Customs and Border Protection (CBP) lacks key information in following acquisition guidance issued by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) that jeopardizes the execution of a new surveillance technology plan to better secure the nation’s border in Arizona, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) says in a new report.
Moreover, the GAO says that CBP’s $1.5 billion, 10-year life-cycle cost estimate for the Arizona Border Surveillance Technology Plan “may not be realistic and is not sufficient” because it is based on a “Rough Order of Magnitude” analysis, which is a “quick estimate” that relies on few details rather than a Life-Cycle Cost Estimate, says the report, Arizona Border Surveillance Technology: More Information on Plans and Costs is Needed before Proceeding (GAO-12-22).
GAO cites CBP as saying more comprehensive life-cycle estimates combined with thorough documentation will be updated this fall. GAO says that without more reliable cost estimates it will be difficult to have an idea of the contingency funding needed to cover risks in implementing the new border technology plan.
In January DHS decided to move forward with the new Arizona border technology plan after its predecessor, the Secure Border Initiative Network, or SBInet, was canceled. SBInet, which has been deployed along 53 miles of Arizona’s border with Mexico, is essentially radars and day/night cameras mounted on fixed towers and provide integrated sensor data of border areas into common operating pictures in two sectors.
The Arizona Border Surveillance Technology Plan consists of similar fixed towers, albeit fewer of them, as well as Mobile Surveillance Systems (MSS), Remote Video Surveillance Systems (RVSS), which currently exist and are typically located around urban areas, handheld equipment and unattended ground sensors.
Analysis of Alternatives
GAO says that CBP has been uneven in its documentation of justifying going forward with the new plan. On the one hand, the report says that the process behind an Analysis of Alternatives (AoA) prepared by the Homeland Security Institute (HSI) for the plan is well documented but on the other says that an operational assessment conducted by the Border Patrol of alternative border surveillance technologies and an analysis of operational judgments regarding cost and effectiveness has not been well documented, making less transparent.
“Without documentation of the analysis justifying the specific types, quantities, and deployment locations of border surveillance technologies proposed in the plan, an independent party cannot verify the process followed, identify how the AoA was used, determine whether CBP’s use of the AoA considered the limitations identified by HSI, assess the validity of the decisions made, or justify the funding requested,” GAO says.
The AoA looked at four technology alternatives, the fixed towers, now called the Integrated Fixed Tower (IFT), the MSS, handheld devices, and unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). Summarizing the conclusions of the AoA, the GAO says the IFT’s are costly in terms of their information technology infrastructure and “their cost effectiveness depended on the area to be covered.
The MSS are lower in cost than the IFTs but also provide less coverage and the handheld devices are the least expensive alternative but also provide the least amount of area coverage, GAO says. As for the UAVs, GAO says they provide a lot more coverage than the alternatives in rugged terrain but that they “had significant infrastructure costs with the highest cost risk.”
The AoA doesn’t suggest the optimum mix of technologies or quantify how the systems will help achieve situational awareness or impact apprehensions along the border, GAO says.
HSI completed the AoA in July 2010 and it was finalized in March 2011 after an independent review, GAO says.
CBP has $185 million in FY ’11 funds to purchase border surveillance technologies, including RVSS, mobile systems and handheld equipment. The agency is seeking $242 million in FY ’12 to deploy three sets of IFTs.
CBP has been readying a draft Request for Proposal (RFP) for the IFT procurement, and according to the GAO has been drafting the acquisition planning documents required for the DHS Acquisition Review Board (ARB) to determine if the RFP can be released. The ARB is slated to meet this month.
The report also says the CBP “defined the mission benefits expected or quantified metrics to assess the contribution” of the planned path forward in meeting the goals for situational awareness and detection of illegal border activity. This is the same type of problem GAO found with the SBInet program, it says, stating that the Mission Need Statement (MNS) for that system provided general statements to the effect that without the program the risk of terrorist threats would increase. The SBInet MNS at the time “did not include either quantifiable or qualitative benefits” to be gained from the system, GAO says.
GAO says that DHS concurred with its various recommendations, including improving documentation of the analysis behind the new surveillance plan, better define and quantify the mission benefits of the plan, and conduct a review of the implementation and operation of SBInet. CBP also says that it is preparing life-cycle cost estimates with each of the individual technology programs within the Arizona Border Surveillance Technology Plan.