The National Nuclear Security Administration’s latest financial management plan lacks the details necessary to serve as a road map for the agency’s activities, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) found in a report released Thursday.
The NNSA last February submitted to Congress a plan to improve the agency’s financial management, which featured a feasibility assessment, estimated costs, expected results, and an implementation timeline, “but contains few details related to each of these elements,” the GAO said.
The plan estimated total implementation costs at between $10 million and $70 million, though it gave little detail on how the projection was developed “beyond stating that it is based on professional judgment and input from NNSA’s contractors,” the report said. It added that contractors will begin reporting detailed cost data into a common agency system in fiscal 2019 and noted the core elements of the plan would be completed in three to five years, but did not specify those core elements.
The NNSA is a semiautonomous Department of Energy agency charged with sustaining a safe, secure, and reliable national nuclear deterrent, among other missions. Much of its work, funded at nearly $13 billion per year, occurs at contractor-run national laboratories and other sites around the country.
NNSA contractors use different accounting and cost tracking methods, which causes difficulties for the agency and Congress in comparing costs across programs, contractors, and sites, the GAO noted.
Congressional auditors also found that the financial integration plan does not incorporate leading strategic planning practices, which include defining the missions of a program, identifying the resources necessary to fulfill those missions, and involving leadership and stakeholders in planning.
The report said, “beyond the high-level cost estimate provided, NNSA’s plan does not include a description of the specific resources needed to meet specific elements of the plan or define strategies that address management challenges.”
The NNSA told GAO that this plan was not intended to be a road map to guide its efforts, but rather to outline a strategic vision while the agency develops a “more comprehensive and actionable plan to guide NNSA’s effort,” the report said.
The GAO recommended that the NNSA’s program director of financial integration develop a plan for producing cost information incorporating leading practices. The NNSA said in response that it will update its financial management plan to address the GAO’s concerns.
