A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "The Air Force has managed its remotely piloted aircraft (RPA) pilots using some strategic human-capital approaches, such as planning for the different levels of experience that it needs in these pilots. However, it continues to face challenges. High-performing organizations manage human capital to identify the right number of personnel and to target the right sources to fill personnel needs. In 2008, the Air Force determined the optimum number of RPA pilots—the crew ratio—for some units, but it did not account for all tasks these units complete. Air Force officials stated that, as a result, the crew ratio is too low, but the Air Force has not updated it. Air Force guidance states that low crew ratios diminish combat capability and cause flight safety to suffer, but the Air Force has operated below its optimum crew ratio and it has not established a minimum crew ratio. Further, high work demands on RPA pilots limit the time they have available for training and development and negatively affects their work-life balance. In addition, the Air Force faces challenges recruiting officers into the RPA pilot career and may face challenges …

Testimony issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "The Inspector General Act of 1978, as amended (IG Act), originally established inspectors general (IG) appointed by the President and confirmed by the Senate in 12 major departments and agencies of the government to conduct and supervise independent audits and investigations; recommend policies to promote economy, efficiency, and effectiveness; and prevent and detect fraud and abuse in their departments' and agencies' programs and operations. Based in part on GAO's findings that the internal audit offices of small federal agencies lacked independence and provided inadequate coverage of important programs, the Congress passed the IG Act Amendments of 1988 to establish IGs in designated federal entities (DFE), which are generally smaller agencies established in various statutes as commissions, boards, authorities, corporations, endowments, foundations, institutions, agencies, and administrations identified by the act. The DFE IGs are appointed by their respective entity heads with duties and responsibilities similar to those of IGs appointed by the President. The Congress used a budget threshold of $100 million to help determine which DFEs should have IGs. However, additional DFEs below this threshold were also included for specific reasons."

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "The KC-46 program has made good progress over the past year—acquisition costs have remained relatively stable, the critical design review was successfully completed, the program is on track to meet performance parameters, and the contractor started building development aircraft. As shown, total program acquisition costs—which include development, production, and military construction costs—and unit costs have changed less than 1 percent since February 2011."

Correspondence issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "GAO found that the Navy continued to make progress in the past year toward (1) establishing a knowledge-based program that generally aligned with acquisition best practices and (2) meeting corresponding statutory certification requirements for entering the Department of Defense (DOD) acquisition process in the engineering and manufacturing development phase. The Navy has met or expects to meet requirements relating to assessment of technology readiness, making appropriate trade-offs to achieve affordability and getting approval of requirements, and development of an independent cost estimate. DOD has, however, waived a requirement for competitive prototyping and the Navy plans to defer a system level preliminary design review (PDR) until after the start of development. GAO reviewed DOD’s waiver of competitive prototyping for the VXX program last year and found that it addresses one of the two bases provided in Weapon Systems Acquisition Reform Act of 2009 for such waivers; that is, that the cost to provide competitive prototypes exceeded the expected benefits. In addition, while the Navy’s plan to defer a system level PDR until after the start of system development deviates from acquisition best practices and is a waiver of a …

Correspondence issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "The Amphibious Combat Vehicle (ACV) effort has not yet reached Milestone A—the decision point in DOD’s acquisition process that generally authorizes assessment of potential technologies for an eventual acquisition program. At this point, Marine Corps officials are weighing the cost and technological feasibility of their required capabilities. In November 2011, the Marines Corps began an Analysis of Alternatives (AOA)—a key first step in the acquisition process intended to assess alternative weapon system solutions for addressing a validated need—to identify an affordable alternative to the canceled Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle. Following completion of that study in mid-2012, the Marine Corps Commandant directed the program to perform a second study to assess the feasibility and affordability of a variant capable of higher water speed. This second analysis has been completed, but no formal decisions have been made regarding whether to commence an acquisition program or what path it will take, if initiated. Program officials suggest that development of a high water speed technology may prove unaffordable at this time."

