A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "GAO reviewed the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's (NASA) fiscal year 2000 performance report to assess the agency's progress in achieving selected key outcomes important to NASA's mission. The selected key outcomes are to (1) expand scientific knowledge of the Earth system, (2) expand the commercial development of space, and (3) deploy and operate the International Space Station safely and cost effectively. NASA reported mixed progress in achieving these key outcomes. In general, NASA's strategies for achieving unmet performance targets for theses outcomes are clear and reasonable. NASA achieved most targets related to expanding knowledge of the Earth system. However, its progress in other areas was more limited. NASA has made improvements in its fiscal year 2000 performance report in comparison to its fiscal year 1999 performance report. Specifically, NASA describes its verification and validation efforts and discloses its data sources for each performance target. NASA's report partially addressed the governmentwide high-risk area of strategic human capital management but not the area of information security. GAO has previously found that NASA lacks an effective agencywide security program. NASA's report only addressed two of the three critical …

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Many small employers--those with 50 or fewer workers--do not offer health benefits to their employees. This is particularly true for employers with fewer than 10 workers. The families of workers employed by small employers are about twice as likely to be uninsured as households with a worker at a large employer. Despite efforts by Congress and the states to help small employers buy coverage, many small employers continue to cite cost as a major obstacle to providing coverage. Small and large employers purchasing health insurance generally had comparable premiums in 1998, but this comparison does not fully reflect the challenges facing small employers in providing health insurance for their employees. Although the premiums were similar, the health plans offered by small employers were slightly less generous on average--they had slightly higher average cost-sharing requirements for their employees and were somewhat less likely to offer some benefits, excluding, for example, mental health services and chiropractic care. Also, insurers' costs to administer employer-based health insurance and protect against potentially large health care costs result in a larger share of small employers' premium dollars being spent on these nonbenefit …

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "The Veterans Benefits Administration (VBA) developed a computer-assisted training program, known as the Training and Performance Support System (TPSS), to help its employees become more accurate in processing disability compensation and pension claims. The program seeks to provide uniform and consistent training to employees in 57 regional offices. Although VBA's long-term goal is to attain a 96 percent accuracy rate for claims processing, VBA reported an accuracy rate of only 59 percent for fiscal year 2000. This report reviews (1) the status of the TPSS program's development and implementation and (2) the extent to which TPSS will meet its objectives. GAO found that despite VBA's objective to centrally develop a standardized training program, significant delays in the development of TPSS are hindering the program's ability to provide standardized training to claims processing employees. According to VBA's current schedule, the full development of the program will not be completed until at least 2004, or about two years later than VBA had planned. Although VBA provided nine training modules to regional offices to begin the program, the extent to which the offices implemented them varied considerably. Many offices …

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Medicare's physician fee schedule establishes payments for more than 7,000 different services, such as office visits, surgical procedures, and treatments. Before 1992, fees were based on charges physicians billed for these services. Since then, the Health Care Financing Administration (HCFA), which runs Medicare, has been phasing in a new fee schedule on the basis of the amount of resources used to provide that service relative to other services. The development of the resource-based practice expense component was a substantial undertaking. The implementation of the resource-based methodology has been the subject of considerable controversy, partly because of HCFA's adjustments to the underlying data and basic method and partly because payment changes were required to be budget-neutral--which means that total Medicare spending for physician services was to be the same under the new payment method as it was under the old one. As a result, Medicare payments to some specialties have increased while payments to other specialties have decreased. Oncologists claim that their practice expense payments are particularly inadequate for some office-based services, such as chemotherapy. Oncology practice expense payments in 2001 are eight percent higher than they …

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "To protect themselves against large out-of-pocket expenses and help fill gaps in Medicare coverage, most beneficiaries buy supplemental insurance, known as Medigap; contribute to employer-sponsored health benefits to supplement Medicare coverage; or enroll in private Medicare+Choice plans rather than traditional fee-for-service Medicare. Because Medicare+Choice plans are not available everywhere and many employers do not offer retiree health benefits, Medigap is sometimes the only supplemental insurance option available to seniors. Medicare beneficiaries who buy Medigap plans have coverage for essentially all major Medicare cost-sharing requirements, including coinsurance and deductibles. But this "first-dollar" coverage may undermine incentives for prudent use of Medicare services, which could ultimately boost costs for the Medicare program. Although various proposals have been made to add a prescription drug benefit to Medicare, relatively few beneficiaries buy standardized Medigap plans with this benefit. Low enrollment in these plans may be due to the fact that fewer plans are being marketed with these benefits; their relatively high cost; and the limited nature of their prescription drug benefit, which still requires beneficiaries to pay more than half of their prescription drug costs. Most plans have a $3,000 …

