INTRODUCTION
The objectives of our audit were to determine if the the Immigration and Naturalization Service's Workforce Analysis Model (WAM), a computerized modeling program for use in determining staffing levels at ports of entry (POEs), was designed to accurately identify workforce needs, produces accurate and useful analyses of workforce needs, and needs to be modified to meet the requirements of the INS.
Scope and Methodology
We performed our audit in accordance with the Government Auditing Standards, and accordingly, included such tests of the records and procedures as we considered necessary. An assessment of compliance with laws and regulations was not applicable to this audit.
We primarily studied the WAM components in Version 2.2, and tested the critical data bases provided by the WAM contractor. Further, we performed a follow-on review of an unreleased version, Version 3.2, of WAM and made some comparisons of the changes and improvements made from the earlier version. We also reviewed WAM's integration with the Port of Entry Office Management System (POMS) but did not audit the other components of POMS.
Our audit was conducted by reviewing selected documents; interviewing selected program officials at INS Headquarters, the WAM contractor's office, the Southern Region, and the El Paso District Office; interviewing the port directors responsible for our sample of 41 air, sea, and land POEs; and performing tests of each of the WAM components. There have been no prior internal or external reviews of WAM. (See Appendix I, page 19, for additional detail concerning the audit's scope and methodology, as well as a list of our sampled ports.)
In 1991, INS Headquarters Inspections, under the Executive Associate Commissioner for Programs, awarded a contract to develop an objective means of assigning additional staff at ports of entry. Prior to WAM, Headquarters Inspections used spreadsheet technology that was based on summarization and analysis of existing annual workload data.
Headquarters Inspections decided computer modeling would more accurately portray the needs of POEs rather than the previous spreadsheet procedures. When contracting for development of the model, the specifications stated that WAM would be used by INS Headquarters to: (1) relate resource requirements at each location to the workload needs, (2) forecast future staffing needs, (3) produce information for the annual budget formulation process, and (4) respond to inquiries from the Congress and the Administration.
WAM is a computer program designed to determine the number of additional inspectors needed at a port of entry by modeling INS's primary and secondary inspections at air and land POEs. After basic port configurations and staffing schedules of Immigration Inspectors are entered in WAM, the output simulations depict operational consequences of various staffing and workload levels. Also, staffing levels of Immigration Inspectors are projected in total and on an hourly basis for individual ports. WAM, Version 3.1, was used in the spring of 1996 to analyze INS's workload and staffing data at ports of entry.
See Appendix II, page 22, for additional background on WAM, INS's overall staffing and quality control process, growth of workload, and pertinent laws and user fees.
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