Summary: In response to a congressional request, GAO evaluated the Navy's success in meeting congressional expectations and its objectives in procuring and managing a personnel and pay systems consolidated computer center (PERSPAY).
The Navy Finance Center (NFC) and the Naval Military Personnel Command (NMPC) agreed to pursue a joint, automatic data processing (ADP) procurement to reduce computer operations personnel, space requirements, and hardware costs. Congress recommended that the Navy upgrade its existing ADP equipment and convert its software to conform to federal standards prior to initiating the procurement, to lessen the impact of conversion costs on vendor selection. However, the Navy requested and received authority from the General Services Administration (GSA) to: (1) replace existing ADP equipment; (2) acquire state-of-the-art equipment at both NMPC and NFC; and (3) create the Consolidated Data Center for processing personnel and pay applications. GAO found that: (1) the separate procurement approach prevented achievement of Congress' objectives for equipment consolidation and integration of personnel and pay data; (2) it is unclear why GSA approved and the Navy adopted the separate computer hardware procurements; and (3) PERSPAY has not achieved total consolidation of ADP equipment since NMPC and NFC maintain separate computer facilities. GAO also found significant PERSPAY accomplishments at the Center and improvement in the timeliness of processing personnel and pay data. The Center is expected to provide improved resource utilization, processing control, data center services, and data security.
