In its response to the draft audit report, the Justice Management Division provided general comments regarding the Department’s oversight of the LCMS contact, as well as specific comments on our recommendation. In its general comments, the Justice Management Division stated that the CIO believed that:

• his staff followed acceptable practices in selecting, applying, and providing oversight of the LCMS contract,
  
  
• Project Management Office (PMO) staff had appropriate expertise and PMO staffing was increased as risks materialized, and
  
  
• the government performed many oversight activities of the LCMS contractor.

These and other comments in the Justice Management Division’s response suggest that the government’s oversight of the LCMS contractor was adequate. We disagree. As the audit found, the contractor is more than 2 years behind schedule in implementing the LCMS in the EOUSA and USAOs, and the estimated cost to complete the work in the EOUSA and USAOs has increased by $26 million, or almost 75 percent. The substantial schedule and cost overruns clearly indicate that the government’s oversight was not adequate and did not sufficiently deter the cost and time overruns. Further, contrary to the Department’s response, we found that project staffing was not increased as risks materialized. Our audit also found that when the project began to experience significant delays and cost overruns in 2006 and 2007, the Department did not commit additional full-time employees until February 2008.

Our analysis of the Justice Management Division’s specific responses to the audit recommendation is addressed below.

Recommendation

1. Resolved. We recommended that the CIO reevaluate the viability of continuing towards implementation of the LCMS in the other seven litigating divisions, and that at a minimum, the reevaluation should consider whether:
   
   
• adequate funding will be made available to continue system development,
  
  
• the LCMS should be implemented in the National Security Division,
  
  
• the other six litigating divisions remain committed to implementation of the LCMS within their divisions,
  
  
• the system requirements for the remaining litigating divisions are appropriately identified and understood before further development,
  
  
• the defects identified from additional system integration and user testing are minimized, and
  
  
• controls are established to ensure that adequate government and contractor oversight will be performed on future development activities to minimize future schedule and cost overruns.

The Justice Management Division agreed with the recommendation and stated that its reevaluation will address each of the six items above. We can close this recommendation when we review documentation showing the results of the Department’s reevaluation of the viability of continuing the LCMS in the other seven litigating divisions.