A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "As part of the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLBA) of 2001, the Congress authorized a 3-year, $17 million per year school-based mentoring grant program. For fiscal year 2004, Congress has increased funding to about $50 million to fund additional mentoring efforts. Congress requested that GAO provide information on the student mentoring program. To do this, GAO answered the following questions: (1) What are the basic elements, policies, and procedures of successful mentoring programs? (2) What are the key characteristics of NCLBA-funded mentoring efforts, including the extent to which they have the basic elements, policies, and procedures of successful mentoring programs? (3) How does the Department of Education monitor program implementation? (4) What are Education's and grantees' plans to assess program outcomes?"

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Established in March 2002, the Homeland Security Advisory System was designed to disseminate information on the risk of terrorist acts to federal agencies, states, localities, and the public. However, these entities have raised questions about the threat information they receive from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the costs they incurred as a result of responding to heightened alerts. This report examines (1) the decision making process for changing the advisory system national threat level; (2) information sharing with federal agencies, states, and localities, including the applicability of risk communication principles; (3) protective measures federal agencies, states, and localities implemented during high (codeorange) alert periods; (4) costs federal agencies reported for those periods; and (5) state and local cost information collected by DHS."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Members of the Congress and governmental experts have expressed repeated interest in examining the overlapping and fragmented functions and activities of the federal government. As a first-level look at potential overlap and fragmentation, the Chairwoman, Subcommittee on Civil Service and Agency Organization, House Committee on Government Reform, asked GAO to present information on which federal agencies spend funds in which federal mission areas. This report examines federal spending through two commonly used analytical approaches--budget functions and object classifications."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "The National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), a separately organized agency within the Department of Energy (DOE), is responsible for the management and security of the nation's nuclear weapons, nonproliferation, and naval reactor programs. NNSA oversees contractors that operate its facilities to ensure that activities are effective and in line with departmental policy. In December 2002, NNSA began implementing a major reorganization aimed at solving important long-standing organizational issues. GAO reviewed NNSA's overall reorganization efforts to assess (1) the extent to which it is addressing in practice the past problems concerning the unclear delineation of authority and responsibility, (2) workforce planning, and (3) its impact on federal oversight of contractor activities."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "From 1993 through 2002, the Department of Defense (DOD) delivered over $150 billion in services and defense articles, including classified and controlled items, to foreign countries through foreign military sales programs administered by the military. Foreign countries may request items using blanket orders, which are for a specific dollar value and are used to simplify supply actions on certain types of items. GAO was asked to review whether the Navy's key internal controls restricted blanket orders for (1) classified spare parts and (2) controlled items sold to foreign countries. Also, GAO was asked to determine if periodic tests were conducted to ensure that the Navy's system is working as intended."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Medicare covers about 90 percent of patients with end-stage renal disease (ESRD), the permanent loss of kidney function. Most ESRD patients receive regular hemodialysis treatments, a process that removes toxins from the blood, at a dialysis facility. A small percentage dialyzes-at home. From 1991 through 2001, the ESRD patient population more than doubled, from about 201,000 to 406,000. As the need for services grows, so do concerns about beneficiary access to and Medicare payment for dialysis services. The Medicare, Medicaid, and SCHIP Benefits Improvement and Protection Act of 2000 directed GAO to study beneficiaries' access to dialysis services. In this report, GAO (1) assessed the supply of dialysis facilities and the services they provide, overall and relative to beneficiary residence, and (2) assessed the extent to which Medicare payments for dialysis services are adequate and the methodology is appropriate. In order to assess the supply of dialysis facilities, GAO used Facility Surveys collected by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) and outpatient claims, the bills submitted to Medicare by providers of certain outpatient services from 1998 through 2001. To assess the adequacy of Medicare …

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "The Transportation Equity Act for the 21st Century (TEA-21) and subsequent legislation authorized about $8.3 billion in guaranteed funding for the Federal Transit Administration's (FTA) New Starts program, which funds fixed guideway transit projects, such as rail and trolley projects, through FFGAs. GAO assessed the New Starts process for the fiscal year 2005 cycle. GAO identified (1) the number of projects that were evaluated, rated, and proposed for new FFGAs and how recent changes to the process were reflected in ratings; (2) the proposed funding commitments in the administration's budget request and legislative reauthorization proposals; and (3) the extent to which amounts appropriated since 1998 fulfilled FFGAs."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Human capital offices have traditionally used alternative service delivery (ASD)--the use of other than internal staff to provide a service or to deliver a product--as a way to reduce costs for transaction-based services. GAO was asked to identify which human capital activities agencies were selecting for ASD, the reasons why, how they were managing the process, and some of the lessons they had learned. Eight agencies were selected to provide illustrative examples of ASD use."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "The fiscal year 2004 National Defense Authorization Act directed GAO to assess the special pays and allowances for servicemembers who are frequently deployed for less than 30 days, and to specifically review the family separation allowance. GAO's objectives were to assess (1) the rationale for the family separation allowance eligibility requirements, including the required duration of more than 30 consecutive days away from a member's duty station; (2) the extent to which DOD has identified short-term deployments as a family separation allowance issue; and (3) what special pays and allowances, in addition to basic military compensation, are available to compensate members deployed for less than 30 days."