Other written product issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "GAO commented on the U.S. Trade Deficit Review Commission's authority to compensate an executive level IV Export-Import Bank employee that it would like detailed to it to serve as its executive director. The Commission's statute provides authority to appoint staff without regard to civil service laws and regulations, but it limits the compensation the Commission may pay to executive schedule level. To detail the employee under the Economy Act with full reimbursement to the Bank would violate the pay limitation. However, the Commission's statute also provides authority for any federal employee to be detailed to the Commission without reimbursement and without loss of civil service status or privilege. To avoid violating the compensation limitation, the Commission proposes to reimburse the Bank for the employee's compensation at the level V rate, with the Bank providing the amount over level V. Since this arrangement appears to satisfy the language and intent of the pay limitation and the detail provisions, GAO has no objection."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a legislative requirement, GAO provided information on federal and state efforts to assess the conditions of the nation's highways, focusing on: (1) the uses the Federal Highway Administration (FHwA), the states, and others make of the International Roughness Index to assess highway conditions; (2) the consistency and accuracy of state-reported data on highway roughness; and (3) FHwA's efforts to improve the data across states."

Testimony issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO discussed the Health Care Financing Administration's (HCFA) progress in addressing its year 2000 computing challenges."

Correspondence issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO provided information on the Federal Aviation Administration's (FAA) funding for noise-related projects, focusing on: (1) the total historical funding of noise-related projects through both the Airport Improvement Program (AIP) and the Passenger Facility Charge (PFC) programs, by FAA region; and (2) comparing the amount of AIP funds set aside for noise-related projects in the AIP appropriation for fiscal year (FY) 2000 and the authorized amounts for the AIP for fiscal years 2001 through 2003 with the projected costs of noise-related projects planned in the current National Plan of Integrated Airport Systems (NPIAS)."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO reviewed the Department of Justice's Civil Rights Division's (CRT) selection of cases and reasons matters were closed."

Correspondence issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO provided information on the Department of Defense's Transportation Command's efforts to evaluate alternatives to the current personal property program."

Testimony issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO discussed the Federal Aviation Administration's (FAA) computer security weaknesses, focusing on: (1) FAA's history of computer security weaknesses; (2) the adequacy of FAA's efforts to prevent unauthorized access to data--specifically focusing on personnel security, facilities' physical security, systems security, security program planning and management, and service continuity; and (3) the effectiveness of processes implemented by the agency for detecting, responding to, and reporting anomalies and computer misuse."

Testimony issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO discussed Department of Agriculture (USDA) financial management issues, focusing on USDA's challenges in: (1) implementing the Federal Credit Reform Act of 1990 and related accounting standards; (2) reconciling its Fund Balance with Treasury accounts; (3) addressing weaknesses in the Forest Service's financial accounting and reporting; and (4) correcting certain other material internal control weaknesses."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO examined whether the Broadcasting Board of Governors: broadcasters (1) responded to the specific limitations and cost-cutting expectations regarding Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty's operations; (2) implemented an annual language service review process; and (3) instituted a strategic planning and performance management system."

Testimony issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO discussed the Veterans' Employment and Training Service (VETS) and its planning activities under the Government Performance and Results Act of 1993, focusing on: (1) VETS' strategic plan for fiscal year (FY) 2000 through FY 2005 and its FY 2001 performance plan; (2) the adequacy of VETS' plans to address how it will operate in the one-stop center environment; and (3) issues related to the quality of VETS' performance data."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "In 2001, almost 40 percent of all 16- and 17-year-olds in the United States and many 14- and 15-year-olds worked at some time in the year. Children in the United States are often encouraged to work, and many people believe that children benefit from early work experiences by developing independence, confidence, and responsibility. However, the public also wants to ensure that the work experiences of young people enhance, rather than harm, their future opportunities. The number and characteristics of working children have changed little over the past decade. According to Bureau of Labor Statistics data, as in 1990, as many as 3.7 million children aged 15 to 17 worked in 2001. The number of children who die each year from work-related injuries has changed little since 1992, but the number of children who incurred nonfatal injuries while working is more difficult to determine because data from different sources provide different estimates of the number of injuries and trends over time. The Department of Labor devotes many resources to ensuring compliance with the child labor provisions of the Fair Labor Standards Act, including conducting nationwide campaigns designed …

Testimony issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "The Commercial Activities Panel is a congressionally mandated panel to study and make recommendations for improving the policies and procedures governing the transfer of commercial activities from government to contractor personnel. The growing controversy surrounding competitions, under the Office of Management and Budget's Circular A-76 to determine whether the government should obtain commercially available goods and services from the public or private sectors, led to the establishment of this Panel. In establishing the Panel, several steps were taken to ensure representation from all major stakeholders as well as to ensure a fair and balanced process. To ensure a broad range of views on the Panel, a Federal Register notice was used to seek suggestions for the Panel's composition. As the Panel began its work, it recognized the need for a set of principles for sourcing decisions. These principles provide for an assessment of what does or does not work in the current A-76 process and provide a framework for identifying needed changes. Many of the Panel's recommendations can be accomplished administratively under existing law, and the Panel recommends that they be implemented as soon as practical. The Panel …

