Oversight of Dhs Headquarters Project at St. Elizabeths: Impact on the Taxpayer

Publisher Marketing: Since 2006, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and General Services Administration (GSA) have spent over a billion taxpayer dollars to build a consolidated DHS Headquarters on the St. Elizabeths campus in Southeast Washington, DC. St. Elizabeths is a National historic landmark that was originally founded in 1852 as the Government Hospital for the Insane. The purpose of the new headquarters was to consolidate DHS leadership and operations to improve efficiency. Unfortunately, as shown by a Government Accountability Office (GAO) report, the project has become a monument to mismanagement. GAO's report lays out in great detail how the St. Elizabeths project has been devoid of leadership and proper management for years. In recent years, DHS failed to identify the $4.5 billion project as a major acquisition program within the Department. Such a designation would have brought with it more program oversight. GAO also found that DHS and GSA's cost and schedule estimates aren't worth the paper they are printed on. There has been a wild swing in the estimates since the program has moved forward. In 2007, GSA estimated that the project would be fully complete by 2016 at a cost of $3.2 billion. The latest estimates put completion of the project 10 years later, at 2026, and at a cost of $4.5 billion.