A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "One key way that the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) makes air travel safer is to inspect the manufacture, operation, and maintenance of aircraft that fly in the United States. To better direct its resources, FAA is shifting from an inspection process that relied on spot-checks of compliance with regulations to one that evaluates operating procedures and analyzes inspection data to identify areas that pose the most risk to safety (called system safety). While FAA believes the new approach requires some technical knowledge of aircraft, Congress and GAO have long-standing concerns over whether FAA inspectors have enough technical knowledge to effectively identify risks. GAO reviewed the extent that FAA follows effective management practices in ensuring that inspectors receive up-to-date technical training. In addition, GAO is reporting on technical training that the aviation industry provides to FAA."

Correspondence issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "The Department of Defense (DOD) faces financial and related management problems that are pervasive, complex, long-standing, and deeply rooted in virtually all business operations throughout the department. These problems have impeded the department's ability to provide complete, reliable, and timely business information to the Congress, DOD managers, and other decision makers. Of the 25 areas on our governmentwide "high-risk" list, 6 are DOD program areas, and the department shares responsibility for 3 other high-risk areas that are governmentwide in scope. DOD's problems in each of these areas hinder the efficiency of operations, and leave the department vulnerable to fraud, waste, and abuse. For fiscal year 2003, DOD's information technology (IT) budget request was over $26 billion. More specifically, to support its business operations, DOD reports that it currently relies on about 2,300 systems, including accounting, acquisition, logistics, and personnel systems that will cost about $18 billion--nearly $5.2 billion for business systems and $12.8 billion primarily for business systems infrastructure--in fiscal year 2003 to operate, maintain, and modernize. As we have previously reported, this environment was not designed to be, but rather has evolved into, an overly complex and …

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a legislative requirement, GAO reviewed the scientific and practical aspects of a terrorist carrying out large-scale chemical or biological attacks on U.S. soil, focusing on the: (1) technical ease or difficulty for terrorists to acquire, process, improvise, and disseminate certain chemical and biological agents; and (2) extent to which the U.S. government has assessed the threats and risks posed by chemical and biological terrorism in the United States to serve as a basis for planned investments."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "State Medicaid programs make a wide variety of payments to individuals, institutions, and managed health care plans for services provided to beneficiaries whose eligibility status may fluctuate because of changes in income. Because of the size and the nature of the program, Medicaid is potentially at risk for billions of dollars in improper payments. The exact amount is unknown because few states measure the overall accuracy of their payments. Some improper Medicaid payments by states are the result of fraud by billers or program participants, but such improper payments are hard to measure because of the covert nature of fraud. Efforts by state Medicaid programs to address improper payments are modestly and unevenly funded. Half of the states spend no more than 1/10th of one percent of program expenditures to safeguard program payments. States also differ in how they help prevent improper payments as well as the degree to which they coordinate their investigations and prosecutions of fraud. Federal guidance to the states relies largely on technical assistance. The Health Care Financing Administration has recently taken a more active role to facilitate states' efforts and provide …

Testimony issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Federal, state, and local governments, and the private sector, are taking steps to strengthen the safety and security of the American people, including actions to strengthen border and port security, airport security, health and food security and to protect critical infrastructure. There are date, information-sharing, and technology challenges facing the country in developing and implementing a national preparedness strategy. The nature of the terrorist threat makes it difficult to identify and differentiate information that can provide an early indication of a terrorist threat from the mass of data available to those in positions of authority. Further, the nation faces considerable cultural, legal, and technical barriers in effectively collecting and sharing information. Many technologies key to addressing threats are not yet available, and many existing technologies have not effectively been adapted for the threats the country now faces. The real challenge, however, is not just to find the right solutions to each of these problems but to weave solutions together in an integrated and intelligent fashion."