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "From the end of the Persian Gulf War in February 1991 through May 2002, the Department of Defense (DOD) reported over $43.9 billion in incremental costs for its overseas contingency operations. These operations include the enforcement of no-fly zones, humanitarian assistance, and peace enforcement operations, as well as combating terrorism beginning in fiscal year 2001. The majority of these costs were incurred in the Balkans and Southeast Asia. In fiscal year 2002, U.S. military forces are continuing to participate in a number of contingency operations, primarily in the Balkans, Southwest Asia, and a number of locations that involve combating terrorism. The military services received a combination of funding provided in the DOD appropriations act for fiscal year 2002 and money remaining in previously funded contingency fund accounts. The services also took steps to reduce costs in order to keep them in line with available funding. Both the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and DOD plan to reduce troop levels in the Balkans during fiscal year 2003, which may reduce funding needs during the year. In Europe, the Army anticipates an overall reduction of 1,160 troops during fiscal …

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Over the past decade, there has been a technological revolution in the workplace as businesses have increasingly turned to computer technology the primary tool to communicate, conduct research, and store information. Also during this time, concern has grown among private sector employers that their computer resources may be abused by employees--either by accessing offensive material or jeopardizing the security of proprietary information--and may provide an easy entry point into a company's electronic systems by computer trespassers. As a result, companies have developed "computer conduct" policies and implement strategies to monitor their employees' use of e-mail, the Internet, and computer files. Federal and state laws and judicial decisions have generally given private sector companies wide discretion in their monitoring and review of employee computer transmissions. However, some legal experts believe that these laws should be more protective of employee privacy by limiting what aspects of employee computer use employers may monitor and how they may do so. Following the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the United States, policymakers re-examined many privacy issues as they debated the USA PATRIOT Act, which expands the federal government's authority to …

Correspondence issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "GAO reviewed the Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) proposal to reduce the number of full-time employees from its enforcement budget for compliance monitoring and civil enforcement activities to evaluate EPA's statements that (1) the jobs being eliminated are ones that EPA has allowed to lapse or has been unable to fill and (2) the reductions will be managed through normal attrition, without any loss of enforcement expertise and without shifting staff to nonenforcement functions. GAO found that EPA received a total of 1,464.8 full-time equivalent (FTE) positions for civil enforcement and compliance-monitoring functions under its Environmental Program and Management appropriation. EPA's fiscal year 2001 operating plan included full funding for the FTE positions provided for civil enforcement and compliance-monitoring activities. According to Office of Compliance and Enforcement (OECA) officials, the agency had no specific plans to leave vacancies open in anticipation of planned reductions in the workforce for compliance monitoring and civil enforcement. According to EPA officials, the agency does not assume or use any attrition rate in developing its annual budget. Instead, EPA establishes FTE ceilings for each of its program offices, which are expected to manage their …

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "The Department of Defense (DOD) is promoting departmentwide use of purchase cards for obtaining goods and services. It reported that for the year ended September 30, 2001, purchase cards were used by 230,000 cardholders to make 10.7 million transactions valued at more than $6.1 billion. The benefits of using purchase cards versus traditional contracting and payment processes are lower transaction processing costs and less red tape for both the government and the vendor community. Although GAO supports the purchase card program concept, it is important that agencies have adequate internal controls in place to protect the government from fraud, waste, and abuse. A weak overall control environment and breakdowns in key internal controls leave the Navy vulnerable to potentially fraudulent, improper, and abusive purchases. In response to GAO's previous findings, DOD and Navy have begun improving the control environment over the purchase card program. However, further improvements are needed to achieve an effective control environment. GAO determined that the Navy did not provide cardholders, approving officials, and agency program coordinators with sufficient human capital resources--time and training--to effectively perform oversight and manage the program. The weaknesses …

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Effective performance management systems link individual performance to organizational goals. In October 2000, the Office of Personnel Management amended regulations to require agencies to link senior executive performance with organizational goals; to appraise executive performance by balancing organizational results with customer satisfaction, employee perspective, and other areas; and to use performance results as a basis for pay, awards, and other personnel decisions. Agencies were to establish these performance management systems by their 2001 senior executive performance appraisal cycles. Because they implemented a set of balanced expectations prior to the Office of Personnel Management requirement, GAO studied the Bureau of Land Management's, Federal Highway Administration's, Internal Revenue Service's, and Veterans Benefits Administration's use of balanced expectations to manage senior executive performance in order to identify initial approaches that may be helpful to other agencies in holding senior executives accountable for results."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Medication errors and adverse drug reactions are a significant concern for the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) and the Department of Defense (DOD) because their large beneficiary populations receive many prescriptions. Each agency has taken steps to reduce the risk of medication errors, such as making patients' medical records more accessible to providers and performing checks for drug interactions. Although each agency has designed safeguards to protect its own patients, some VA and DOD patients receive medication from both agencies. Shared patients face a higher risk of medication error. Joint (DOD and VA) venture sites with inpatient facilities provide services to shared inpatients in the same manner as they do for their own beneficiaries; that is, medications are ordered using the facility's guidelines and filled through the inpatient pharmacy at that facility. Gaps in safeguards result primarily from VA's and DOD's separate, uncoordinated information and formulary systems. Joint venture sites have tried to address some of these safety gaps. For instance, all sites have made patient information more accessible by providing additional, although incomplete, access to the other agency's patient information system."

