GAO Finds $340 Million in Duplicated Federal IT Contracts Across Four Agencies

GAO Draft Identifies Widespread Contract Overlap

The Government Accountability Office has identified approximately $340 million in overlapping information-technology contracts across four federal departments, according to two congressional appropriators familiar with a draft report scheduled for public release on February 19. The draft, circulated to Capitol Hill staff on February 12, found that the Departments of Homeland Security, Health and Human Services, Veterans Affairs, and Agriculture each awarded separate cloud-computing and cybersecurity agreements for capabilities already available under existing governmentwide contracts, the sources said.

A GAO investigator who reviewed the draft told The Alamo Post that the duplicated spending centers on the Enterprise Cloud Modernization Initiative, a multiagency effort launched in 2023 to consolidate federal data storage and software licensing. The investigator, who was not authorized to speak publicly before the report's release, said the four departments paid competing vendors for identical security tools, data-backup services, and network-management platforms that were available through the General Services Administration's existing schedules.

The draft report cites 14 specific contracts signed between March 2024 and September 2025. One agreement, a $62 million cybersecurity contract awarded by the Department of Health and Human Services in January 2025, overlaps with tools already provided under a $94 million Department of Homeland Security enterprise-license agreement signed eight months earlier, according to the GAO investigator. A separate $41 million Agriculture Department data-backup contract duplicates storage capacity purchased by the Veterans Affairs Department under a $117 million cloud agreement, the investigator said.

Among the vendors named in the draft are three large technology contractors and two smaller firms that specialize in federal cybersecurity compliance, the GAO investigator said. The investigator added that two of the contracts were modified after award to add scope that duplicated other agencies' purchases, a practice that can bypass standard competitive-review thresholds.

The draft also notes that three of the four departments used separate contracting officers who did not consult the General Services Administration's shared-services marketplace before awarding the agreements, the investigator said.

OMB Review Delayed Release Ahead of Spending Vote

A budget analyst at the Office of Management and Budget confirmed that OMB officials reviewed the GAO findings during the week of February 9 and initially requested additional time to coordinate a response across the four departments. The analyst, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the report remains under pre-release review, said OMB planned to issue a management response acknowledging the overlap and promising corrective action by the end of the fiscal year.

The two congressional appropriators said the findings are likely to complicate negotiations over a stopgap spending bill that the House Appropriations Committee hopes to bring to the floor before the current continuing resolution expires on March 6. One appropriator said committee staff were already preparing hearing questions for agency witnesses based on the draft's preliminary conclusions. The other appropriator said the discovery could strengthen demands for a blanket freeze on new cloud-service contracts until agencies complete a comprehensive inventory of existing licenses.

The GAO investigator said the report recommends that the four departments conduct a joint review of all cloud and cybersecurity contracts valued above $5 million and submit a unified procurement plan to Congress by April 30. The investigator added that GAO also plans to recommend a pilot program under which the General Services Administration would serve as the sole acquisition gateway for similar tools across the four agencies. The pilot, if adopted, would begin on July 1 and cover all new contracts in the four departments for a 12-month evaluation period.

What to Watch in the Next 48 Hours

If confirmed by the full GAO report, the $340 million figure would represent one of the largest single findings of duplicate information-technology spending since a 2019 review identified $1.2 billion in redundant Defense Department software contracts. That earlier review led Congress to create the Defense Enterprise Office Solutions program, which consolidated the Pentagon's productivity software purchases. The new findings could revive stalled legislation that would require agencies to check existing governmentwide contracts before issuing new solicitations for common information-technology services.

GAO issued similar recommendations in 2017 and 2021, but agency implementation remained uneven because each department maintained independent procurement offices with separate vendor relationships, the investigator said. The new report is expected to call for a centralized federal software catalog that would flag duplicate purchases before contracts are signed.

The draft findings also arrive as the House Oversight Committee prepares a March hearing on federal procurement reform. A committee aide who was briefed on the report's outline said the panel plans to invite the four agency inspectors general to testify, though no hearing date has been set. The aide said committee investigators are separately reviewing whether any of the 14 contracts involved sole-source awards that bypassed competitive bidding requirements.

GAO is expected to release the final report on February 19 at 11 a.m. Eastern, and agency press offices are likely to issue preemptive statements defending the contracts as separately justified by mission requirements. House Appropriations Committee staff said they expect to receive formal agency responses by February 20, setting up a likely confrontation during the stopgap spending debate. The Office of Management and Budget did not respond to a request for comment. A Homeland Security Department spokesperson declined to comment on a report that has not been released publicly. The Health and Human Services, Veterans Affairs, and Agriculture departments did not respond to inquiries before publication.