GAO questions millions in FBI upgrade spending

WASHINGTON – The FBI and its contractors spent more than $17 million on first-class airfare, inflated labor rates, missing equipment and other questionable payments during the botched attempt to upgrade the bureau’s outdated computer system, according to a new audit from congressional investigators.

The findings by the Government Accountability Office expand the controversy surrounding the FBI’s Trilogy program, which cost more than $535 million but failed to produce a usable case-management system for agents because of cost overruns and technical problems.

The FBI announced this week that it would spend an additional $425 million in an attempt to finish the job. Two of the contractors singled out in the audit for inflated spending, Computer Sciences Corp. and CACI International Inc., have been chosen as subcontractors for the new system, named Sentinel.

Officials with the FBI and the project’s main contractor, Lockheed Martin Corp., have vowed to implement stricter controls to avoid cost overruns and other problems in the new initiative.

The 82-page GAO report, obtained by the Washington Post, outlines a long series of questionable expenditures by contractors assigned to the Trilogy project.