Testimony issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "GAO, the Department of the Interior, and others have reported on the National Park Service's efforts to develop an effective maintenance management process that would, among other things, enable the agency to accurately and reliably estimate the amount of deferred maintenance on its assets. Over the years, the agency's estimates of the cost of its deferred maintenance have varied widely--sometimes by billions of dollars. Currently, the agency estimates that its deferred maintenance backlog will cost over $5 billion. In April 2002, GAO reported on the status of efforts to develop better deferred maintenance data. (National Park Service: Status of Efforts to Develop Better Deferred Maintenance Data,GAO-02-568R (Washington, D.C.: Apr. 12, 2002)) This testimony presents the results of GAO's April report and updates the progress the Park Service is making in implementing its new asset management process."

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "In February 2003 reports, GAO identified actions needed to better prepare critical financial market participants for wide-scale disasters, such as terrorist attacks. To determine progress made since then, GAO assessed (1) actions that critical securities market organizations took to improve their ability to prevent and recover from disruptions, (2) actions that financial market and telecommunications industry participants took to improve telecommunications resiliency, (3) financial regulators' efforts to ensure the resiliency of the financial markets; and (4) SEC's efforts to improve its program for overseeing operations risks at certain market participants."

Correspondence issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Congress has long stressed the importance of proper treatment of taxpayers by the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). This emphasis was a major impetus for the IRS Restructuring and Reform Act of 1998, which included numerous additional protections for taxpayers. Among these was Section 1203, which defines 10 acts or omissions for which an IRS employee is to be fired. Most, but not all, of the acts or omissions involve mistreatment of taxpayers, such as by falsifying information or by harassing them. At the same time, Congress has been concerned about IRS's ability to administer the tax laws, including whether the Section 1203 provisions could hamper IRS's enforcement efforts by having a "chilling effect" on IRS employees' willingness to take appropriate enforcement actions against noncompliant taxpayers. Related concerns are whether the IRS and the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration (TIGTA) process for reviewing allegations made against employees is too time consuming and inconsistent, and whether all the Section 1203 provisions should be retained. In February 2003, we recommended that IRS evaluate the effectiveness of changes it made to speed up and otherwise improve the review of Section 1203 …

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Preferred provider organizations (PPO) are more prevalent than other types of health plans in the private market, but, in 2003, only six PPOs contracted to serve Medicare beneficiaries in Medicare+Choice (M+C), Medicare's private health plan option. In recent years, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), the agency that administers Medicare, initiated two demonstrations that include a total of 34 PPOs. GAO (1) described how CMS used its statutory authority to conduct the two demonstrations, (2) assessed the extent to which demonstration PPOs expanded access to Medicare health plans and attracted enrollees in 2003, (3) compared CMS's estimates of out-of-pocket costs beneficiaries incurred in demonstration PPOs with those of other types of coverage, including fee-for-service (FFS) Medicare, M+C plans, and Medigap policies in 2003, and (4) determined the effects of demonstration PPOs on Medicare spending."

Correspondence issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "The Department of the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration (TIGTA) audits and investigates the Internal Revenue Service's (IRS) operations to (1) promote economy and efficiency and detect and prevent fraud and abuse and (2) recommend actions for improvement. TIGTA was established by the Internal Revenue Service Restructuring and Reform Act of 1998 (IRS Reform Act), which amended the Inspector General Act of 1978 (IG Act), to include an independent inspector general (IG) to provide oversight of IRS's activities, programs, and offices. This report responds to a Congressional request that we review the activities of TIGTA. We are providing information regarding (1) TIGTA's budget and staffing levels; (2) TIGTA's audit and investigative coverage of IRS, including oversight of IRS's offices and identified weaknesses in IRS's operations, and audit coverage of specific requirements of the IRS Reform Act; (3) TIGTA's audit and investigative accomplishments; (4) the quality assurance program, including the results of peer reviews; and (5) the audit follow-up process to track IRS's implementation of TIGTA's audit recommendations."

Correspondence issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Telecommuting, or telework--meaning work that is performed at an employee's home or at a work location other than a traditional office--has gained widespread attention over the past decade in both the public and private sectors, offering a variety of potential benefits to employers, employees, and society. On July 29, 2005, we briefed Congress on the results of our review of telework methodologies at the Departments of Commerce (DOC), Justice (DOJ), State, the Small Business Administration (SBA), and the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). This report transmits the information provided during that briefing. Specifically, Congress had asked us to provide information on and analysis of the methodology that each of the five agencies used to define employees eligible to telecommute, the methods each agency used to make telecommuting opportunities available to eligible employees and what those opportunities are, and how each agency defines and measures telecommuting participation rates."