released on Friday.

GAO says that of 15 legislative conditions required of the SBI expenditure plan in the FY ’08 Consolidated Appropriations Act, DHS met seven, partially met seven, and didn’t satisfy on one.

“We are recommending that the U.S. Customs and Border Protection’s Secure Border Initiative Executive Director ensure that future expenditure plans include an explicit description of how activities will further the objectives of SBI, as defined in the DHS Secure Border Strategy, and how the plan allocates funding to the highest priority border security needs,” Richard Stana, director of Homeland Security and Justice Issues at GAO, says in his letter to the two panels (GAO-08-739R Secure Border Initiative). Given that some of the legislative conditions have not been fully satisfied, that creates gaps that could limit DHS’ ability to manage the program, he says.

Congress fenced $650 million of the $1.2 billion that was appropriated for SBI in FY ’08 pending completion of an expenditure plan that met all 15 of the legislative conditions set forth in the FY ’08 Consolidated Appropriations Act.

Boeing [BA] is under contract with DHS to implement portions of SBI.