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Federal law enforcement and intelligence agencies are seeking to add new techniques to their arsenal of investigative tools. "Brain fingerprinting" measures brain wave responses to determine whether an individual recognizes certain details of an event or activity. Because the technique requires specific information about the event that would be known only to the perpetrator and the investigator, Brain Fingerprinting is not designed as a screening tool--a function that involves questioning a subject about events unknown to the investigator. Instead, an investigator would be able to use certain information as evidence for or against a subject. For example, the technique could be used to determine whether a subject has knowledge of details about a crime. Officials representing the Central Intelligence Agency, the Department of Defense, the Secret Service, and the Federal Bureau of Investigation do not forsee using the brain fingerprinting technique because of its limited use. Furthermore, given the technique's limitations, the research expenses, equipment, and training costs are perceived to exceed benefits."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "This report responds to a concern that budget-scoring restrictions were forcing the General Services Administration (GSA) to rely on shorter term leases that increase the costs to the Federal Buildings Fund because their per-square-foot costs are greater than longer term leases. Budget-scorekeeping rules are to be used by the scorekeepers to ensure compliance with budget laws and that legislation are consistent with scorekeeping conventions and that specific legal requirements. The rules are reviewed annually and revised as necessary to achieve those purposes. The way in which budget-scoring rules were implemented affected the lease or lease project term of at least 13 of the 39 federal agency leases GAO reviewed. Since GSA officials do not generally seek comparisons of long-term versus short-term leases in the solicitation process, GAO could not determine the overall monetary impact of budget scoring in the lease term. However, GAO identified three isolated cases that had comparisons of long term versus short-term leases in the solicitation process, and, in each case, the price per net useable square foot was lower with the longer term lease. GSA officials said that while budget scoring affects …

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Since 1990, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) has provided more than $27 billion in disaster assistance, more than half of which was spent for public assistance projects, such as repairs of damaged roads, government buildings, utilities, and hospitals. FEMA uses established criteria to determine whether to (1) recommend that the President declare a disaster and (2) once a disaster has been declared, approve and fund Public Assistance projects. In 1999, FEMA published formal criteria for recommending the presidential approval of disaster declarations. These criteria include both minimum financial thresholds and other qualitative measures that FEMA applies in deciding whether to recommend presidential approval. These criteria do not necessarily indicate a state's ability to pay for the damage because they do not consider the substantial differences in states' financial capacities to respond when disasters occur. As a result, federal funds may be provided for some disasters when they are not needed. Problems with applying FEMA's criteria remain. In part, these problems may persist because many of the staff assigned to disaster field offices who make eligibility decisions are temporary and may not have the skills and …

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Since the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) issued the Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point system (HACCP) regulations for seafood, the food industry has made some progress in ensuring the safety of seafood. However, several important weaknesses compromise the overall effectiveness of the federal seafood safety system. If left uncorrected, they will continue to undermine the goal of HACCP systems--that is, controlling hazards in the production process before the product reaches the market. More importantly, U.S. consumers may remain at risk of contracting foodborne illness from contaminated domestic and imported seafood products."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "The Digital Millennium Copyright Act was enacted to ensure that members of actors', directors', and writers' unions were paid residuals when films were reused in television and video. GAO's analysis of motion picture industry data found that, in the three years leading up to the 1998 legislation, at most, about 2 percent of the $1.7 billion in residuals owed went unpaid. The unpaid residuals accrued when production companies did not require distributors to pay residuals upon reuse of the film. In reviewing films made under contract with an actors' union between 1996 and 1998, GAO found 771 films for which residuals had not been paid or obligations assumed. About 87 percent of these films were low-budget productions costing less than $2 million. Because these low-budget films typically generate little in the way of earnings on which residuals are based, the amount of lost residuals is relatively small. Although there has been little impact on the motion picture industry so far, the legislation could affect the profitability of low-budget films. The payment of previously unpaid residuals could increase the production and distribution costs of low-budget films, thereby …

