The alert level for the Department of Homeland Security's IT efforts have just been bumped from amber to red.  But the only thing terrifying is how badly the critical security department's IT budget is being mismanaged according to analysis from a recent government report.

The DHS inspector general has completed a major review [PDF] of the DHS's data center overhaul and consolidation efforts.  A crucial aspect was the quality of the department's decision to move to Navy facilities NASA's Stennis Space Center in Mississippi as its primary data center.

The inspector general found that the contract was poorly managed and that overspending had occurred.  In addition, they said there's major risks that deadlines may be missed due to the mismanagement.

The new data center is housed in the Navy's meteorology and oceanography arm.  The Navy does not own the land, but rents it from the Army; in fact the data center is a converted munitions manufacturing facility.  The DHS is among several tenants in the building.

The DHS inspector general claims that the DHS and the Navy have no clear agreement over how they split costs, how much space the DHS gets, the DHS's power allotment, or even where the facility is located.  DHS CIO Richard Spires has disputed the report's claim that power and space allotments were not spelled out.

The report, though, was adamant that the project was being poorly managed and without clear business terms.  It reads, "Without these terms, DHS cannot be assured that it can continue to house its primary data center in the current location, or that DHS is reimbursing the Navy only for expenses related to the primary data center."

Apparently the Navy is taking full advantage of that bungling -- it's charging the DHS 81 percent of the costs of the facility, while the DHS only takes up 24 percent of the office space.  The DHS has also incurred multiple cost overruns, such as when it decided to spend $5M USD on new facilities at the Stennis Space Center, but failed to tell the Navy which particular building to give it.  The Navy gave it a pretty dilapidated building that required massive renovations, which ended up costing taxpayers $64.1M USD -- a large unintended expense.

The DHS has given the Navy $160M USD in total, but it hasn't even gotten invoices back for a lot of the spending.  And the DHS's IT staff never complained to their superiors about this significant oversight.  Even the paperwork they did get, according to the report, wasn't always forwarded to and reviewed by DHS accountants.  As a result it's unclear exactly how much was spent on what.

The only good news is that the property will soon be transferred to NASA's management, so the DHS gets a second shot at working out a smarter deal, this time with NASA.  DHS CIO Spires says that this time around the DHS will strive for more clarity in the agreements -- which will hopefully amount to less wasted taxpayer dollars.