More problems for NARA's ERA.

• Position: E-ACCESS - National Archives and Records Administration - Electronic Records Archive

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A new Government Accountability Office (GAO) report as found that the National Archives and Records Administration's (NARA) Electronic Records Archive (ERA) program is facing yet more delays and cost overruns.

NARA's digital system to gather, preserve, and offer public access to government records will be only 65% complete by the projected September end date, according to the report. And it could end up costing $193 to $433 million more than anticipated, analysts found.

The report, requested by Sen. Thomas Carper (D-Del.) and Rep. William Lacy Clay (D-Mo.), said these issues are a result of NARA's limited implementation of earned value management (EVM), a way to measure performance against cost and expectations, nextgov.com reported.

According to the GAO report, NARA only "fully" met two of 11 best practices for an effective EVM system, "partially met" seven, and failed to meet two others. Continuous shifting of baseline expectations during the project--which began in 2001--has made it impossible for NARA to effectively examine progress using EVM, analysts stated.

"Without effectively implementing EVM," GAO wrote in the report, "NARA has not been positioned to identify potential cost and schedule problems early and thus has not been able to take timely actions to correct problems and avoid program schedule delays and cost increases."

In its report, GAO recommended that NARA "establish a comprehensive plan for all remaining work; improve the accuracy of earned value performance reports; and engage executive leadership in correcting negative trends."

Using NARA's original plan and goals, GAO predicted that ERA will be fully developed by March 2017--67 months after NARA's estimate--and will cost a total of $1.2 to $1.4 billion. NARA disputed GAO's assessment of ERA's timeline and costs. The Archives estimated that the lifecycle cost of ERA will be $995 million.

The digital archive was identified last summer by the Office of Management and Budget as one of the government's most troubled information technology investments, according to The Washington Post. After that...