The House Subcommittee on Cybersecurity, Information Technology and Government Innovation recently scrutinized the Department of Defense (DOD) for its failed effort to replace its antiquated travel system. Chairwoman Nancy Mace reported she found the lapse disturbing, according to a July 11 Oversight Committee news release.
"The Department of Defense’s failure to implement the new travel system, which took nearly a decade to prepare, appears to be rooted in broader management dysfunction," Mace said in the release.
The criticism arose from a reported failure to upgrade what Mace referred to as a "garden variety travel booking system," an endeavor that was suddenly and controversially abandoned after almost a decade of development and heavy financial investment, the release reported.
"If allowed to go unaddressed, this dysfunction will likely result in unabated waste of taxpayer funds on a massive scale," Mace said in the release.
The subcommittee identified several significant consequences of the DOD's persistent reliance on its current, outdated travel system, according to a July 26 news release from the Oversight Committee. Elizabeth Field, director of Defense Capabilities and Management at the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO), testified the current system, which is a quarter-century old, was siphoning hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars annually from critical missions due to inefficiencies and improper payments.
Field further reported the DOD had been deficient in following GAO-recommended solutions to curb improper payments. The DOD was found to be noncompliant with reporting requirements for improper payments for the twelfth consecutive year, largely due to the inefficiencies of the DOD's Travel Pay Program, the July 26 release reported.
It was also reported the DOD had decided to scrap the new travel system, MyTravel, after investing up to $374 million in its development. That decision, announced in May and attributed to the impact of COVID-19, raised significant concerns about the DOD's ability to implement effective business process reforms.
The hearing was marked by frustration over the inability of Jeffrey Register, director of Defense Human Resources Activity at the Office of the Under Secretary for Defense for Personnel & Readiness and the DOD's representative at the hearing, to provide answers to critical questions. Register, who appeared in lieu of Under Secretary Gilbert Cisneros, was rebuked by Mace for his lack of transparency.
"You’re coming up here and you can’t even answer two of the first three questions," Mace said to Register during the hearing.
