DOD IG: Financial architecture lacking

"Systems Inventory to support the Business Enterprise Architecture"

The Defense Department's massive financial management enterprise architecture does not have the function to track information technology systems across the agency, which will hinder its efforts to have financial data that will improve DOD's managerial decisions.

The financial management enterprise architecture, now called the business management enterprise architecture, is an ambitious undertaking designed to consolidate and standardize all of DOD's financial reporting systems. It was completed in April, one year after the contract was awarded.

The project is designed to help the department obtain a clean financial audit, which is something it has been unable to do thus far.

The Inspector General's report, issued July 10, comes on the heels of a draft audit from the General Accounting Office that praised the initiative. But while GAO auditors commended the architecture as a positive first step, the IG report faulted DOD for failing to have a single-source repository to collect its business information.

The department's chief information officer and chief financial officer "have not established a single DOD-wide definition of a business management information technology system or established procedures for domain owners to develop and maintain a complete listing of systems within their domain," the IG's report said.

DOD CIO's office, which maintains the IT registry, is not synchronized with the business enterprise architecture initiative and does not support business monitoring and reporting requirements spelled out by the Office of Management and Budget, the IG report said.

The department's CFO Dov Zakheim has not used the IT registry to develop a list of systems across DOD, the IG said. Instead, the report said Zakheim has issued separate data calls.

Zakheim and Stenbit should establish a single repository for business information, including all data elements necessary for architecture development, the IG recommended.

Zakheim agreed to all of the issues raised by the IG report and said he would establish an integrated repository that would serve as a clearing house for information gathered from disparate locations and branches.

"The department is committed to establishing an integrated repository to capture the business system and the associated budgetary information, in addition to establishing governance procedures for the department's domain owners to synchronize and verify data to enhance managerial decisions," Zakheim wrote in response.

The IG replied that "integrating information from multiple sources in an organization as complex and diverse as DOD lends itself to continue inconsistencies and inaccuracies."

The IG is awaiting further response from Zakheim on the matter.