Indian Trust Funds: Improvements Made in Acquisition of New Asset and Accounting System But Significant Risks Remain

In January 2002, the Secretary of the Interior initiated an effort to develop a comprehensive, department-wide approach for improving Indian trust management. On March 28, 2003, Interior issued the Comprehensive Trust Management Plan, which presented a strategic plan to guide the design and implementation of integrated trust reform efforts, including organizational reform and business transformation as well as systems architecture and a higher level of systems integration. Under the comprehensive plan, Interior placed trust management reform activities under a new Assistant Secretary for Trust Management, separating it from other Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) operations, to provide more focus on trust management reform. During fiscal year 2007, BIA and the Office of Special Trustee (OST) converted leasing data from BIA's old legacy systems to the Trust Asset and Accounting System (TAAMS) and integrated TAAMS with its Trust Fund Accounting System (TFAS) to ensure that both systems have accurate and complete title and leasing information. Further, as each Interior region's system was converted, the Office of Special Trustee was to provide beneficiaries with asset statements that identified the source of funds and a listing of assets owned in that region and any active encumbrances, as required by the American Indian Trust Fund Management Reform Act of 1994 (Pub.L. 103-414). Prior to system conversion, statements that beneficiaries received only included information on account balances and account transactions. In addition, Interior implemented a data quality and integrity project to verify the completeness and accuracy of TAAMS title and leasing information for Indian lands. On December 8, 2009, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar established the Secretarial Commission on Indian Trust Administration and Reform by Sec. Order No. 3292. The Commission held a series of hearings over a 2-year period and determined that sweeping reforms were needed. In August 2013, Interior announced a new Chief Information Officer (CIO) with responsibility for advancing the Department's ongoing IT Transformation efforts. The new CIO previously held positions as Interior's Director of Information Planning in the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Indian Affairs and Chief for Portfolio Management in the Office of the CIO. Under the new CIO's oversight, TAAMS underwent technical upgrades to meet the Department's technology and security architecture requirements for all system operating on the Indian Affairs network. TAAMS upgrades included (1) enhanced search and retrieval capability; (2) a single user ID and a single password logon; (3) Web-based navigational features (i.e., menus, drop-down lists and tabs); and (4) the ability of tribes using VPN to connect to the Interior site to print reports to any stand-alone or network printer from their desktop. A new release of TAAMS was targeted to be deployed on September 25, 2015, with tribes verifying the accuracy of their data conversion to the new TAAMS system. Tribal training was to follow the TAAMS conversion. In November 2016, BIA management and trust systems officials advised us that TAAMS implementation was delayed until July 6, 2016. While Bureau of Indian Affairs and Interior Trust Services officials told us that the new TAAMS was fully implemented, tribal official continued to express concern prior issues with inaccurate data remain and will need to be addressed going forward. Implementation of the integrated, upgraded TAAMS system meets the intent of our recommendation.

According to BIA management and trust systems officials, the new CIO, who was approved in August 2013, and the BIA Director worked together to implement disciplined acquisition and software development processes. These efforts have resulted in the deployment of a new TAAMS release in July 2016 that reflected updated trust business processes and integrated accounting, land ownership, minerals management and other trust asset information. These actions address our recommendation,.

In June 2001, Interior contracted with an information technology firm to develop, define, and document requirements for trust asset management. In January 2002, the Secretary of the Interior initiated an effort to develop a comprehensive, department-wide approach for improving Indian trust Management. In March 2003, Interior issued the Comprehensive Trust Management Plan, which presented a strategic plan to guide the design and implementation of integrated trust reform efforts, including organizational reform and business transformation along with a systems architecture and higher level of systems integration. According to BIA management and trust systems officials the new CIO who took over in August 2013 and the Director of BIA worked together to implement disciplined acquisition and software processes to support TAAMS requirements under revised business processes to be supported by TAAMS. These action address our recommendation.

In June 2001, Interior contracted with an information technology firm to develop, define, and document requirements for trust asset management. In January 2002, the Secretary of the Interior initiated an effort to develop a comprehensive, department-wide approach for improving Indian trust Management. In March 2003, Interior issued the Comprehensive Trust Management Plan, which presented a strategic plan to guide the design and implementation of integrated trust reform efforts, including organizational reform and business transformation along with a systems architecture and higher level of systems integration. According to BIA management and trust systems officials the new CIO who took over in August 2013 and the Director of BIA worked together to implement disciplined acquisition and software processes. Interior defined TAAMS requirements under revised business processes supported by TAAMS and performed a gap analysis to assess whether TAAMS was capable of providing necessary functionality and what modifications, if any, were needed. These actions address our recommendations.

Following the August 2013, appointment of a new Chief Information Officer (CIO), TAAMS underwent technical upgrades to meet the Department's technology and security architecture requirements for all systems operating on the Indian Affairs network. According to BIA trust systems officials, the technical upgrades included an analysis of the infrastructure necessary to support the TAAMS application to ensure its adequacy as well as steps to ensure that TAAMS could interface with Trust Fund Accounting System (TFAS)and the Mineral Management (MMS) System. Additional interfaces were developed with systems that maintained lease and ownership information. These actions address our recommendation.