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Using data from multiple sources, GAO determined that 675 of 708 Department of State (State) personnel and all 143 U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) personnel on assignments longer than 6 months (assigned personnel) in the designated high-threat countries on March 31, 2013, were in compliance with the Foreign Affairs Counter Threat (FACT) training requirement. GAO found that the remaining 33 State assigned personnel on such assignments had not complied with the mandatory requirement. For State and USAID personnel on temporary duty of 6 months or less (short-term TDY personnel), GAO was unable to assess compliance because of gaps in State's data. State does not systematically maintain data on the universe of U.S. personnel on short-term TDY status to designated high-threat countries who were required to complete FACT training. This is because State lacks a mechanism for identifying those who are subject to the training requirement. These data gaps prevent State or an independent reviewer from assessing compliance with the FACT training requirement among short-term TDY personnel. According to Standards for Internal Control in the Federal Government , program managers need operating information to determine whether …

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Joint Professional Military Education (JPME) research institutions, particularly at the National Defense University, experienced growth in number, funding, and size in terms of staffing levels from fiscal year (FY) 2007 through FY 2011, but the number of institutions as well as funding and staffing levels declined over the past 2 years. For example, total funding for JPME research institutions increased from $30.8 million in FY 2007 to $47.7 million in FY 2011, but subsequently decreased to $40.6 million in FY 2013. GAO identified several factors that contributed to these institutions' growth, including increases in funding provided by outside organizations for research and the creation of new research institutions. Department of Defense (DOD) officials reported that DOD-wide budget reductions, including the effects of sequestration, contributed to decreases in the number, size, and funding for JPME research institutions."

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "The number of drug shortages remains high. Although reports of new drug shortages declined in 2012, the total number of shortages active during a given year—including both new shortages reported and ongoing shortages that began in a prior year—has increased since 2007. Many shortages are of generic sterile injectable drugs. Provider association representatives reported that drug shortages may force providers to ration care or rely on less effective drugs."

Testimony issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "The number of drug shortages remains high. Although reports of new drug shortages declined in 2012, the total number of shortages active during a given year—including both new shortages reported and ongoing shortages that began in a prior year—has increased since 2007. Many shortages are of generic sterile injectable drugs. Provider association representatives reported that drug shortages may force providers to ration care or face difficulties finding alternative drugs."

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), the agency within the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) that administers Medicare, uses data checks and quality measures to oversee the accuracy of Part D plan pricing information on the Plan Finder interactive website. Part D sponsors may have multiple contracts with CMS to provide drug coverage, with each contract covering one or more distinct Part D plans, and CMS is responsible for overseeing plan sponsors' compliance with their Part D contracts. CMS requires Part D plan sponsors to submit drug pricing information for their plans, which Plan Finder uses to estimate beneficiaries' cost-sharing amounts and expected annual drug costs. To ensure the accuracy of this information,"

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "States and community colleges GAO visited have implemented several strategies to improve developmental education--which is remedial coursework in math, reading, or writing for students who are assessed not to be ready for college-level classes. Many initiatives involved shortening the amount of time for developmental education and better targeting material to an individual student's needs. For example, two community colleges have implemented fast track classes that enable students to take two classes in one semester instead of in two semesters. One developmental education program in Washington places students directly into college level classes that also teach developmental education as part of the class. Community colleges are also using tools such as test preparatory classes to help students prepare for placement tests that determine if they will need to take developmental education courses. According to community college officials GAO spoke with, these classes help familiarize students with prior coursework and, in some cases, help them place directly into college level courses. Additionally, most community colleges GAO visited have worked to align their curriculum with local high schools so that graduating seniors are ready for college. Little research has …

Testimony issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "The Institute of Education Sciences (IES) supports high-quality research, according to stakeholders, but lacks certain key procedures needed to fulfill other aspects of its mission. Since its inception, IES has substantially improved the quality of education research. However, stakeholders expressed some concerns about IES's ability to produce timely and relevant research that meets their various needs. For example, IES's efforts to respond quickly to its stakeholders are slowed, in part, because the time IES's products have spent in peer review substantially increased this past year, and IES does not monitor some aspects of these timeframes. In addition, IES does not have a structured process for incorporating stakeholder input into its research agenda, which previous GAO work has shown to be key to sound federal research programs. Lastly, IES's performance measures do not fully reflect its current programs, which is not consistent with GAO's leading practices for performance management. IES officials said, however, that they have begun to develop new performance measures for all of their programs."

