Despite spending some $430 million, DHS still has not managed to establish interoperable communications among its components and with external partners during emergency operations, an IG report has said.
The main issue, it said, is that DHS did not establish an effective structure with the authority and responsibility to oversee its goal of achieving interoperability. The result is that the department had limited interoperability policies and procedures, and component personnel did not have interoperable radio communications, it said.
The report said that only one of 479 radio users tested could access and communicate using the specified common channel and that of the 382 radios tested, only 78 contained all the correct program settings for the common channel. “Component personnel either did not know of or could not find the DHS common channel because the components did not effectively inform them of the correct channel,” it said.
The report said the issue is a legacy, a dozen years later, of bringing together the functions of 22 different departments and agencies in creating DHS. In addition to the amount spent internally, DHS has provided some $18.5 billion in grants to state and local governments to improve emergency communications, it said.
A bill (HR-615) that passed the House in February and that is pending in the Senate mandates the creation of a more rigorous and comprehensive interoperable communications strategy, with reporting requirements, to help the department achieve its communications goals.
