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REPUBLICAN
PRESS RELEASE
July 25, 2007
Improvements to VA’s IT inventory management still necessary
For more information, contact: Jeff Phillips (202) 225-3527
Washington, D.C. — At a Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations
hearing today, the subcommittee learned how the Department of Veterans
Affairs (VA) is working to improve security, controls, maintenance and
management of their information technology equipment.
During July, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) released a
report focusing on four specific sites. During this study, fewer than
half of the items GAO selected for inventory could be located. Most of
the items were information technology (IT) equipment. GAO surveyed four
VA locations and reported more than 2,400 missing IT equipment items,
valued at about $6.4 million, identified in inventories performed during
fiscal years 2005 and 2006.
This is not the first time that GAO has reported on deficiencies in IT
equipment controls. In July 2004, GAO issued a report entitled “VA
Medical Centers: Internal Control over Selected Operating Functions
Needs Improvement.” In this report, GAO indicated that the six VA
medical centers they audited lacked a reliable property control
database. As a result, there was a deficiency in complete and accurate
records of current inventory as well as compromised management and
security of agency assets. One of the medical centers reviewed had been
reviewed in the most recent report, and yet issues remain.
“The July 2007 GAO report increased my growing concerns over VA’s
control over its inventories, which already existed from reading the
weekly Security Operations Center reports,” said Subcommittee Ranking
Member Ginny Brown-Waite (R-Fla.).
In fact, missing items have not always been reported right away, and in
some cases, not for several years. At one location, 28 percent of the
items surveyed during the GAO audit were missing.
According to the GAO report, there is also a lack of user-level
accountability for IT equipment, due to weak overall control of the
equipment environment. The IT personnel and IT coordinators do not have
possession (physical custody) of all IT equipment under their purview;
therefore, they are not held accountable for IT equipment determined to
be missing during physical inventories. The subcommittee determined that
there must be improved accountability for inventories from the senior
facility directors down to the product user.
“I find this lack of control over equipment completely unacceptable.
Here in the House of Representatives, our acquisition offices perform
annual equipment inventories in all office,” Brown-Waite said. “The
Chief Administrative Officer’s staff comes into our offices either to
tag equipment we have received, remove equipment we no longer use, or
inventory the equipment under our control. By keeping a centralized
acquisition and inventory process, the House is able to maintain tight
control over its equipment inventory. Given the results of the GAO
report, it appears the VA is unable to do likewise."
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Larry Scott
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