A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Agencies GAO surveyed reported operating fewer in-house printing plants than in 1990. Specifically, surveyed agencies reported operating 64 percent fewer plants than the number listed in the Congress's Joint Committee on Printing's (JCP) Government Printing and Binding Regulations, updated in 1990 (1990 JCP Regulations). The Department of Defense (DOD) accounted for the greatest decline in in-house printing plants. The 1990 JCP Regulations listed 142 DOD printing plants; however, the Defense Logistics Agency, which currently manages the majority of DOD's printing infrastructure, reported 17 in-house printing plants in GAO's survey. In addition, most agencies reported operating toner-based high-speed duplication machines, and fewer reported operating ink-based conventional printing presses. Of the 32 agencies operating in-house printing plants, 17 reported that all of their in-house printing was conducted on high-speed duplication machines; another 14 agencies reported operating some duplication equipment in addition to conventional printing presses (the remaining agency did not report its type of equipment). No agency reported having only ink-based conventional printing presses at its in-house plants. In addition, interviews with selected agencies showed declines in printing volumes and total spending, and suggested that agencies spent more …

Testimony issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "In September 2012, GAO reported that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) does not know the total amount its components invest in research and development (R&D) and does not have policies and guidance for defining R&D and overseeing R&D resources across the department. According to DHS, its Science & Technology Directorate (S&T), Domestic Nuclear Detection Office (DNDO), and U. S. Coast Guard (Coast Guard) are the only components that conduct R&D, and GAO found that these are the only components that report budget authority, obligations, or outlays for R&D activities to the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) as part of the budget process. However, GAO identified an additional $255 million in R&D obligations made by other DHS components. According to DHS, it is difficult to identify all R&D investments across the department because DHS does not have a department wide policy defining R&D or guidance directing components how to report all R&D spending and activities. As a result, it is difficult for DHS to oversee components' R&D efforts and align them with agency wide R&D goals and priorities. GAO recommended that DHS develop specific policies and guidance …

Testimony issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "In brief, GAO's work found that CMS will operate a health insurance exchange in the 34 states that will not operate a state-based exchange for 2014. While CMS will retain full authority over each of these 34 FFEs, it planned to allow 15 of these states to assist it in carrying out certain FFE functions. However, the activities that CMS plans to carry out in these 15 exchanges, as well as in the 17 state-based exchanges, have evolved and may continue to change. For example, CMS approved states' exchange arrangements on the condition that states ultimately complete activities necessary for exchange implementation. Agency officials indicated that they were working with each state to develop mitigation strategies to ensure that all applicable exchange functions are operating in each state on October 1, 2013. CMS indicated that it would carry out more exchange functions if any state did not adequately progress towards implementation of all required activities."

Testimony issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "GAO found the following:"

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and selected components are implementing strategies to fill mission-critical occupations (MCO), which are those occupations most critical to an agency's mission. In 2011, the Office of Diversity and Inclusion (D&I)--which coordinates component recruiting efforts--developed the Coordinated Recruiting and Outreach Strategy (CROS). Through the CROS, D&I intends to better coordinate and link component recruiting and outreach efforts to hiring for DHS mission and workforce needs (for all positions, including MCOs), and to leverage resources as well as reduce recruiting costs, among other things. D&I has begun to implement the CROS through various means, including requiring components to develop their own outreach and recruiting plans that align with the CROS. However, D&I has been limited in its ability to implement some elements of the CROS--such as recruiter training--because of budget constraints, according to D&I officials. The components selected for GAO's review--the National Protection and Programs Directorate, Transportation Security Administration (TSA), U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, and U.S. Secret Service (USSS)--have also implemented various strategies to recruit and hire MCOs. In addition, these four components have generally been able to address hiring needs …

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "The performance of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s (NASA) portfolio of major projects has improved in the areas of cost and schedule growth since GAO’s first assessment in 2009. Average development cost growth and schedule delay for the current portfolio have decreased to about a third of their 2009 levels."

Testimony issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "The new F-35 acquisition baseline reflects positive restructuring actions taken by the Department of Defense (DOD) since 2010, including more time and funding for development and deferred procurement of more than 400 aircraft to future years. Overall, the program progressed on several fronts during 2012 to further improve the current outlook. The program achieved 7 of 10 key management objectives and made substantial progress on one other. Two objectives on aircraft deliveries and a corrective management plan were not met. The F-35 development test program substantially met expectations with some revisions to flight test plans and made considerable progress addressing key technical risks. Software management practices and some output measures improved, although deliveries to test continued to lag behind plans. Manufacturing and supply processes also improved--indicators such as factory throughput, labor efficiency, and quality measures were positive. While initial F-35 production overran target costs and delivered aircraft late, the latest data shows labor hours decreasing and deliveries accelerating."