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "The Help America Vote Act of 2002 (HAVA) was enacted in part to help ensure that only eligible persons are registered to vote. Under HAVA, as of January 1, 2004, states were to create computerized statewide voter registration lists to serve as official rosters of legally registered voters for elections for federal office. States, however, were given the option to seek a waiver to postpone implementation of HAVA provisions until 2006. All but nine states did so. This report discusses the experiences of the nine states that were subject to the original HAVA deadline--Alaska, Arizona, Georgia, Hawaii, Kentucky, Minnesota, South Carolina, South Dakota, and West Virginia. The report describes actions election officials in these states reported taking to meet specific HAVA requirements--as applicable to their states--for (1) establishing computerized statewide voter registration lists and (2) verifying the accuracy of information on voter registration applications and maintaining accurate computerized voter lists. GAO is also reporting what states said about challenges they faced and lessons learned implementing the requirements. Draft sections of this report were reviewed by the nine states; the Election Assistance Commission, which was responsible for …

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Military personnel, as well as civilian public safety officers (PSO), risk their lives and face the prospect of incurring disabilities as they protect and defend the general public on a daily basis. To help assess the appropriateness of disability benefits available to military personnel, Congress mandated that GAO study the disability benefits available to federal, state, and local government employees who serve the public in high-risk occupations and are injured in the line of duty. In response, GAO compared the disability benefits available to military personnel with the disability benefits available to civilian PSOs at the federal level, and in six states and six cities that were selected to illustrate the range of benefits provided. This study focuses on benefits provided to law enforcement officers and firefighters at the federal level, to state police at the state level, and to firefighters at the local level. For each program included in the review, GAO identified the benefits available for temporary disability, permanent partial disability, and permanent total disability, and then calculated the lifetime present value of the benefits provided to various hypothetical individuals in different circumstances. Cognizant …

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "The Department of Defense (DOD) maintains equipment and infrastructure worth billions of dollars in many environments where corrosion is causing military assets to deteriorate, shortening their useful life. The resulting increase in required repairs and replacements drives up costs and takes critical systems out of action, reducing mission readiness. GAO was asked to review military activities related to corrosion control. Specifically, this report examines the extent of the impact of corrosion on DOD and the military services and the extent of the effectiveness of DOD's and the services' approach to preventing and mitigating corrosion."

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "From fiscal years 2005 through 2010, civilian agency obligations on contracts for professional and management support services increased 44 percent, from $22 billion to $32 billion (in 2010 dollars), more than twice the rate of increase for other services. For the five agencies GAO reviewed—the Departments of Homeland Security, Transportation, and Housing and Urban Development, the United States Agency for International Development, and the National Science Foundation—more than half of the 230 statements of work for professional and management support service contracts requested services that closely support the performance of inherently governmental functions. Using these services can inappropriately influence government decisionmaking if proper oversight is not provided. The five agencies generally did not consider and mitigate risks of acquiring professional and management support services prior to awarding the 12 contracts GAO reviewed. The Federal Acquisition Regulation requires agencies to provide enhanced management oversight for contracts that closely support inherently governmental functions. For the 12 contracts, few of the officials said they considered whether contracted services included such functions. In some cases, officials said they later became concerned that contractors might perform inherently governmental functions or that …

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "The Defense Logistics Agency's (DLA) mission is, in part, to provide food, fuel, medical supplies, clothing, spare parts for weapon systems, and construction materials to sustain military operations and combat readiness. To protect the information and information systems that support its mission, it is critical that DLA implement an effective information security program. GAO was asked to review the efficiency and effectiveness of DLA's operations, including its information security program. In response, GAO determined whether the agency had implemented an effective information security program."

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "The Vietnam Education Foundation (VEF) Act of 2000 established VEF as an independent agency of the executive branch. A 13-member board of directors provides primary oversight. VEF also receives guidance from other entities in carrying out its mission to further bilateral relations between the United States and Vietnam through educational exchanges in science, technology, and other fields. In light of challenges identified in managing VEF's operations, GAO was asked to examine the extent to which VEF has implemented a framework for internal control. To address this objective, GAO analyzed VEF's financial statements, audits, board meeting minutes, and policies and procedures, and conducted interviews with past and current board members, as well as VEF management and staff. GAO's Standards for Internal Control were used to assess this information"

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO provided information on U.S. and European defense contractors' business alliances, focusing on: (1) the types alliances companies are establishing and their reasons for forming alliances; (2) why companies prefer certain types of alliances over others; and (3) whether U.S. laws, regulations, policies, and practices influence a company's decision to form an alliance or its choice of a type of alliance."