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "According to data provided by FAA and the General Services Administration (GSA), federally maintained facilities FAA occupies are generally in fair to good condition. FAA assesses the condition of staffed facilities in several ways, including direct inspections. However, the condition of approximately 75 percent of Air Traffic Organization's (ATO) terminal facilities is based on estimates derived from the approximately 25 percent of facilities that have been inspected over the last 6 years. Our analysis of FAA's statistical model for estimating the condition of uninspected terminal facilities found it to be imprecise; it uses one variable--age of the facility--to estimate the facility's condition. Adding other variables that are correlated with condition, such as facility replacement value and use, could potentially improve the estimate's accuracy. In addition, facility condition data in FAA's Real Estate Management System (REMS)--FAA's database for tracking its inventory of real property assets, including the size, replacement value, and condition of each asset--are not derived from sound data collection practices and did not match facility condition data from ATO or other FAA organizational components responsible for maintaining these facilities. Inaccuracies in REMS data undermine its …

A statement of record issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Based on GAO's 2003 report, it was found that the district court case weights approved in 1993 to be a reasonably accurate measure of the average time demands a specific number and mix of cases filed in a district court could be expected to place on the district judges in that court. The methodology used to develop the weights used a valid sampling procedure, developed weights based on actual case-related time recorded by judges from case filings to disposition, and included a measure (standard errors) of the statistical confidence in the final weight for each weighted case type. Without such a measure, it is not possible to objectively assess the accuracy of the final case weights."

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Since its establishment in 2009, the Office of Government Information Services (OGIS) has provided comments on proposed Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) regulations for 18 of 99 federal agencies that administer FOIA, as well as a number of Privacy Act system of records notices. While OGIS has suggested improvements to a number of those regulations and notices, it has not performed the reviews of regulations and notices in a proactive, comprehensive manner, and has not conducted any reviews of agencies' compliance with the law. In addition, since it was established 4 years ago, the office has not developed a methodology for conducting reviews of agencies' FOIA policies and procedures, or for compliance with FOIA requirements. OGIS is in the early stages of developing a methodology for conducting such reviews, but has not established a time frame for completion. Until OGIS establishes a methodology and time frame for proactively reviewing agencies' FOIA policies, procedures, and compliance, the office will not be positioned to effectively execute its responsibilities as required by the act."

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS)--which is the agency within the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) responsible for administering Medicare--has not taken needed steps, such as designating a business owner and establishing a business case for an information technology (IT) project, that would result in selecting and implementing a technical solution for removing Social Security numbers (SSN) from Medicare cards. However, the agency has collected information and data as part of its most recent study of SSN removal that could contribute to the identification and development of an IT solution. These include information relevant to examining alternative approaches, identifying costs and risks, and assessing the impact of different approaches on the agency's existing IT systems. For example, the agency identified two approaches for removing the SSN: (1) replacing it with a new identifier, referred to as the Medicare Beneficiary Identifier, and (2) masking the first five digits of the SSN for display on Medicare cards. CMS system and business owners also conducted high-level assessments of the types of changes that would need to be made to systems identified in the agency's IT …

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Agencies are to store federal records in three types of facilities:"

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "About 8,400 individuals adjudicated as eligible for a security clearance from April 2006 to December 2011 owed approximately $85 million in unpaid federal taxes, as of June 2012. This represents about 3.4 percent of the civilian executive-branch employees and contractors who were favorably adjudicated during that period. GAO found that about 4,700 of the approximately 8,400 individuals were federal employees while the remainder was largely federal contractors. Additionally, about 4,200 of these individuals had a repayment plan with the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) to pay back their debt. For this review, GAO used clearance data from the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) Central Verification System (CVS) database. The CVS database does not maintain information on the denial of security clearances on the basis of an individual's nonpayment of federal taxes. Thus, GAO was not able to determine the number of individuals who were denied security clearances for this reason."

