BIA - Trust Asset Accounting Management System (TAAMS)
Investment ID: 010-000000077
Overview
Program Title
BIA - Trust Asset Accounting Management System (TAAMS)
Description
TAAMS is the Official System of Record for Indian Affairs. TAAMS supports the management of trust title ownership, encumbrance, and land records through a centralized bureau-wide system. TAAMS also supports Trust Reform goals identified by DOI and BIA in the Cobell vs. Salazar case, as well as multiple strategic goals, including honoring trust responsibilities to Indian Tribes. TAAMS expedites the processing of title ownership and the delivery of title documents and certified reports in minutes and hours instead of days and weeks. The LBB utilizes the data contained in TAAMS to generate purchase offers to Indian beneficiaries. The LBB effort is closely monitored by the courts and Congress, is authorized for a ten year period and relies on the continually updated data contained in TAAMS. Without up to date data, purchase offers could be made to the wrong individual. In Calendar year 2019, TAAMS distributed $1.43B to customers. Managed by the Office of Trust Services.
Type of Program
Major IT Investments
Multi-Agency Category
Not Applicable
Investment Detail
In the last five years TAAMs has distributed an average of 1 billion dollars to land owners who have an interest in Trust or Restricted property held in trust by the Department of Interior. With Operations and Maintenance at an average yearly cost of 6.5 million, the average rate of return on our investment based on monetary distributions is 99.4 %. The TAAMS system has allowed the government to retire outdated and unstable Legacy Systems which were in danger of collapsing, combining approximately 17 systems into one, resulting in a substantial cost savings/avoidance to the government. Retiring these unstable systems has not only reduced the government's potential liability in the possible loss of data as systems began collapsing, but made the data more secure. The TAAMS system is the cornerstone in fulfilling many of the terms of the Cobell vs. Salazar settlement action, such as the Land Buy Back Program for Tribal Nations (LBB) effort to consolidate fractional land interests under tribal nations. The LBB effort is authorized for a 10-year period and involves $1.9 billion dollars for use in the compensation of individual Indian land owners. The benefits to Indian beneficiaries is more timely distributions of funding, a more secure repository of individual information, more timely updates on probate actions, resulting in better services to Indian beneficiaries. TAAMS also provides the government with a powerful system flexible enough to deal with the evolving needs of the government and Indian country. The cost of running TAAMS is less than 1% of the dollars running through the TAAMS system.