Correspondence issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "The Secretary of the Treasury, in coordination with the Director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), is required to annually prepare and submit audited financial statements of the U.S. government to the President and the Congress. We are required to audit these consolidated financial statements (CFS) and report on the results of our work. In connection with fulfilling our requirement to audit the fiscal year 2004 CFS, we evaluated the Department of the Treasury's (Treasury) financial reporting procedures and related internal control over the process for compiling the CFS, including the management representation letter provided us by Treasury and OMB. Written representation letters from management, required by U.S. generally accepted government auditing standards, ordinarily confirm oral representations given to the auditor, indicate and document the continuing appropriateness of those representations, and reduce the possibility of a misunderstanding between management and the auditor. The purpose of this report is to communicate our observations on the Department of Veterans Affairs' (VA) fiscal year 2004 management representation letter. Our objective is to help ensure that future management representation letters submitted by VA are sufficient to help support Treasury and …

Correspondence issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "The Secretary of the Treasury, in coordination with the Director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), is required to annually prepare and submit audited financial statements of the U.S. government to the President and the Congress. We are required to audit these consolidated financial statements (CFS) and report on the results of our work. In connection with fulfilling our requirement to audit the fiscal year 2004 CFS, we evaluated the Department of the Treasury's (Treasury) financial reporting procedures and related internal control over the process for compiling the CFS, including the management representation letter provided us by Treasury and OMB. Written representation letters from management, required by U.S. generally accepted government auditing standards, ordinarily confirm oral representations given to the auditor, indicate and document the continuing appropriateness of those representations, and reduce the possibility of a misunderstanding between management and the auditor. The purpose of this report is to communicate our observations on the Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) fiscal year 2004 management representation letter. Our objective is to help ensure that future management representation letters submitted by EPA are sufficient to help support Treasury and OMB's …

Correspondence issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "The Secretary of the Treasury, in coordination with the Director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), is required to annually prepare and submit audited financial statements of the U.S. government to the President and the Congress. We are required to audit these consolidated financial statements (CFS) and report on the results of our work. In connection with fulfilling our requirement to audit the fiscal year 2004 CFS, we evaluated the Department of the Treasury's (Treasury) financial reporting procedures and related internal control over the process for compiling the CFS, including the management representation letter provided us by Treasury and OMB. Written representation letters from management, required by U.S. generally accepted government auditing standards, ordinarily confirm oral representations given to the auditor, indicate and document the continuing appropriateness of those representations, and reduce the possibility of a misunderstanding between management and the auditor. The purpose of this report is to communicate our observations on the United States Agency for International Development's (USAID) fiscal year 2004 management representation letter. Our objective is to help ensure that future management representation letters submitted by USAID are sufficient to help support …

Testimony issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "In 2006, GAO investigated companies selling direct-to-consumer (DTC) genetic tests and testified that these companies made medically unproven disease predictions. Although new companies have since been touted as being more reputable--Time named one company's test 2008's "invention of the year"--experts remain concerned that the test results mislead consumers. GAO was asked to investigate DTC genetic tests currently on the market and the advertising methods used to sell these tests. GAO purchased 10 tests each from four companies, for $299 to $999 per test. GAO then selected five donors and sent two DNA samples from each donor to each company: one using factual information about the donor and one using fictitious information, such as incorrect age and race or ethnicity. After comparing risk predictions that the donors received for 15 diseases, GAO made undercover calls to the companies seeking health advice. GAO did not conduct a scientific study but instead documented observations that could be made by any consumer. To assess whether the tests provided any medically useful information, GAO consulted with genetics experts. GAO also interviewed representatives from each company. To investigate advertising methods, GAO made undercover contact …

Correspondence issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "The Secretary of the Treasury, in coordination with the Director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), is required to annually prepare and submit audited financial statements of the U.S. government to the President and the Congress. We are required to audit these consolidated financial statements (CFS) and report on the results of our work. In connection with fulfilling our requirement to audit the fiscal year 2004 CFS, we evaluated the Department of the Treasury's (Treasury) financial reporting procedures and related internal control over the process for compiling the CFS, including the management representation letter provided us by Treasury and OMB. Written representation letters from management, required by U.S. generally accepted government auditing standards, ordinarily confirm oral representations given to the auditor, indicate and document the continuing appropriateness of those representations, and reduce the possibility of a misunderstanding between management and the auditor. The purpose of this report is to communicate our observations on the Federal Communications Commission's (FCC) fiscal year 2004 management representation letter. Our objective is to help ensure that future management representation letters submitted by FCC are sufficient to help support Treasury and OMB's …