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Through four rounds of base closures and realignments between 1988 and 1995, the Department of Defense (DOD) expected to reduce its domestic infrastructure and provide needed dollars for high priority programs, such as weapons modernization. Although DOD projects it will realize significant recurring savings from the closures and realignments, Congress continues to raise questions about how much, if any, money has been saved through the base closure process. Two GAO reports issued in late 1998 concluded that net savings from the four closure rounds were substantial but that the cost and savings estimates used to calculate the net savings were imprecise. This report reviews (1) the basis for DOD's recent increase in net savings projected to be realized from the closure process and (2) GAO's previous observations on the basis for savings from base closure and realignment actions and the precision of the cost and savings estimates. DOD's fiscal year 2001 budget request and documentation show that it now expects net savings of about $15.5 billion through fiscal year 2001 and about $6.1 billion in annual recurring savings thereafter, an increase from the $14.2 billion and …

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "The Fish and Wildlife Service's (FWS) Carlesbad office is developing a computerized project-tracking system for its consultation and habitat conservation planning (HCP) projects. This system, if properly implemented, should improve the office's record keeping and its ability to track the status of projects and help determine why they are in that status. The new system could also improve project management by allowing office managers to determine how long an applicant has been involved in the consultation or HCP process and whether the recommended time frames for completing consultations and the targeted frames for processing HCPs have been exceeded. The Carlsbad office will still have difficulty completing its consultations and HCP projects within recommended or targeted time frames if it is unable to address its staffing problems. An inability to hire new staff and retain existing, experienced staff has made it difficult for the Carlsbad office to meet the demands of its workload. Because the Carlsbad office does not maintain its project files in accordance with federal internal control standards and FWS' guidelines, there has often been confusion between the office and its customers on what was …

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers estimates that it will spend as much as $20 billion to clean up contamination at thousands of properties that were once owned, leased, or operated by the Defense Department (DOD). These properties contain hazardous, toxic, and radioactive wastes in the soil and water or in containers, such as underground storage tanks. The Corps is responsible for cleaning up the hazards, including removing underground storage tanks. DOD's annual report on its environmental restoration activities can provide a misleading picture of the Corps' accomplishments. DOD's accounts of completed projects include projects that were ineligible or that did not involve any actual cleanup effort. As a result, the impression is that--after 15 years and expenditures of $2.6 billion--more than half of the projects at formerly used defense sites have been completed. In reality, only about 32 percent of those projects that required actual cleanup actions have been completed, and those are the cheapest and least technologically challenging. The Corps estimates that the remaining projects will cost more than $13 billion and take upwards of 70 years to complete. The Corps' reporting of completed …

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "This report focuses on the debt collection processes and procedures used by the Department of Health and Human Services' (HHS) Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS). The primary reason for the growth of CMS' civil monetary penalties (CMP) receivables was the expansion of fraud and abuse detection activities from fiscal year 1995 through fiscal year 1997 that significantly increased reported fraud and abuse debts in fiscal year 1997. GAO's analysis of CMS' CMP receivable data revealed similar financial accountability and reporting issues as those identified for non-CMP receivables by CMS' external financial statement auditors. GAO identified (1) unreconciled differences of tens of millions of dollars in the CMP receivables balances reported by HHS and CMS for fiscal years 1997 through 1999 and (2) an unreconciled net difference of about $22 million between the CMP receivables balance in CMS' general ledger and the detailed subsidiary systems as of September 30, 2000. The data reliability issue prevented GAO from determining the overall adequacy of the CMP debt collection policies and procedures. However, GAO's limited tests showed that debt collection policies and procedures were followed for 11 of …