Other written product issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "This is a supplement to GAO-10-113. We obtained information from 13 selected federal departments and agencies on their current and planned climate change adaptation efforts as part of a broader review of climate change adaptation (see GAO-10-113). We present this information to provide a more complete picture of the activities that federal agencies consider to be related to climate change adaptation than has been available publicly. We obtained this information directly from the agencies participating in the U.S. Global Change Research Program. Importantly, we did not modify the content of the agency submissions (except to remove references to named individuals) or assess its validity. In addition, because this information represents the efforts of a selected group of federal agencies, the agency activities compiled in this report should not be considered a comprehensive list of all recent and ongoing climate change adaptation efforts across the federal government."

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "In its role as the nation's tax collector, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) has a demanding responsibility in annually collecting over $2 trillion in taxes, processing hundreds of millions of tax and information returns, and enforcing the nation's tax laws. Since its first audit of IRS's financial statements in fiscal year 1992, GAO has identified a number of weaknesses in IRS's financial management operations. In related reports, GAO has recommended corrective action to address those weaknesses. Each year, as part of the annual audit of IRS's financial statements, GAO not only makes recommendations to address any new weaknesses identified but also follows up on the status of weaknesses GAO identified in previous years' audits. The purpose of this report is to (1) assist IRS management in tracking the status of audit recommendations and actions needed to fully address them and (2) demonstrate how the recommendations relate to control activities central to IRS's mission and goals. GAO is making no new recommendations in this report."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Improving the federal hiring process is critical given the increasing number of new hires expected in the next few years. Congress asked GAO to report on the (1) status of recent efforts to help improve the federal hiring process and (2) extent to which federal agencies are using two new hiring flexibilities--category rating and direct-hire authority. Category rating permits an agency to select any job candidate placed in a best-qualified category. Direct-hire authority allows an agency to appoint individuals to positions without adherence to certain competitive examination requirements when there is a severe shortage of qualified candidates or a critical hiring need."

Correspondence issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "We are reviewing the Department of Defense's (DOD) management of its unaccompanied enlisted permanent party housing, commonly referred to as barracks for unmarried servicemembers. We understand that over the next few years the services plan to eliminate barracks with gang latrines and provide private sleeping rooms (meet DOD's 1+1 barracks design standard) for all permanent party servicemembers. The Navy has an additional goal to provide barracks for sailors who currently live aboard ships when in homeport. To implement these goals, the services plan to spend about $6 billion over the next 7 years to construct new barracks. In addition to reviewing the services' plans and exploring opportunities for reducing costs, one of our objectives is to assess the consistency of and the rationale behind the services' barracks occupancy requirements. While we expect to complete our review of DOD's management of military barracks early in 2003, the purpose of this interim report is to bring to the attention Secretary of Defense the widely varying standards among the services regarding who should live in barracks, the effect this can have on program costs and quality of life, and the apparently …

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO provided information on differences in the Army's and Air Force's disbursing and accounting records, focusing on: (1) if, and to what extent, contract payment transactions recorded in the Army and the Air Force official accounting records differed from mechanization of contract administration services (MOCAS) disbursing system records; (2) the types of differences between the disbursing and accounting systems and, to the extent possible, the causes for the differences; and (3) the potential effect any identified deficiencies may have on the Department of Defense's (DOD) planned contract payment system improvements."

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "In the interest of national security and personal privacy and for other reasons, federal agencies place dissemination restrictions on information that is unclassified yet still sensitive. The Department of Energy (DOE) and the Department of Defense (DOD) have both issued policy guidance on how and when to protect sensitive information. DOE marks documents with this information as Official Use Only (OUO) while DOD uses the designation For Official Use Only (FOUO). GAO was asked to (1) identify and assess the policies, procedures, and criteria DOE and DOD employ to manage OUO and FOUO information and (2) determine the extent to which DOE's and DOD's training and oversight programs assure that information is identified, marked, and protected according to established criteria."