Correspondence issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "The Secretary of the Treasury, in coordination with the Director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), is required to annually prepare and submit audited financial statements of the U.S. government to the President and the Congress. We are required to audit these consolidated financial statements (CFS) and report on the results of our work. In connection with fulfilling our requirement to audit the fiscal year 2004 CFS, we evaluated the Department of the Treasury's (Treasury) financial reporting procedures and related internal control over the process for compiling the CFS, including the management representation letter provided us by Treasury and OMB. Written representation letters from management, required by U.S. generally accepted government auditing standards, ordinarily confirm oral representations given to the auditor, indicate and document the continuing appropriateness of those representations, and reduce the possibility of a misunderstanding between management and the auditor. The purpose of this report is to communicate our observations on the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation's (PBGC) fiscal year 2004 management representation letter. Our objective is to help ensure that future management representation letters submitted by PBGC are sufficient to help support Treasury and …

Correspondence issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "The Secretary of the Treasury, in coordination with the Director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), is required to annually prepare and submit audited financial statements of the U.S. government to the President and the Congress. We are required to audit these consolidated financial statements (CFS) and report on the results of our work. In connection with fulfilling our requirement to audit the fiscal year 2004 CFS, we evaluated the Department of the Treasury's (Treasury) financial reporting procedures and related internal control over the process for compiling the CFS, including the management representation letter provided us by Treasury and OMB. Written representation letters from management, required by U.S. generally accepted government auditing standards, ordinarily confirm oral representations given to the auditor, indicate and document the continuing appropriateness of those representations, and reduce the possibility of a misunderstanding between management and the auditor. The purpose of this report is to communicate our observations on the National Credit Union Administration's (NCUA) National Credit Union Share Insurance Fund's (NCUSIF) fiscal year 2003 management representation letter. Our objective is to help ensure that future management representation letters submitted by VA …

Correspondence issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "The Secretary of the Treasury, in coordination with the Director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), is required to annually prepare and submit audited financial statements of the U.S. government to the President and the Congress. We are required to audit these consolidated financial statements (CFS) and report on the results of our work. In connection with fulfilling our requirement to audit the fiscal year 2004 CFS, we evaluated the Department of the Treasury's (Treasury) financial reporting procedures and related internal control over the process for compiling the CFS, including the management representation letter provided us by Treasury and OMB. Written representation letters from management, required by U.S. generally accepted government auditing standards, ordinarily confirm oral representations given to the auditor, indicate and document the continuing appropriateness of those representations, and reduce the possibility of a misunderstanding between management and the auditor. The purpose of this report is to communicate our observations on the Department of Housing and Urban Development's (HUD) fiscal year 2004 management representation letter. Our objective is to help ensure that future management representation letters submitted by HUD are sufficient to help support …

Correspondence issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "The Secretary of the Treasury, in coordination with the Director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), is required to annually prepare and submit audited financial statements of the U.S. government to the President and the Congress. We are required to audit these consolidated financial statements (CFS) and report on the results of our work. In connection with fulfilling our requirement to audit the fiscal year 2004 CFS, we evaluated the Department of the Treasury's (Treasury) financial reporting procedures and related internal control over the process for compiling the CFS, including the management representation letter provided us by Treasury and OMB. Written representation letters from management, required by U.S. generally accepted government auditing standards, ordinarily confirm oral representations given to the auditor, indicate and document the continuing appropriateness of those representations, and reduce the possibility of a misunderstanding between management and the auditor. The purpose of this report is to communicate our observations on the United States Department of Agriculture's (USDA) fiscal year 2004 management representation letter. Our objective is to help ensure that future management representation letters submitted by USDA are sufficient to help support Treasury …

Testimony issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "In 2001, U.S. stock and options markets, which had previously quoted prices in fractions, began quoting in decimals. Since then, various positive and negative effects have been attributed to the transition to decimal pricing. As part of this transition, the major stock markets chose one penny ($.01) as the minimum price variation for quoting prices for orders to buy or sell. However, some electronic trading systems allowed their customers to quote in increments of less than a penny (such as $.001). The use of subpenny prices for securities trades has proved controversial and the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has proposed a ban against subpenny quoting for stocks priced above one dollar across all U.S. markets. As part of ongoing work that examines a range of issues relating to decimal pricing, GAO reviewed (1) how widely subpenny prices are used and by whom, (2) the advantages and disadvantages of subpenny pricing cited by market participants, and (3) market participants' reactions to SEC's proposed ban."