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "This report reviews the Federal Aviation Administration's (FAA) progress on implementing the Free Flight Program, which would provide more flexibility in air traffic operations. This program would increase collaboration between FAA and the aviation community. By using a set of new automated technologies (tools) and procedures, free flight is intended to increase the capacity and efficiency of the nation's airspace system while helping to minimize delays. GAO found that the scheduled March 2002 date will be too early for FAA to make an informed investment decision about moving to phase 2 of its Free Flight Program because of significant technical and operational issues. Furthermore, FAA's schedule for deploying these tools will not allow enough time to collect enough data to fully analyze their expected benefits. Currently, FAA lacks enough data to demonstrate that these tools can be relied upon to provide accurate data."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Passengers on the same commercial airline flight may pay very different fares. This situation has led to dissatisfaction among some passengers who believe that airline ticketing practices are unfair. To reduce their cost of flying, some passengers have tried to use "hidden-city" and "back-to-back" ticketing. Hidden-city ticketing occurs when a passenger books a flight to one city but purposely deplanes at an intermediate city. Though never intending to make the last leg of the flight, the passenger buys the ticket because it is cheaper than a ticket to the intermediate city. Back-to-back ticketing occurs when a passenger buys two round-trip tickets that include a Saturday night stay but either uses only half the ticket coupons or uses all the coupons out of sequence. This practice results in a lower price than would be possible by purchasing round-trip tickets that did not include a Saturday night stay. Most airlines expressly forbid the use of hidden-city and back-to-back ticketing. This report reviews (1) the factors that airlines consider when setting fares; (2) the factors that create hidden-city ticketing and the pricing practices that foster back-to-back ticketing practices; (3) …

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "The National Association of Insurance Commissioners' (NAIC) evaluates a state's program for regulating insurer solvency about once every five years to determine if it meets the association's minimum standards. The accreditation program has been in place for about 10 years. During that time, NAIC expanded the standards and modified the process for evaluating the adequacy of states' solvency regulation. Weaknesses in solvency regulation in Tennessee, Mississippi, and three other states allowed a $200 million insurance fraud to continue for eight years, resulting in the failure of seven insurance companies. During 2000, both Tennessee and Mississippi underwent accreditation reviews by NAIC and were reaccredited. NAIC has tried to strengthen its accreditation program by adding model laws and regulations to the required standards. It has also revised the way in which accreditation reviews are performed and scored and has improved training for members of review teams. Accreditation reviews done in Tennessee and Mississippi disclosed gaps and weaknesses in the accreditation program. In particular, the program does not cover a key area of solvency regulation--chartering and change in ownership of insurance companies. Oversight of chartering and change in ownership …

A chapter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Americans have become increasingly concerned about the downside of growth and development--increasing dependence on automobiles; worsening traffic congestion; and the loss of farmland, forests, and open space. Some are also concerned that "urban sprawl" can increase air and water pollution, endanger their health, and even threaten their livelihood. Most local transportation planners and state air quality managers do not consider the effects of different land use strategies on air quality. They do not do so principally because nonpoint sources are diffuse and difficult to identify and measure. According to local transportation planners and state air quality managers, federal agencies could help remove barriers to, and provide incentives for, assessing and mitigating the environmental impacts of land use. They proposed actions in the following three key areas: (1) financial incentives for transportation, environmental, and local decisionmakers to collaborate on land use strategies that limit adverse impacts on air and water quality; (2) technical capacity to assess and mitigate land use impacts; and (3) educating the public and local officials about the environmental impacts of their transportation and land use decisions and alternative development strategies that better protect …

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "The military's ability to carry out its mission depends on having adequate supplies of spare parts on hand for equipment maintenance. Shortages are a key indicator of whether the billions of dollars spent on these parts each year are used effectively, efficiently, and economically. The Navy has acknowledged in recent years that its aviation systems have significant readiness and supply problems. Since 1990, GAO has included Defense Department (DOD) inventory management, including spare parts, on its list of government functions at high risk for waste, fraud, abuse, and mismanagement. This report reviews (1) the impact of shortages of spare parts for two selected aircraft--the EA-6B Prowler and F-14 Tomcat, (2) the reasons for the shortages, and (3) the initiatives that the Navy and the Defense Logistics Agency have in place or planned to address overall spare part shortage issues. GAO found that spare parts shortages for the two aircraft have harmed Navy's readiness and the economy and efficiency of maintenance activities. Spare parts shortages have contributed to problems retaining military personnel. Navy managers attributed the spare parts shortages to the fact that more parts were required …

