Page 59 - Automated Fingerprint Identification Systems (AFIS)

44 AUTOMATED FINGERPRINT IDENTIFICATION SYSTEMS

a relocation study was performed, and Clarksburg, West Virginia was selected
for the new location. A purpose-built facility with an enormous data center was
built in the mid-1990s.
The FBI’s internal plan was to build and deploy IAFIS by 1995. IAFIS funding
4
started to flow in fiscal year (FY) 1992 as a result of Public Law 102-140 of
October 28, 1991. That law appropriated $48 million for the automation of fin-
gerprint identification services, and of that amount, $1.5 million was targeted
for establishing an independent program office dedicated solely to the reloca-
tion of the ID and the automation of fingerprint identification services. In the
parlance of the federal budget, these dollars were fenced so that the FBI or the
Department of Justice could not legally spend them on anything else. The
appropriation was marked as 5-year money, meaning the money could be spent
as needed rather than pushed onto contracts as the fiscal year drew to a close,
as so often happens in federal contracting. Starting in FY 1993, the funding was
increased to $92 million per year, based on an independent cost study per-
formed by the MITRE Corporation.
Several key decisions were made, and the following actions were taken in
1991:

1. The FBI contracts shop was not staffed to handle the large number of acqui-
sitions associated with IAFIS (over 15 contracts of various size were awarded).
Instead, the FBI contracted with the General Services Administration’s
(GSA’s) Federal Computer Acquisition Center (FEDCAC) in Massachusetts
for pre-acquisition contract services for the three main IAFIS segments. Steve
Meltzer, FEDCAC’s director, and his team of experts were instrumental in
shaping the procurement packages. Later, in the mid-1990s, IAFIS Program
Office Section Chief Robert O. Kramer and the three segment managers
(Chuck Jones, Bob Last, and Jim Shugars) spent the better part of a year
working on the evaluation of three sets of proposals at the FEDCAC facility.
2. In January 1991, 986 acres were purchased in West Virginia, and by October
of that year construction was under way.
5
3. Director Sessions asked White House Fellow Patrick Harker of the Univer-
sity of Pennsylvania to recommend how to best organize the criminal justice
services of the FBI to include the program office mandated by legislation.
Harker’s recommendations led to the establishment of the Criminal Justice
Information Services (CJIS) Division, which eventually absorbed the ID. The

4 Departments of Commerce, Justice, and State, The Judiciary, and Related Agencies Appropria-
tions Act, 1992.
5 Patrick T. Harker returned to the University of Pennsylvania at the end of his fellowship and is
currently the Dean of the Wharton School.