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Over time, Congress has modified how Medicare reimburses certain hospitals under the inpatient prospective payment system (IPPS), which pays hospitals a flat fee per stay, set in advance, with different amounts for each type of condition. GAO identified numerous statutory provisions that individually increased Medicare payments to a subset of hospitals."

Testimony issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "The AMP process, which the judiciary has applied to about 67 percent of its courthouses, represents progress by the judiciary in aligning its capital-planning process with leading capital-planning practices, but the document the judiciary uses to request courthouse construction projects from Congress lacks transparency and key information. For example, the AMP process better aligns with leading practices for identifying real property needs by establishing a comprehensive, nationwide 328-factor analysis of every courthouse, whereas the previous process only assessed courthouses when requested by a local judicial district. However, the AMP process does not fully align with several leading practices due to, for example, its lack of linkage to the judiciary's strategic plan. Two courthouse projects illustrate how the AMP process has changed the way the judiciary evaluates its need for new courthouses. Specifically, two projects listed on a previous 5-year plan (covering fiscal years 2012 through 2016) were re-evaluated under AMP--San Jose, California, and Greenbelt, Maryland. Both had ranked among the top 15 most urgent projects nationwide under the previous capital-planning process, and as such, the judiciary prioritized them for new construction in 2010. However, after the judiciary evaluated …

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "According to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), 12 of its 20 major information technology (IT) investments were within 10 percent of cost and schedule estimates or significantly below cost between October 2011 and October 2012. For the remaining 8 investments, 3 were reported as being significantly over cost and 5 were reported as being significantly behind schedule. Reported reasons for these significant variances include unplanned work activities, procurement delays, and additional costs associated with terminating an investment that was being replaced."

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "In fiscal year 2012, the Navy and the Air Force met their adjusted civilian workforce cap targets, but the Army did not. The Department of Defense (DOD) estimated the civilian workforce cap saved the department $2.2 billion in fiscal year 2012 and would save a total of $11.5 billion through 2016. At the time the cap was extended to the services, each was executing its fiscal year 2011 budgets with additional planned growth expected. Further, the services were granted departmentwide and service-specific exceptions to exceed their fiscal year 2010 levels by 13,001 full-time equivalents (FTE), or 3.7 percent."

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "The Department of Defense (DOD) continues efforts to establish a business enterprise architecture (a modernization blueprint) and transition plan and modernize its business systems and processes, in compliance with key provisions of the Ronald W. Reagan National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2005 and amendments. Nonetheless, long-standing challenges remain. The following reflects the status of DOD’s actions to fulfill selected requirements of the act."

Testimony issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "The U.S. Postal Service (USPS) continues to incur unsustainable operating deficits, has not made required payments of $11.1 billion to prefund retiree health benefits, and has reached its $15 billion borrowing limit. Thus far, USPS has been able to operate within these constraints, but now faces a critical shortage of liquidity that threatens its financial solvency and ability to finance needed capital investment. USPS had an almost 25 percent decline in total mail volume and net losses totaling $40 billion since fiscal year 2006. While USPS achieved about $15 billion in savings and reduced its workforce by about 168,000 over this period, its debt and unfunded benefit liabilities grew to $96 billion by the end of fiscal year 2012. USPS expects mail volume and revenue to continue decreasing as online bill communication and e-commerce expand."

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins ""

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Beneficiaries with continuous health insurance coverage for approximately 6 years before enrolling in Medicare were more likely than those without prior continuous insurance to report being in good health or better during the first 6 years in Medicare. In particular, having prior continuous insurance raised the predicted probability that a beneficiary reported being in good health or better by nearly 6 percentage points during the first 6 years in Medicare."

Correspondence issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "GAO was unable to compare ELL enrollment in charter schools to ELL enrollment in traditional public schools because Education's only available data on school-level ELL enrollment were unreliable and incomplete. Specifically, for over one-third of charter schools, the field for reporting the counts of ELLs enrolled in ELL programs was left blank. These blank fields cannot reliably be interpreted to mean that the charter schools did not have ELLs enrolled. Education officials told us that these school-level ELL data do not have a data steward (that is, an office responsible for overseeing the quality of the data) and that the quality of the data is not examined on a regular basis. A definitional issue may have resulted in states excluding some students from the reported counts, and some charter schools may have failed to submit required data to their states. Education officials said they had not systematically studied charter school nonreporting but acknowledged that states sometimes have difficulty obtaining data from charter schools. Some charter schools with blank ELL counts were also missing data from other important datasets, such as those on school performance, which suggests potential broader …