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "As part of its Accuracy and Coverage Evaluation (ACE), the U.S. Census Bureau interviewed people across the country to develop an estimate of the number of persons missed, counted more than once, or otherwise improperly counted in the 2000 census. In conducting the interviews, which took place in person or over the phone, Census faced several challenges, including (1) completing the operation on schedule, (2) ensuring data quality, (3) overcoming unexpected computer problems, (4) obtaining a quality address list, and (5) keeping the interviews independent of census follow-up operations to ensure unbiased estimates of census errors. The Bureau completed the interviews largely ahead of schedule. On the basis of the results of its quality assurance program, the Bureau assumes that about one-tenth of one percent of all cases nationally would have failed the program because they were believed to have been falsified. Early on, the Bureau dealt with an unexpected problem with its automated work management system, which allows supervisors to selectively reassign work among interviewers. According to the Bureau officials, the Bureau addressed the underlying programming error within two weeks, and the operations proceeded on …

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Increasing the housing allowance should help satisfy servicemembers' demand for civilian housing. Of those servicemembers who receive an allowance or live in military housing, about 72 percent said that they would prefer civilian housing if the costs were the same, but only about two-thirds now live in civilian housing. Thus, if military members' housing preferences were satisfied, thousands of additional personnel would be in civilian housing instead of military housing. As the Department of Defense (DOD) increases the housing allowance during the next five years, the overall demand for civilian housing should increase, while the demand for military housing should decline. As a result, DOD should be in a better position to implement its stated policy of relying on the private sector first for housing. DOD cannot expect a substantial increase in retention solely as a result of higher housing allowances. Together, housing and housing allowances were cited by less than one percent of those surveyed as reasons for leaving the military. Overall, of those living in military housing, more were satisfied than dissatisfied. Of those living in civilian housing, a high proportion were satisfied with …

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "During the last decade, as most federal agencies downsized, the Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) workforce grew by about 18 percent. Much of this growth occurred in EPA's 10 regional offices, which carry out most of the agency's efforts to encourage industry compliance with environmental regulations. Currently, EPA's workforce of 17,000 individuals includes scientists, engineers, lawyers, environmental protection specialists, and mission-support staff. Some Members of Congress have questioned whether EPA is giving enough attention to managing this large and diverse workforce. The workforce management practices of EPA's Office of Enforcement and Compliance Assurance (OECA)--which takes direct action against violators of environmental statutes and oversees the environmental enforcement activities of states--have come under particular scrutiny because its enforcement activities span all of EPA's programs and regions. Although EPA has began several initiatives during the last decade to better organize and manage its workforce, it has not received the resources and senior-level management attention needed to realize them. This report reviews (1) the extent to which EPA's strategy includes the key elements associated with successful human capital strategies, (2) the major human capital challenges EPA faces in the successful …

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "GAO reviewed information system general controls over the financial systems that process and account for the financial activities of the District of Columbia's Highway Trust Fund. GAO identified serious computer security weaknesses that place District information at risk of deliberate or inadvertent misuse. These general control problems affected the District's ability to (1) prevent or detect unauthorized changes to sensitive data and (2) control electronic and physical access to confidential information. The District's lack of a comprehensive computer management program was the primary reason for its information system control problems."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "The National Personnel Records Center (NPRC) is responsible for maintaining the official military personnel records of discharged members of the military services. Veterans frequently need their records for a variety of reasons, such as obtaining disability compensation, health benefits, GI bill education benefits, home loan guarantees, and burial in national cemeteries. However, access to these benefits has been hampered due to delays in obtaining documentation of their military service from NPRC. This report evaluates NPRC's timeliness in responding to veterans' requests for records. GAO reviewed (1) how long it took NPRC to answer veterans' requests for records and (2) whether the actions NPRC was taking would improve response time. GAO found that, in fiscal year 2000, NPRC took an average of 54 days to respond to written requests for records, answering about six percent of written requests within 10 working days. Actions NPRC was taking to respond more quickly were unlikely to significantly improve timeliness soon, and the prospects for meeting its fiscal year 2005 goal of answering 95 percent of requests within 10 working days were unclear."