Correspondence issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "A growing number of states--35 as of June 2009--have created high-risk health insurance pools (HRPs) primarily to provide coverage to individuals whose health status limits their access to coverage in the private individual health insurance market. HRPs--typically state-run nonprofit associations--often contract with a private health insurance carrier to administer the pool and offer a range of health plan options to such individuals, who are commonly referred to as medically uninsurable. Plan options vary within pools and from state to state, and like the private individual market, HRPs typically impose waiting periods for coverage of preexisting conditions to discourage medically uninsurable individuals from foregoing health insurance until they require care. Because of the higher health care costs typically incurred by medically uninsurable individuals, all pools operate at a loss. Premiums for HRP health plans are higher than for plans offered to healthy individuals in the private health insurance market; however, these premiums are capped to limit enrollees' costs and are thus insufficient to cover the costs of enrollee health care claims. As a result, all HRPs supplement their revenues through various funding mechanisms, such as assessments on health insurance …

Correspondence issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "The Thrift Savings Plan (TSP) is a retirement savings and investment plan for federal employees, governed by the Federal Retirement Thrift Investment Board (Board). The TSP is a defined contribution retirement plan available to eligible federal employees. The TSP had about 2.6 million participants and held about $100.6 billion in Net Assets Available for Benefits as of December 31, 2001, and about 3 million participants and $102.3 billion in Net Assets Available for Benefits as of December 31, 2002. In 1997, the Board awarded a contract to American Management Systems, Inc. (AMS) to develop and implement a new record-keeping system for the TSP. In 2001, after several implementation delays, the Board terminated the contract, and the Board's former Executive Director filed a lawsuit against the contractor on behalf of the TSP. On June 20, 2003, 2 days after we provided a draft of this report to the Board for its review, a settlement between the parties was reached. Then, on June 23, 2003, the net unrecovered cost from the system development failure was allocated to participant account balances as recommended in our draft report. While the loss has …

Correspondence issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "GAO identified weaknesses in the Department of Energy's (DOE) personnel practices."

Correspondence issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "We have been reviewing the Department of Homeland Security's (DHS) Transportation Security Administration's (TSA) efforts to develop and implement the Secure Flight program. The purpose of Secure Flight is to compare information on domestic airline passengers against information on known or suspected terrorists to identify passengers who should undergo additional security scrutiny. As we reported in February and March 2005, to develop Secure Flight, TSA has been conducting tests to compare data from airline reservation systems, such as name and flight number, with data from the government's consolidated terrorist watch lists, which include names of known and suspected terrorists. We also reported that TSA has been testing the use of selected data available from commercial data sources--private companies that maintain records on individual names, addresses, phone numbers, and other information--as a means of verifying the accuracy of passenger-provided data. In this letter, we report on key aspects of TSA's disclosure of its use of personal information during commercial data testing for Secure Flight as required by the Privacy Act, and TSA's actions to more fully disclose its use of personal information. We will continue our assessment of Secure …

Correspondence issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "The Secretary of the Treasury, in coordination with the Director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), is required to annually prepare and submit audited financial statements of the U.S. government to the President and the Congress. We are required to audit these consolidated financial statements (CFS) and report on the results of our work. In connection with fulfilling our requirement to audit the fiscal year 2004 CFS, we evaluated the Department of the Treasury's (Treasury) financial reporting procedures and related internal control over the process for compiling the CFS, including the management representation letter provided us by Treasury and OMB. Written representation letters from management, required by U.S. generally accepted government auditing standards, ordinarily confirm oral representations given to the auditor, indicate and document the continuing appropriateness of those representations, and reduce the possibility of a misunderstanding between management and the auditor. The purpose of this report is to communicate our observations on the Department of Justice's (DOJ) fiscal year 2004 management representation letter. Our objective is to help ensure that future management representation letters submitted by DOJ are sufficient to help support Treasury and OMB's …

Testimony issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO discussed the planning-related provisions of titles I and II of S. 1320--the Public Lands Planning and Management Improvement Act of 1999, focusing on the: (1) statutory basis for the Forest Service's mission priorities; (2) clarity of the mission statement in S. 1320; and (3) extent to which the bill addresses identified planning deficiencies."

Testimony issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO discussed the Internal Revenue Service's (IRS) efforts to implement the IRS Restructuring and Reform Act of 1998, focusing on IRS': (1) reorganization processes; (2) performance management system; and (3) systems modernization efforts."

Testimony issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO discussed the impact of fraudulent documents on the effectiveness of the employment verification system established by the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986 and efforts to reduce such fraudulent use."

