DHS has announced five new "efficiency initiatives" as part of a department-wide review launched in March that it says has enabled it to avoid spending millions of dollars.
According to DHS, efficiency review initiatives are broken down into 30, 60, 90 and 120-day groups based on when implementation will begin and the department plans to formalize 20 initiatives announced in past months.
In February secretary Janet Napolitano put in place an efficiency review steering committee and a full-time review team to shape and develop some of the 700 initiatives that were identified by departmental components to save money, streamline operations and increase transparency.
"These new initiatives will streamline operations, improve customer service, and help us stretch every homeland security dollar even further," Napolitano said.
For example, DHS said it is not spending as much to maintain software licenses now. After consolidating 487,000 Microsoft licenses into a single departmental license it said it will avoid $87.5 million in costs over six years. Immigration and Customs Enforcement also modified its license agreement for Oracle software from more than 200 licenses to one unlimited license agreement for an estimated cost avoidance of $1.5 million over the next year, said DHS.
