DoD Kills Off HR IT Project After 780% Budget Overrun, Years of Delays
24th March 2025
After blowing deadlines and budgets for years, the Pentagon has finally pulled the plug on a troubled project to overhaul its outdated civilian HR IT systems.
Like many government projects before it, the Defense Civilian Human Resources Management System (DCHRMS) promised big things when it was kicked off nearly a decade ago.
According to a memo signed by Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth late last week, the program was intended to streamline a large portion of the DoD’s legacy HR IT systems, but it’s being axed after officials concluded pouring more funds into it would be “throwing more good taxpayer money after bad.”
DCHRMS started in 2018 with a planned development timeline of one year and a budget of $36 million, “but instead it’s taken eight years and is currently $280 million over budget – that’s 780 percent over budget,” Hegseth said in a video announcing the DCHRMS and other spending cuts. “We’re not doing that anymore.”