A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO provided information on the Department of Education's Migrant Education Program (MEP) and the Department of Health and Human Services' (HHS) Migrant Head Start Program (MHS), focusing on: (1) the goals of the MEP and MHS programs, how they operate, who they serve, and what services they provide; (2) the extent to which Education and HHS facilitate the coordination of MEP and MHS services within each of their programs and between the two programs; and (3) how well Education and HHS determine whether MEP and MHS achieve their goals and objectives."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO provided information on the effects of laws in Virginia, Maryland, and the District of Columbia, focusing on: (1) the rationale behind selected reforms states have made to their medical malpractice tort law; (2) whether selected tort reforms have reduced malpractice insurance costs and the costs associated with defensive medicine; (3) the extent to which the District, Maryland, and Virginia have adopted selected tort reforms; and (4) comparing malpractice claim payments, insurance premiums, and numbers of physicians in the District; Baltimore, Maryland; and Richmond, Virginia."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO provided information on the actions taken by the Department of Defense (DOD) to improve the accuracy of its cost reporting for contract services."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO provided information on improper payments in light of the projected future growth of federal expenditures, focusing on the: (1) amounts reported by agencies as improper payments in their fiscal year (FY) 1998 financial statements prepared pursuant to the Chief Financial Officers (FO) Act of 1990; (2) types of federal programs at risk of disbursing improper payments; (3) reported causes of improper payments across the federal government; and (4) extent to which agencies are addressing improper payments in their performance plans under the Government Performance and Results Act of 1993."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO reviewed the Public Buildings Service's (PBS) System for Tracking and Administering Real Property (STAR), focusing on: (1) the functions STAR performs; (2) whether users were having problems using STAR; (3) the steps PBS had taken or is taking to address any user problems; and (4) the actions PBS had taken or plans to take to ensure that STAR data are accurate, reliable, and consistent."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO provided information on rail banking, which refers to the preservation of inactive rail lines as trails, focusing on: (1) the implementation process for rail banking, including whether it protects the various interests of landowners, communities, rail carriers, and those interested in converting the rights-of-ways to trails; (2) the extent to which rail-banked property has returned to use as rail lines and the potential for future reactivation of rights-of-way for rail service; and (3) whether rail banking facilitates the return of these rights-of-way to rail service."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO reviewed the preparedness of the federal food safety regulatory agencies to respond to acts or threats of deliberate food contamination, including those by terrorists, focusing on the: (1) extent to which food has been deliberately contaminated with a biological agent (bacteria, virus, or toxin) or threatened to be contaminated with such an agent; and (2) plans and procedures that federal food safety regulatory agencies have for responding to threats and acts of deliberate food contamination with a biological agent."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO reviewed the Department of Defense's (DOD) implementation of the anthrax vaccination program as it is currently structured, focusing on DOD's: (1) ability to maintain an adequate supply of anthrax vaccine for its immunization schedule; (2) system for recording and tracking servicemembers' vaccinations; and (3) steps to educate servicemembers about the program."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO reviewed the District of Columbia (DC) Courts' management of its escrow and other bank accounts, focusing on whether DC Courts: (1) properly reconciled its bank accounts; (2) had adequate controls over fines and fees collected; and (3) had authority to retain amounts deposited into the Crime Victims Fund account."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a legislative requirement, GAO reported on the status of computer security throughout the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA)."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a legislative requirement, GAO provided information on the general and application computer controls over key financial systems maintained and operated by the Financial Management Service (FMS), focusing on the results of GAO's fiscal year (FY) 1998 tests of the effectiveness of general and application controls that support key FMS automated financial systems and GAO's follow up on the status of FMS' corrective actions to address weaknesses identified in its FY 1997 audit."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO provided information on the Federal Bureau of Investigation's (FBI) plans and controls for year 2000 business continuity planning, focusing on: (1) the status of and plans for completing the FBI's contingency planning for continuity of operations; and (2) whether the FBI's contingency planning efforts satisfy the key processes in GAO's year 2000 business continuity and contingency planning guide."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO provided information on the effectiveness of the Department of Defense's efforts to perform year 2000-related end-to-end tests for its major business functions."

