Correspondence issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Since our 2004 report, Open World has taken a number of steps to address our recommendations on financial management controls, and has also generally followed leading financial management practices. For example, to address our recommendations, Open World (1) contracted with an independent public accountant to perform an assessment of its ability to be audited; (2) developed Financial Procedures and Directives guidance that covers key activities such as grants; (3) developed the Grant Procedures document, which enhanced accountability for its grantees; (4) submitted its financial statements to an annual financial statement audit since fiscal year 2005, resulting in clean audit opinions since fiscal year 2006; (5) established an audit committee, comprised of independent members that have financial and programmatic knowledge, which also reviews management's annual assessment of its internal controls; and (6) developed guidelines for grantees to calculate and report the estimated value of U.S. volunteers' contributed services, and also disclosed this value as part of its annual budget justification. Open World's financial management controls also generally followed leading practices for financial accountability. For example, Open World (1) developed appropriate policies, procedures, techniques, and mechanisms with respect to each …

Testimony issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "In summary, we found that 68 of the 71 programs that responded to our survey reported that they experienced funding instability, faced workforce shortfalls, or that their planned capabilities changed after initiation. Most respondentsreported a combination of these challenges. We have previously reported that these challenges increase the likelihood acquisition programs will cost more and take longer to deliver capabilities than expected. Although DHS largely does not have reliable cost estimates and realistic schedules to accurately measure program performance, we used our survey results, cost information DHS provided to Congress, and an internal DHS review to identify 42 programs that experienced cost growth, schedule slips, or both. Further, using DHS's future-years funding plans - which aggregate funding levels to produce total project costs - we gained insight into the magnitude of the cost growth for 16 of the 42 programs. The total project costs for these 16 programs increased from $19.7 billion in 2008 to $52.2 billion in 2011, an aggregate increase of 166 percent."

Testimony issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "In March 2012, GAO issued a report on the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services’ (CMS) Medicare Advantage (MA) quality bonus payment demonstration—a demonstration CMS initiated rather than implementing the quality bonus program established under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA). Compared to the PPACA quality bonus program, CMS’s demonstration increases the number of plans eligible for a bonus, enlarges the size of payments for some plans, and accelerates payment phase-in. CMS stated that the demonstration’s research goal is to test whether scaling bonus payments to quality scores MA plans receive increases the speed and degree of annual quality improvements for plans compared with what would have occurred under PPACA. GAO reported that CMS’s Office of the Actuary estimated that the demonstration would cost $8.35 billion over 10 years—an amount greater than the combined budgetary impact of all Medicare demonstrations conducted since 1995. In addition, GAO also found several shortcomings of the demonstration design that preclude a credible evaluation of its effectiveness in achieving CMS’s stated research goal. In July 2012, GAO sent a letter to the Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS), the head …

Correspondence issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "This letter formally transmits the briefing in response to congressional direction in a Senate Appropriations Committee Report (S. Rep. No. 110-129) to report on the 10-year trend in House and Senate campaign costs and the percentage of those costs incurred due to rising broadcast advertising rates. Specifically, we are reporting on the extent to which data on House and Senate campaign operating expenditures, especially media-related expenditures, are available and what the data show about the range of estimates of media-related expenditures as a proportion of itemized operating expenditures. On the basis of the results of our review, we are not making any recommendations for congressional consideration or agency action."

Correspondence issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "On May 10, 2010, the President resubmitted to Congress a proposed Agreement Between the Government of the United States of America and the Government of the Russian Federation for Cooperation in the Field of Peaceful Uses of Nuclear Energy (henceforth referred to as the U.S.-Russia nuclear cooperation agreement or the agreement) in accordance with the review requirements established under section 123 of the Atomic Energy Act of 1954 (AEA), as amended. The proposed agreement with Russia would, among other things, establish the legal basis for the Department of Energy (DOE) to work with Russia on large-scale development of nuclear energy. The United States has 25 agreements in force for peaceful nuclear cooperation with foreign countries, the European Atomic Energy Community (EURATOM), the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), and Taiwan. Such agreements provide the framework and authorization for civilian nuclear cooperation but do not guarantee that cooperation will take place or that nuclear material or technology transfers will occur. On May 13, 2008, President Bush originally submitted the agreement to Congress with the statutorily required presidential determination that this agreement would promote, and would not constitute an unreasonable risk …

Meeting minutes of the Dallas Way meeting on September 21st including project matters discussed and members in attendance.

