Navy restricts approval process for major IT programs

Navy and Marine Corps organizations must get high-level approval to spend more than $1 million on information technology programs or projects, Navy Chief Information Officer Terry Halvorsen ordered in a July 19 memo released today.

Currently, Navy and Marine units can initiate their own IT projects under a decentralized process that Halvorsen said was wasteful and inefficient. "Duplicative capabilities and projects that are not aligned with [Navy and Marine] IT goals and objectives are not only inefficient uses of our dwindling resources; they render us less operationally effective by hampering interoperability, information sharing and security."

To save money and promote efficiency, Halvorsen directed the Navy and Marines each to designate by Aug. 15 an Information Technology Expenditure Approval Authority authorized to allow large IT projects. The ITEAA will be responsible for ensuring that all IT projects undertaken by the Navy and Marine Corps are integral parts of rationalized service portfolios, aligned with Navy IT goals and conform to Navy and Defense Department enterprise architectures, Halvorsen said.

He made it clear that the ITEAAs will have control over every stage of all but the smallest IT projects. "No resource planning, programming or budgeting shall be done and no action shall be taken to acquire or procure any IT software, hardware, or service with a projected life-cycle cost or purchase price totaling $1 million or more unless the project has been approved by the respective service's ITEAA," he wrote.

In a July 27 blog post, Halvorsen said the Navy and Marines face a 25 percent reduction in their IT budgets over the next five years, as directed by Undersecretary of the Navy Robert Work. Faced with a $1.7 billion whack to the Navy department's IT budget, which stands at $6.9 billion for 2012, Halvorsen said, "a cut of this magnitude requires a fundamental shift in our IT business model."

In his memo, he concluded, "Creating IT efficiencies without sacrificing operational effectiveness will be a tough challenge, but we cannot afford to fail. Establishing service IT Expenditure Approval Authorities to rationalize our IT efforts is an important step toward achieving our goals."