A chapter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO provided information on the Forest Service's progress in improving its accounting and financial reporting, focusing on Forest Service's efforts to: (1) achieve financial accountability; (2) become more accountable for its performance; and (3) better align its budget with its strategic goals and objectives."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO reviewed issues concerning financial reporting and internal controls related to the Special Fund established by the Longshore and Harbor Workers' Compensation Act (LHWCA), focusing on: (1) the feasibility of actuarially calculating the unfunded liability of the LHWCA Special Fund; (2) whether controls exist to prevent inappropriate claims from being referred to the Special Fund; (3) whether recipient data are matched against other agencies' databases to reduce the risk of payments being made to ineligible recipients; (4) whether there are equitable distributions of assessments among the insurance carriers/self-insured employers as compared to their claim levels; and (5) the status of changes to the Longshore computer systems."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO reviewed the Army's report on the proliferation of depot maintenance-type activities at non-depot facilities for completeness and adequacy, focusing on the: (1) the total amount of depot maintenance-type work conducted at local maintenance facilities and the cost efficiency of such work in view of the Army's overall requirements; and (2) plans for consolidating fragmented maintenance operations."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO reviewed the extent to which the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) employee evaluation system can support the new mission statement during the period IRS will need to revamp its performance management system, focusing on: (1) determining the relative emphasis on revenue production, efficiency, and customer service in enforcement employees' annual written evaluations; (2) identifying features of the evaluation process that might be used to greater advantage to reinforce the importance of customer service; and (3) describing IRS initiatives to promote customer service, including those to encourage enforcement employees to be taxpayer oriented."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO examined some of the key issues involving vaccine availability for children in developing countries, focusing on the: (1) locations where shortfalls in immunization coverage are most prevalent; and (2) factors that impede vaccine availability in these locations."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a legislative requirement, GAO provided information on the Navy's best practices implementation schedule for the acquisition and distribution of secondary inventory items, which the Navy submitted to Congress on June 16, 1999, focusing on: (1) the extent to which the schedule responds to the provisions of the Strom Thurmond National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 1999; and (2) identifying specific elements of a management framework needed for effective implementation and oversight of the Navy's best practice initiative."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO provided information on efforts to protect the nation's critical infrastructures, focusing on: (1) GAO's recent findings on computer security and critical infrastructure protection; and (2) preliminary lessons learned from the year 2000 date conversion experience that can benefit critical infrastructure protection efforts."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO compared the cost of the Department of Defense's (DOD) high-quality child development program with the cost of comparable care in the civilian market, focusing on: (1) identifying the objectives of the military child development program and describing how it operates; (2) determining the full cost of operating DOD's U.S. child development centers and the cost per child-hour for center-based care; and (3) comparing the cost per child in DOD's child development centers with the full cost of comparable quality child care in the civilian market."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO reviewed the Department of Defense's (DOD) personnel security investigative functions, focusing on; (1) the completeness and timeliness of DOD personnel security investigations; (2) what factors, if any, might be hindering the completeness and timeliness of the investigations; and (3) what actions DOD has taken to address any program weaknesses."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a legislative requirement, GAO provided information on the Department of Defense's (DOD) plans to develop a pilot program to use commercial sources to improve the collection of DOD claims under aircraft engine warranties, focusing on the: (1) benefits obtained by some private sector users of aircraft engine warranty services; and (2) efforts DOD has made the evaluate the feasibility of establishing a pilot program."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO reviewed patient access to clinical trials sponsored by the National Institutes of Health (NIH), focusing on: (1) how health insurers' coverage policies and practices affect patient participation in clinical trials; (2) researchers' experience in enrolling patients for trials sponsored by the National Cancer Institute (NCI) and factors that may explain this experience; and (3) whether NIH has evidence of recent difficulties in enrolling patients in clinical trials."