Testimony issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "The Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program, created in 1996, is one of the key federal funding streams provided to states to assist women and children in poverty. A critical aspect of TANF has been its focus on employment and self-sufficiency, and the primary means to measure state efforts in this area has been TANF's work participation rate requirements. Legislative changes in 2005 were generally expected to strengthen these work requirements. Given changes in the number of families participating in TANF over time and questions about whether the program is achieving its goals, this testimony draws on previous GAO work to focus on 1) key changes to state welfare programs made in response to TANF and other legislation and their effect on caseload trends; 2) how low-income single-parent families are faring; and 3) how recent developments in state programs and the economy may affect federal monitoring of TANF. To address these issues, in previous work conducted from November 2008 to May 2010, GAO analyzed state data reported to the Department of Health and Human Services; used microsimulation analyses; surveyed state TANF administrators in 50 states and the …

Interview with John Fullinwider, who was a teacher and activist in Dallas. Fullinwider discusses growing up in Dallas, his work as an activist in both Austin and Dallas, his time as a teacher, and what he hopes for the future generations of students who want to make change happen.

Part two of an interview with Peter Johnson, who was an activist in Dallas. Johnson discusses his work, including the Operation Breadbasket food drives and hunger manifesto, protests, and the AAMAN program, which ran citizen-led investigations of drug dealers and buyers.

The global and annual mean aerosol direct and indirect effects, relative to 1850 conditions, estimated from CESM simulations are 0.02 W m-2 and -0.39 W m-2, respectively, for emissions in year 2100 under the IPCC RCP8.5 scenario. The indirect effect is much smaller than that for 2000 emissions because of much smaller SO2 emissions in 2100; the direct effects are small due to compensation between warming by black carbon and cooling by sulfate.

The National Museum of the Pacific War presents an oral interview with Fred Heyer. Heyer joined the Navy in March 1945. He went to Great Lakes in Chicago for boot camp. He provides detail of his boot camp experience. From there he went to the U.S. Navy Receiving Station in Seattle where he received and dispatched Army personnel. He then served aboard the USS Clamour (AM-160) beginning October 1945. They were working to put the ship out of commission. His work aboard the ship was clerical, office work, and bringing the crews’ personnel records up-to-date and other duties to de-commission the ship. He was discharged in July 1946. He later re-enlisted in the U.S. Naval Reserve program December 1946, and was recalled to active duty in January 1947. He was assigned as a station keeper at the U.S. Naval Air Station in Millington, Tennessee. He worked in a school for veterans assisting with automotive repair, clerical work and helping veterans organize their service activities. He was released from active duty in August 1948, and released from the Naval Reserve in July 1950.

The National Museum of the Pacific War presents an oral interview with Edwin V. ""Bud"" Niewehuis. Niewenhuis left the family farm in South Dakota and went looking for work in California in December, 1941. He was drafted into the Army in June, 1942. He trained with an anti-aircraft artillery unit before shipping to New Guinea. Niewenhuis participated in the invasion of Morotai and describes defending a captured airfield with the 389th Antiaircraft Artillery Battalion. From Morotai, his unit went to Luzon to prepare for the invasion of Japan that never occurred. He returned home in late 1945 and was discharged in 1946.

Application materials submitted to the Texas Historical Commission requesting a historic marker for the Rylander-Kyle House, in San Marcos, Texas. The materials include the inscription text of the marker, original application, narrative, and photographs.

News release about DART transportation options to the 2015 "Red River Showdown" football game.

News release about 2015's National Night Out, an annual crime prevention event, in which DART Police take part.