Pentagon sees ‘fragile’ progress in troubled program for modernizing background check system

The Trump administration is grappling with the challenges of the National Background Investigation Services program — a much-delayed Pentagon IT modernization initiative spanning multiple administrations that aims to improve processes for vetting government workers and contractors — and hopes to bring it across the finish line by the end of fiscal 2028.

The Defense Department has been developing NBIS since 2016, when it took ownership of the program from the Office of Personnel Management. The technology is expected to facilitate background investigations for federal agencies and thousands of industry organizations that work with them, Alissa Czyz, the Government Accountability Office’s director for defense capabilities and management, noted in a written statement for a congressional hearing held Tuesday.

“DOD originally expected NBIS to be complete in 2019, but repeated delays have hindered deployment. GAO has also found that the previous NBIS cost estimate and schedules were unreliable. After missing multiple targets, DOD’s Defense Counterintelligence and Security Agency (DCSA) paused NBIS development in 2024 to revise its approach. In 2025, it developed a new cost estimate and changed its approach to scheduling,” she told members of a House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform subcommittee.

The Pentagon’s updated cost estimate projected spending an additional $2.2 billion on the program through fiscal 2031, which would come on top of the $2.4 billion previously spent on NBIS and legacy systems through fiscal 2024, according to Czyz.

GAO found that the department’s new cost estimate is “reliable,” she told lawmakers, adding that a reliable cost estimate should help prevent unanticipated cost overruns and provide “needed visibility” into the project.

However, the watchdog also determined that DCSA continues to lack a reliable schedule for NBIS, which could continue to impact officials’ ability to meet milestones.

“The program’s schedule showed improvements” but “only partially met the credible and well-constructed characteristics,” Czyz said, noting that performing risk analysis could help officials pinpoint and address risks before they result in delays.

Justin Overbaugh, deputy undersecretary of defense for intelligence and security and the acting director of DCSA, told the committee that despite recent improvements in cost and schedule estimates, “we must be honest that this progress is fragile,” adding that the agency needs to continue implementing “cultural and structural reforms” to be successful.

DCSA has a huge workload related to security clearance investigations, and slow-moving processes have long been a source of frustration for federal offices, contractors and individuals affected by backlogs.

In fiscal 2025, the agency conducted approximately 2.6 million investigation activities, including 426,400 secret-level investigations, 142,800 top secret-level investigations, 423,300 suitability investigations, 7,600 reimbursable security investigations, and 1.6 million special agreement checks, according to Overbaugh.

“DCSA maintains an inventory of cases for initial background investigations, vetting alerts, and investigative activity derived from those alerts, as well as adjudications for the Department of War and cleared industry,” he said in a written statement for the committee, using a secondary name authorized by the Trump administration to refer to the Department of Defense.

Last month, the initial vetting background investigation inventory dropped to about 100,000 cases, according to Overbaugh, down from 290,000 cases in September 2024 during the Biden administration and 725,000 cases in April 2018 during the first Trump administration.

“Although DCSA has undertaken multiple efforts to reduce inventory and improve vetting timeliness, we must increase focus on innovative solutions enabled by technology,” he told lawmakers.

The Pentagon envisions the NBIS program as the “secure, adaptable information technology backbone for the government’s personnel vetting enterprise,” he said, adding that the aim is to have a “seamless, innovative, and secure suite of shared information technology services” that meet federal agencies’ needs.

“The successful rollout of NBIS will enable real-time continuous vetting, improve risk management, enhance onboarding speed, and provide stakeholders with transparent, data-driven insights into the vetting process,” Overbaugh told members of Congress.

Undersecretary of Defense for Acquisition and Sustainment Michael Duffey has designated NBIS as an Acquisition Category 1 “special interest program,” Overbaugh said, noting that leadership has also approved a new contracting and acquisition strategy that is intended to provide more flexibility and agility.

The Pentagon is now aiming to deploy the tech and execute a full transition to it by the end of fiscal 2028.

DCSA has already completed the migration of seven NBIS systems into a unified cloud environment and rolled out a tool known as eApp that’s intended to make it easier to fill out personnel vetting forms. Plans call for expanding pilot programs and “phased deployments” of NBIS capabilities across federal agencies, according to Overbaugh.

DCSA has also developed a workforce strategy focused on the recruitment, training and retention of experts in data analytics, cybersecurity, program management and technology development, he noted.

During the hearing, Overbaugh was asked if he had any near- or medium-term plans to reduce the workforce as part of a drive to find efficiencies.

“We are constantly looking at the DCSA organization and determining where we can find efficiencies. I have no implementable plans at this time, but it is something that we will be looking at moving forward,” he replied.

Regarding NBIS, Overbaugh told lawmakers that “getting to an operational endpoint will not be easy,” noting that it’s a “massive undertaking.”

“NBIS is a large-scale IT system being built to replace long-entrenched legacy personnel vetting systems with interfaces across the Federal government. Getting this right is as important as getting it done swiftly,” he said.

By the end of next year, the agency plans to deploy “core NBIS shared services” such as the Personnel Vetting Questionnaire, enhanced data repositories and background investigation “functionalities,” and put legacy IT systems into their “final migration phase.”

Progress on NBIS is seen as key for reform efforts under the Trusted Workforce 2.0 initiative, which has experienced major delays. Initiated in 2018, implementation was expected to be completed by the end of this fiscal year. However, due to NBIS setbacks and other contributing factors, the goalpost has been moved to the end of fiscal 2028, according to Czyz.

As Pentagon officials try to push forward with TW 2.0, plans include making improvements to speed up adjudication of certain public trust cases to allow “eligible individuals to advance through initial vetting and a trust determination automatically via specific business rules,” according to Overbaugh, as well as the expanded use of interim clearances to enable agencies to onboard workers through “automated business rules” while they await a full investigation.

So-called “continuous vetting” is also on the agenda.

“Expanded continuous vetting features will become available across a broader population of vetted Federal personnel. This includes those employees in non-national security positions who could still cause damage through misconduct. They will now be monitored using the same system as those in the national security workforce,” Overbaugh told lawmakers.

Deployment of a status tracker is expected to give individuals greater visibility into where they are in the vetting process.

“By the end of 2028, DCSA will operationalize the end-to-end TW 2.0 model, enabling all agencies to use modernized vetting workflows, streamlined onboarding, and risk-based continuous vetting. Legacy investigative products, standard forms, and systems are scheduled to sunset, culminating in a unified federal vetting ecosystem,” Overbaugh told the committee.

He said he aims to deliver a “business operationalization synchronization schedule” in March or April.

“That is our attempt to get at the critical paths and the risks that GAO has rightly pointed out that we continue to lack,” Overbaugh said.

Meanwhile, the search for a permanent DCSA director is underway. Overbaugh said the Pentagon’s undersecretariat for intelligence and security is looking for someone with the “optimal mix of private sector, technology, and government experience.”

Rep. Pete Sessions, R-Texas, chairman of the committee’s Subcommittee on Government Operations, said he remains “deeply concerned” that a new director hasn’t been named yet, adding that the situation has created uncertainty at a critical time.

The previous director, David Cattler, officially retired Sept. 30, 2025.

“We encourage swift action to put a new director in place, especially given the ongoing problems that NBIS has and the need to effectively place leadership in that role,” Sessions said at Tuesday’s hearing.