Joint Hearing of the House Homeland Security Committee's Subcommittee on Border, Maritime and Global Counterterrorism
Statement
Joint Hearing of the House Homeland Security Committee's Subcommittee on Border, Maritime and Global Counterterrorism and Subcommittee on Management, Investigations and Oversight - The Future of Border Security: Can SBINET Succeed?
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REP. CUELLAR: This is to Mr. Krone. If the -- it's a follow-up on Chairman Thompson's question.
If the cost to do the Project 28 is twice of what the original price was, how does DHS know what the true cost is? In other words, if this is only a pilot program --
MR. KRONE: Right.
REP. CUELLAR: -- and we said it was going to cost one thing, now it's double the price, how do we know what the true cost is, when it's eventually handed over, hopefully at one time to Homeland? How are they going to determine that --
MR. KRONE: Right.
REP. CUELLAR: -- what the price should be?
MR. KRONE: Well, first of all the -- we've had relatively, I think, open transparency into the cost and the amount of effort that we're incurring on P28, but the -- what will drive the cost is the number of towers and the number of cameras.
The areas where we've had issues, sir, has been in integration software, which we would be used primarily in the commanding control centers. That software, once it's stable, will be reused, so we won't incur those cost again.
So, the large cost driver, on a technological solution, is going to be the distributed sensors and the distributed infrastructure and their communications backbone.
The costs of those components of Project 28, frankly as the technological solution for SBInet, really have not gone up.
The money that we have spent has been primarily integration work, incurred by Boeing in getting those components of the systems to work together.
So, again, I think with the cost visibility that we have today -- and I really can't speak for total cost, I can speak for our part of the system, you know, we have to plan rights and we don't understand the cost of the Border Patrol agents and the -- if you will, the tail end of the cost, but relative to the part of the system that Boeing is responsible for, the costs are pretty transparent, pretty clear and we don't see the costs of the hardware increasing.
Again, I think they have a relatively good basis for coming up with an estimate of what the technological system would cost.
REP. CUELLAR: So, what is the cost right now, for Project 28?
MR. KRONE: You want to know what our incurred cost is?
REP. CUELLAR: Well, you're charging -- let's start from the beginning, what are you charging DHS?
MR. KRONE: Twenty million (dollars).
REP. CUELLAR: Twenty, right so it's $20 million.
MR. KRONE: Well actually, sir, to be -- to be actually technically correct, we've billed 16.1 million, which is 75 percent of the $20 million fixed price task order, and it is not clear whether the final price of Project 28 will be 16.1, or all the way up to 20.
There are some incentive milestones, there's some contractual issues that may mean the actual cost to the government might indeed be less than 20 million (dollars), if the customer decides to withhold some payments because of Boeing performance. But it will not exceed $20 million.
REP. CUELLAR: Okay. So, let's say it's 20 million (dollars) and I ask this question, and for the staff I don't know who was supposed to follow-up.
I had asked some questions last time and I think you were present. I said, for $20 million you're getting nine portable radar camera towers --
MR. KRONE: Correct.
REP. CUELLAR: -- your 're getting two mobile command control communication units, you're getting four unattended ground sensors, 50 field agent communication systems -- I assume they are radios -- is that correct?
MR. KRONE: That's correct. They're satellite radios.
REP. CUELLAR: A Common Operating Picture, which is --
MR. KRONE: Correct. That's a software that drives the screens in the command and control center.
REP. CUELLAR: Seventy satellite phones. Out of the $20 million -- correct?
MR. KRONE: Okay 10.
REP. CUELLAR: Out of the $20 million, how much is the cost of that equipment that I just listed -- percentage-wise, roughly?
MR. KRONE: Roughly half. We can provide you the precise number, although I would ask you to get that from CBP, because they hold the contract -- but roughly half.
REP. CUELLAR: So you're saying for $10 million -- that's the cost of that equipment?
MR. KRONE: Yeah, the hardware, sir, and the -- in our, you know, cost is an infinite variable trade. So, the arcade trades in picking the equipment -- the tower as the equipment, is relatively low-cost. The radar is in the tens of thousands of dollars, the IR cameras are in the tens of thousands of dollars.
The large dollars that we've incurred have been on -- (inaudible) -- and -- okay, this is not untypical of other large systems integration efforts that we've had.
REP. CUELLAR: Okay. Could I ask staff again, Mr. Chairman, to follow up on the question that I asked last time, unless we have that available?
The last time I asked very specific questions and what's the cost of -- the cost of the unit for each of the items I've mentioned, and I still haven't -- have you all provided that to our committee?
MR. KRONE: Well, the -- our customer has that data and we'll follow up and make sure that the committee gets a copy of that.
REP. CUELLAR: Well, could we -- DHS, could you provide this as -- for the record, my second request?
MR. GIDDENS: Yeah and --
REP. CUELLAR: And I want to know, out of the $20 million, I want to know what the unit cost is for each of the items --
MR. GIDDENS: Right.
REP. CUELLAR: -- for each of the items, and then I want to know where -- if it adds up to $10 million --
MR. GIDDENS: Right.
REP. CUELLAR: -- I assume then the rest is integration -- which is what? Putting it together?
MR. KRONE: Putting it together, writing software, doing tests, doing user evaluations, it's frankly a lot of that is what we would call labor.
Its engineers working on requirement, its engineers cutting code.
REP. CUELLAR: Okay.
MR. KRONE: Sir, could I make -- could I make one additional point?
REP. CUELLAR: Yes.
MR. KRONE: And it's again just a subtlety, it's that we would provide same P28 a tower, and it has a price, right, sir, it's a radar and a communications. What Boeing doesn't provide is the land underneath the tower.
We don't provide the -- access, we don't provide any support we might get from CBP or from the Border Patrol, we don't provide the agents that you saw in the command control center.
So, we can provide you a cost of hardware, that's not necessarily the total cost to the government to field the system.
REP. CUELLAR: No, and I understand and I know my time is up, but I just -- I really, really want to get this and my second request is, I want to know what the unit cost is for each of the items I've mentioned --
MR. KRONE: Okay.
REP. CUELLAR: -- and I want to know where the other -- I assume another $10 million and that if he can specify, I think he just went over engineering and --
MR. KRONE: -- (inaudible) -- right.
REP. CUELLAR: -- (inaudible) we could put it on that.
MR. KRONE: Okay.
REP. CUELLAR: Could you get -- since this is my second request, could we get this by -- within five working days?
MR. KRONE: Yes, sir, I'll take that bag in the staring.
REP. CUELLAR: Okay, he can provide it to the committee. Thank you.
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