Testimony issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "It is important to ensure that longterm spending on transportation programs meets the goals of increasing mobility and improving transportation safety. In this testimony, GAO discusses what recently completed work on four transportation programs suggests about challenges and strategies for improving the oversight and use of taxpayer funds. These four programs are (1) the federal-aid highway program, administered by the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA); (2) highway safety programs, administered by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA); (3) the New Starts program, administered by the Federal Transit Administration (FTA); and (4) the Essential Air Service (EAS) program, administered out of the Office of the Secretary of Transportation. Differences in the structure of these programs have contributed to the challenges they illustrate. The federal-aid highway program uses formulas to apportion funds to the states, the highway safety programs use formulas and grants, the New Starts program uses competitive grants, and the EAS program provides subsidies. For each program, GAO describes in general how the program illustrates a particular challenge in managing or overseeing long-term spending and in particular what challenges and strategies for addressing the challenges GAO and others …

Testimony issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "The federal government invests over $11 billion in early childhood education and care programs. These programs exist to ensure that children from low-income families are better prepared to enter school and that their parents have access to early childhood education and care that allow them to obtain and maintain employment. The federal government invests more in Head Start, which was funded at $6.5 billion in fiscal year 2002, than any other early childhood education and care program. Head Start has served over 21 million children at a total cost of $66 billion since it began. The Chairman, Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions asked GAO to discuss Head Start--how it fits within the array of early childhood education and care programs available to low-income children and their families and what is known about its effectiveness."

Testimony issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "This testimony discusses our work on the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP), under which the Department of the Treasury (Treasury), through the Office of Financial Stability (OFS), has the authority to purchase and insure almost $700 billion in troubled assets held by financial institutions. Treasury was granted this authority in response to the financial crisis that has threatened the stability of the U.S. banking system and the solvency of numerous financial institutions. The Emergency Economic Stabilization Act (the act) that authorized TARP on October 3, 2008, requires GAO to report at least every 60 days on findings resulting from our oversight of the status of actions taken under the program. This statement today is based on our fifth mandated report, issued on June 17, 2009, which follows up on the previous recommendations and covers the actions taken as part of TARP through June 12, 2009. Our oversight work under the act is ongoing, and our next report will be issued later this month, and will focus on TARP's loan modification program. Specifically, this statement focuses on (1) the nature and purpose of activities that have been initiated under …

Testimony issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins ""Web 2.0" technologies--such as Web logs ("blogs"), social networking Web sites, video- and multimedia-sharing sites, and "wikis"--are increasingly being utilized by federal agencies to communicate with the public. These tools have the potential to, among other things, better include the public in the governing process. However, agency use of these technologies can present risks associated with properly managing and protecting government records and sensitive information, including personally identifiable information. In light of the rapidly increasing popularity of Web 2.0 technologies, GAO was asked to identify and describe current uses of Web 2.0 technologies by federal agencies and key challenges associated with their use. To accomplish this, GAO analyzed federal policies, reports, and guidance related to the use of Web 2.0 technologies and interviewed officials at selected federal agencies, including the Department of Homeland Security, the General Services Administration, and the National Archives and Records Administration."

Testimony issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "This testimony discusses federal efforts to address alien smuggling along the southwest border. Alien smuggling along the southwest border is an increasing threat to the security of the United States and Mexico as well as to the safety of both law enforcement and smuggled aliens. One reason for this increased threat is the involvement of drug trafficking organizations in alien smuggling. According to the National Drug Intelligence Center's (NDIC) 2008 National Drug Threat Assessment, the southwest border region is the principal entry point for smuggled aliens from Mexico, Central America, and South America. Aliens from countries of special interest to the United States such as Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq, and Pakistan (known as special-interest aliens) also illegally enter the United States through the region. According to the NDIC assessment, Mexican drug trafficking organizations have become increasingly involved in alien smuggling. These organizations collect fees from alien smuggling organizations for the use of specific smuggling routes, and available reporting indicates that some Mexican drug trafficking organizations specialize in smuggling special-interest aliens into the United States. As a result, these organizations now have alien smuggling as an additional source of funding …

Testimony issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "In fiscal year 2003, the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) estimated that about 157,000 veterans were legally blind, and about 44,000 of these veterans were enrolled in VA health care. The Chairman of the Subcommittee on Health, House Veterans' Affairs Committee, and the Ranking Minority Member, Senate Veterans' Affairs Committee expressed concerns about VA's rehabilitation services for blind veterans. GAO reviewed (1) the availability of VA outpatient blind rehabilitation services, (2) whether legally blind veterans benefit from VA and non-VA outpatient services, and (3) what factors affect VA's ability to increase veterans' access to blind rehabilitation outpatient services. GAO reviewed VA's blind rehabilitation policies; interviewed officials from VA, the Blinded Veterans Association, state and private nonprofit agencies, and visited five Blind Rehabilitation Centers (BRC)."