Page 11 - FCW, July 15, 2016

7,200 tax returns filed by identity thieves in 2015 netted roughly $30 million in fraudulent IRS refunds
House bill funds OPM’s IT modernization
A House appropriations bill would offer $37 million to fund a troubled Office of Personnel Management IT modernization project that has been in the crosshairs of the agency’s inspec- tor general.
A corresponding appropriations bill in the Senate would provide $21 mil- lion in fiscal 2017 for IT “infrastruc- ture modernization” at OPM, a likely reference to the IT project known as the Shell.
Lawmakers recognize the impor- tance of the overhaul but also past pitfalls. The funding proposals, there- fore, came with warnings.
“Significant concerns remain relat- ing to OPM’s capital planning practices, the agency’s procurement and man- agement of contracts, and continued uncertainty surrounding the total cost of the modernization project,” states
the bill report accompanying the Sen- ate’s Financial Services and General Government Appropriations Act for fiscal 2017.
The Shell project involves building infrastructure to house applications migrated from OPM’s mainframe com- puters. The overhaul took on added urgency after a breach of the agency’s systems last year that compromised at least 22 million federal records.
The IG has long criticized OPM offi- cials for failing to map the scope of the project, and a clear, public estimate of its costs has been elusive. OPM has put the cost of some of the work at $93 million, but former OPM IG Patrick McFarland said the estimate does not include the priciest phase of the proj- ect: the migration of systems to the Shell environment.
The Shell’s problems got worse in
May when prime contractor Imperatis abruptly quit the project, citing finan- cial distress. OPM spokesman Sam Schumach said the company’s depar- ture would have little impact on the project.
The House bill would make $37 mil- lion available for the Shell through fis- cal 2018 but not until the OPM director submits a plan for how the money will be spent.
In the past, OPM officials have counted on significant injections of funding from Congress for the Shell project. The $37 million is what OPM requested for fiscal 2017. Another request for that amount was denied in last year’s Cybersecurity Informa- tion Sharing Act, which sent agency officials back to the drawing board for funding solutions.
— Sean Lyngaas
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