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Analysis of guaranteed loans to franchisees of a select franchise organization reviewed by GAO, approved from January 1, 2000, to December 31, 2011, showed the Small Business Administration (SBA) approved a total of about $38.4 million for 170 loans made by 54 lenders. SBA's guaranteed portion on these loans was approximately $28.8 million. Of the total population of 170 loans, 74 loans defaulted, 55 of which (74 percent) originated from four lenders that had the highest loan volume and default rates on loans to the franchisees. SBA made guarantee payments of around $11 million on the defaulted loans to franchisees, including about $8.5 million in guarantee payments on the 55 defaulted loans from these four lenders. Of the 88 loans reviewed from the four lenders, 55 (63 percent) defaulted. In comparison, 19 of the 82 loans (23 percent) that originated at the other 50 lenders to the franchisees defaulted. As part of GAO's investigative work, GAO interviewed the owners of 22 franchisees of the franchise organization in GAO's review, of which 16 defaulted on their loans and 10 filed for bankruptcy protection. Interviewed franchisees noted difficulties …

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "In fiscal year 2011, two agencies--the Departments of Health and Human Services (HHS) and Justice (Justice) --separately administered 12 fragmented but minimally overlapping programs that directed funds toward elder justice, with low risk of duplication. Specifically, because more than one federal agency administers these programs, GAO found that these grant programs are fragmented. Further, GAO found that overlap across the 12 programs was minimal because the programs varied with respect to (1) funding mechanisms and recipients, (2) elder abuse victims targeted, (3) service providers, and (4) activities conducted. For example, a few of these programs provided formula grants to all states and most dispersed discretionary grants to a limited number of recipients. Programs that supported victims of elder abuse generally assisted all types of victims, but some also focused on certain subgroups, such as older women. Some programs that assisted service providers also targeted specific subgroups, such as judges and court personnel. In addition, elder justice programs supported a wide range of activities. For example, one HHS program provided public education to help identify and prevent elder abuse, while a Justice program trained law enforcement officers …

Testimony issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "GAO's simulation found that under the current Federal Employees' Compensation Act (FECA) program, the median wage replacement rate--the percentage of take-home pay replaced by FECA--for total-disability beneficiaries was 88 percent for U.S. Postal Service (USPS) beneficiaries and 80 percent for non-USPS beneficiaries in 2010. GAO also found that proposals to set initial FECA benefits at a single compensation rate would reduce these replacement rates by 3 to 4 percentage points under the 70-percent option and 7 to 8 percentage points under the 66-2/3 percent option. Beneficiaries with dependents would receive reduced FECA benefits under both options. The decreases in wage replacement rates were due to the greater proportion of beneficiaries who had a dependent--over 70 percent of both USPS and non-USPS beneficiaries."

Testimony issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Three long-standing major impediments prevented GAO from expressing an opinion on the U.S. government's 2012 accrual-based consolidated financial statements: (1) serious financial management problems at the Department of Defense (DOD), (2) the federal government's inability to adequately account for and reconcile intragovernmental activity and balances between federal entities, and (3) the federal government's ineffective process for preparing the consolidated financial statements. Also, GAO was prevented from expressing opinions on the 2012 social insurance-related statements because of significant uncertainties primarily related to the achievement of projected reductions in Medicare cost growth reflected in the statements."

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) implemented two types of manual medical reviews (MMR)--reviews of preapproval requests and reviews of claims submitted without preapproval--for all outpatient therapy services that were above a $3,700 per-beneficiary threshold provided during the last 3 months of 2012. However, CMS did not issue complete guidance on how to process preapproval requests before the implementation of the MMR process in October 2012, and the Medicare Administrative Contractors (MAC) that conducted the MMRs were unable to fully automate systems for tracking preapproval requests in the time allotted. CMS required the MACs to manually review preapproval requests within 10 business days of receipt of all supporting documentation to determine whether the services were medically necessary, and to automatically approve any requests they were unable to review within that time frame. CMS officials told GAO that the purpose of the preapproval process was to protect beneficiaries from being liable for payment for nonaffirmed services by giving the provider and beneficiary guidance as to whether Medicare would pay for the requested services. If a provider delivered services without submitting a preapproval request, the MACs …

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has not conducted a recent evaluation of demand for Integrated Risk Information System (IRIS) toxicity assessments with input from users inside and outside EPA. Specifically, EPA issued a needs assessment report in 2003, which estimated that 50 new or updated IRIS toxicity assessments were needed each year to meet users' needs. However, GAO did not find sufficient support for the estimate. In addition, IRIS Program officials recognize that the 2003 estimate does not reflect current conditions, but the agency does not plan to perform another evaluation of demand. Without a clear understanding of current demand for IRIS toxicity assessments, EPA cannot adequately measure the program's performance; effectively determine the number of IRIS toxicity assessments required to meet the needs of IRIS users; or know the extent of unmet demand."