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Since 2001, Labor has spent nearly $900 million on three workforce employment and training grant initiatives: High Growth Job Training Initiative (High Growth), Community-Based Job Training Initiative (Community Based), and the Workforce Innovation in Regional Economic Development (WIRED). GAO was asked to examine (1) the intent of the grant initiatives and the extent to which Labor will be able to assess their effects, (2) the extent to which the process used competition, was adequately documented, and included key players, and (3) what Labor is doing to monitor individual grantee compliance with grant requirements. To answer these questions, GAO obtained from Labor a list of grants for fiscal years 2001 through 2007, and reviewed relevant laws and Labor's internal grant award procedures. GAO interviewed grantees, and state and local workforce officials in seven states where grantees were located, Labor officials, and subject matter experts."

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Information technology (IT) is critical to the Department of Housing and Urban Development's (HUD) ability to carry out its home ownership and community development mission. Provisions of the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2010, require HUD to develop and submit to Congress an expenditure plan for its efforts to modernize the department's IT environment prior to using 75 percent of the funds made available for IT modernization. The plan is to satisfy certain statutory conditions and is to be reviewed by GAO. Accordingly, GAO's objectives were to (1) determine whether HUD's revised plan satisfies statutory conditions and (2) provide observations about the plan and management of HUD's IT modernization program. To accomplish this, GAO assessed the plan against the statutory conditions, analyzed department documentation and relevant plans on key internal management controls, and reviewed HUD's efforts to address open GAO recommendations. GAO also interviewed cognizant department officials."

Correspondence issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Fostering a democratic and publicly elected government in Iraq is a U.S. foreign policy priority. According to the President, the United States intends to help Iraq achieve democracy and has a vital national interest in the success of free institutions in Iraq. Toward that end, the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) transferred power to a sovereign Iraqi interim government on June 28, 2004. With assistance from the United Nations (UN) and international community, the interim government held a national election for a transitional National Assembly on January 30, 2005. To help Iraq prepare for this election, the United States obligated approximately $130 million to provide assistance to the Independent Electoral Commission of Iraq (IECI), Iraqi nongovernmental organizations (NGO), and political entities. Much of this assistance is directed at not only the January 30 elections but also the two subsequent elections--a constitutional referendum and political election--scheduled before the end of 2005. As part of our effort to monitor Iraq reconstruction, we have gathered information on efforts to support Iraq's political transition. This report was initiated under the Comptroller General's statutory authority and is being addressed to the committees of jurisdiction. …

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "The Medicare Prescription Drug, Improvement, and Modernization Act of 2003 (MMA) requires the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) to conduct large-scale competitive bidding for durable medical equipment, supplies, off-the-shelf orthotics, and enteral nutrients and related equipment and supplies provided to beneficiaries. The Balanced Budget Act of 1997 mandated that GAO study an earlier Medicare competitive bidding demonstration. To address this mandate, GAO assessed this past experience in relation to four issues that CMS might consider as it implements large-scale competitive bidding: (1) items for competitive bidding, (2) how to streamline implementation, (3) ways to collect information on specific items provided to beneficiaries, and (4) steps to ensure quality items and services."

Testimony issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "GAO was asked to assess the overall economy and efficiency of the Department of Defense (DOD) program for excess property reutilization (reuse). Specifically, GAO was asked to determine (1) whether and to what extent the program included waste and inefficiency and (2) root causes of any waste and inefficiency. GAO was also asked to provide detailed examples of waste and inefficiency and the related causes. GAO's methodology included an assessment of controls, analysis of DOD excess inventory data, statistical sampling at selected sites, and detailed case studies of many items."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO reviewed the Veterans Benefits Administration's (VBA) claims processing procedures, focusing on: (1) practices that individual regional offices believe have helped them improve the accuracy of their disability decisions and remand rates; and (2) VBA's efforts to evaluate and disseminate information on individual regional office practices that hold promise for improving accuracy and remand rates of regional offices nationwide."