Testimony issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "FPS faces challenges ensuring that contract guards have been properly trained and certified before being deployed to federal facilities around the country. In its September 2013 report, GAO found that providing active shooter response and screener training is a challenge for FPS. For example, according to officials at five guard companies, their contract guards have not received training on how to respond during incidents involving an active shooter. Without ensuring that all guards receive training on how to respond to incidents at federal facilities involving an active-shooter, FPS has limited assurance that its guards are prepared for this threat. Similarly, an official from one of FPS's contract guard companies stated that 133 (about 38 percent) of its approximately 350 guards have never received screener training. As a result, guards deployed to federal facilities may be using x-ray and magnetometer equipment that they are not qualified to use which raises questions about their ability to screen access control points at federal facilities--one of their primary responsibilities. GAO was unable to determine the extent to which FPS's guards have received active-shooter response and screener training, in part, because FPS lacks …

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Some investments have been made to improve Guam's public infrastructure in recent years, but many deficiencies and regulatory compliance issues continue to exist. The reliability, capacity, and age of much of the public infrastructure--especially the island's utilities--indicate a need for additional upgrades to be able to meet current and future demands related to the realignment. Further, some infrastructure sectors, such as water and wastewater, face issues complying with federal regulations. Other sectors, such as the fire and police departments, are experiencing staffing and other shortages that affect their ability to serve Guam's current population."

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) has made progress in coordinating with U.S. partner agencies through the whole-of-government approach for the Feed the Future (FTF) initiative that began in 2010. According to USAID documents, this approach involves coordination and integration of expertise and resources across U.S. partner agencies with global food security programs. In reports issued in 2008 and 2010, GAO found that U.S. agency food security efforts were fragmented and uncoordinated. Under FTF, GAO found that USAID leads the whole-of-government approach by better coordinating and integrating partner agencies' knowledge and expertise at three levels: at headquarters in Washington, D.C.; in each of the 19 FTF focus countries; and between the countries and headquarters. In headquarters, USAID and FTF partner agencies established joint strategies and new data management systems to track funding and results across the U.S. government. At the country level, in GAO's survey of U.S. FTF partner agency representatives in 19 FTF focus countries, 93 percent reported coordinating with USAID."

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins ""

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Several of the Department of Homeland Security's (DHS) Federal Protective Service's (FPS) guard requirements are generally comparable to those of the six selected agencies GAO reviewed, but FPS faces challenges in some aspects of guards' training. FPS and the six selected agencies GAO reviewed require basic, firearms, and screener (x-ray and magnetometer equipment) training for their armed guards. However, GAO found that providing screener training remains a challenge for FPS. For example, officials from one of FPS's contract guard companies stated that 133 (about 38 percent) of its approximately 350 guards have never received this training. Similarly, according to officials at five guard companies, some of their contract guards have not received training on how to respond during incidents involving an active shooter. Additionally, while contract guard industry guidance states that all training should be done with a certified instructor, GAO found that FPS does not require guard instructors to be certified to provide basic and refresher training, which represents the majority of guards' training. According to six guard companies, the lack of a requirement has led to having to retrain some guards, potentially increasing costs …

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "While the Department of Defense (DOD) has made some progress in promoting communication among the several organizations responsible for accounting for missing persons--known collectively as the accounting community--DOD's capability and capacity to accomplish its missing persons accounting mission is being undermined by longstanding leadership weaknesses and a fragmented organizational structure. Leadership from the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy (USD Policy) and U.S. Pacific Command (PACOM) have not been able to resolve disagreements among accounting community members, thereby impacting DOD's ability to meet the mandated goal of increasing its capability and capacity to account for 200 missing persons a year by 2015. DOD averaged 72 identifications annually in the decade ending in 2012. GAO found the following areas of progress and continuing areas of weakness:"

Correspondence issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "To operate as effectively and efficiently as possible and to make difficult decisions to address the federal government’s fiscal challenges, Congress, the administration, and federal managers must have ready access to reliable and complete financial and performance information—both for individual federal entities and for the federal government as a whole. Even though significant progress has been made since the enactment of key federal financial management reforms in the 1990s, GAO’s report on the U.S. government’s consolidated financial statements illustrates that much work remains to improve federal financial management. Further improvements are urgently needed."

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "The five selected agencies GAO reviewed are either exploring or taking actions such as increasing "telework" participation and implementing a "hoteling" program--which means that employees give up their individual, permanent space and use shared, nonpermanent workspaces when they are in the office-- to reduce their space needs. For example, as part of its headquarters renovation, the General Services Administration (GSA) is making use of open, collaborative work environments and implementing a hoteling program for all employees. In addition, the Department of Agriculture set agency-wide goals for increasing the number of its employees with approved telework agreements as well as its overall telework participation rates for fiscal year 2013. The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) has taken steps to reduce its space needs as a result of increased workforce mobility for more than a decade, and there are indications that USPTO has avoided real estate costs as a result of its efforts. However, GAO was unable to obtain sufficient information to determine the accuracy and validity of USPTO's estimated cost savings. Beyond USPTO, the agencies GAO reviewed have not yet realized space reductions or cost savings …