A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO reviewed the key elements of partnerships between the federal government and the private sector that were formed to help the government acquire and operate federal real estate and facilities more efficiently and effectively, focusing on the experiences of six federal partnerships formed by the: (1) National Park Service; (2) Department of Veterans Affairs (VA); and (3) Postal Service (USPS)."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO reviewed the nation's infectious diseases surveillance network, focusing on the: (1) extent to which states conduct public health surveillance and laboratory testing of selected emerging infectious diseases; (2) problems state public health officials face in gathering and using laboratory-related data in the surveillance of emerging infectious diseases; and (3) assistance that the Department of Health and Human Services' Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) provides to states for laboratory-related surveillance and the value of this assistance to state officials."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO provided information about: (1) welfare-to-work formula and competitive grants awarded to, or declined by, states for fiscal year (FY) 1998; (2) how selected grantees are planning to use these funds; and (3) how selected grantees plan to meet welfare-to-work requirements to better integrate the states' workforce development services with other human services for welfare recipients."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a legislative requirement, GAO reviewed the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's (NASA) Acquisition Internet Service (NAIS), focusing on: (1) whether NAIS is an effective mechanism for disseminating procurement information to industry, including small businesses; and (2) the status of efforts to develop a governmentwide electronic procurement information system similar to NAIS."

A chapter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "GAO reported on the conclusions and recommendations resulting from its audits and other reviews of federal departments and agencies. GAO provided summary information on the status of all recommendations that have not been fully implemented in the areas of national security, international affairs, community and economic development, natural resources, human resources, justice, general government, and financial and information management for use in congressional review of budget requests."

A chapter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO reviewed the Customs Service's software development maturity and improvement activities, focusing on: (1) the maturity of Customs' software development processes; and (2) whether Customs has an effective software process improvement program."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO provided information on the Sawtooth National Recreation Area's (SNRA) funding, its accomplishments and unmet needs, and on agency actions that have adverse impacts on the area, focusing on: (1) the funds allocated to the SNRA for fiscal years 1993 through 1997; (2) spending for fiscal years 1993 through 1997 to enhance recreation, to preserve conservation values, such as fish and wildlife, and to manage commodity programs, such as grazing, and the accomplishments and unmet needs in these areas; (3) the funds not allocated or the funds allocated and then taken back from the Recreation Area for fiscal years 1993 through 1997 and what was done with those funds; and (4) some examples of potentially adverse effects of how the Recreation Area is managed on individuals, companies, and communities economically dependent on the area."

A chapter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO provided information on the Department of Energy's (DOE) training program and the changes that are needed to address those problems, focusing on: (1) DOE's current process for setting its training budget; (2) opportunities to reduce the costs associated with DOE's training program; and (3) DOE's draft plan for training its employees in the future."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO reviewed the Federal Trade Commission's (FTC) proposal to restructure its regional operations, focusing on: (1) FTC's rationale for proposing the regional restructuring; (2) the process FTC followed in developing its restructuring proposal; (3) factors FTC used and could have used in deciding how to restructure; (4) other options to the proposed restructuring identified in prior FTC studies or by Boston and Denver regional officials; and (5) the views of selected stakeholders regarding the impact the proposed restructuring could have in the areas covered by the Boston and Denver regional offices."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO reviewed how the social security number (SSN) is used, focusing on: (1) federal laws and regulations requiring or restricting SSN use; (2) how extensively the private and public sectors use SSNs for purposes not required by federal law; and (3) what businesses and governments believe the impact would be if federal laws limiting the use of SSNs were passed."

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) efforts to reduce the size and cost of its headquarters activities, focusing on DOD's: (1) efforts to reduce headquarters positions and associated costs in the Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD) and Washington Headquarters Services, as required by the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 1997; (2) efforts to reduce headquarters positions across DOD as required by the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 1998; and (3) reporting of personnel on temporary assignment to OSD from other DOD components."

A chapter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO provided information on Department of Defense (DOD) efforts to improve joint operations, focusing on: (1) the U.S. Atlantic Command's (USACOM) actions to establish itself as the joint force trainer, provider, and integrator of most continental U.S.-based forces; (2) views on the value of the Command's contributions to joint military capabilities; and (3) recent expansion of the Command's responsibilities and its possible effects on the command."

A chapter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO reviewed the Department of Energy's (DOE) efforts to create jobs for displaced former Soviet Union scientists through its Initiatives for Proliferation Prevention program, focusing on: (1) the costs to implement the program for fiscal years 1994-98, including the amount of funds received by weapons scientists and institutes; (2) the extent to which the program's projects are meeting their nonproliferation and commercialization objectives; and (3) DOE's Nuclear Cities Initiative."

A chapter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO provided information on: (1) the number and characteristics of self-employed taxpayers who receive social security credit for self-employment earnings when they are delinquent in paying the self-employment taxes on those earnings; (2) why self-employed taxpayers who have not paid their self-employment taxes are allowed to receive social security credit; and (3) any potential actions that could enhance the collection of self-employment taxes."

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) use Office of Management and Budget Circular A-76 as a means of realizing an estimated $6 billion savings in support costs between fiscal years (FY) 1997 and 2003, focusing on: (1) identifying the competition and savings goals; (2) assessing the accuracy of the savings estimates provided to Congress; and (3) evaluating the adequacy of planning to support the overall program."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO assessed the adequacy and status of the Food and Drug Administration's (FDA) planned actions to correct internal control weaknesses related to property and equipment identified in prior financial statement audit reports, focusing on FDA's: (1) inadequate controls over the physical quantities of property and equipment and their locations; (2) improper reconciliations between its general ledger and property subsidiary ledger systems; and (3) internal controls related to the safeguarding and reporting of automated data processing (ADP) equipment that is lost, stolen, destroyed, or surplussed."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO reviewed how effectively the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) selects individual income tax returns for audit, focusing on: (1) the extent to which IRS district offices have used various sources to select these individual returns for audit; and (2) comparing the results of audits selected using these sources in terms of the rate at which audits recommended no-change to the tax reported, amount of additional taxes recommended per return audited, and rates at which IRS assessed and collected such recommended taxes after the 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 Department of Defense's (DOD) recent competitive sourcing initiatives, focusing on: (1) determining the number of sourcing competitions completed between October 1995 and March 1998 and whether the competitions had been done in accordance with applicable procedures; (2) comparing characteristics such as outcomes of recent competitions with previous competitions in terms of winners of the competitions, time required to complete the competitions, savings produced, and other relevant metrics; and (3) identifying the extent of any problems in implementing the results of the competitions, and plans for government monitoring of contracts awarded as a result of outsourcing."

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) processes for investigating military enlistees' criminal history, focusing on: (1) the extent to which relevant criminal history information on potential enlistees is available to the military services; and (2) federal government initiatives that could improve the process of obtaining criminal history information."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO examined the significant differences in two Department of Defense training programs, focusing on the: (1) training categories and military services with the most significant funding changes from the 1998 to the 1999 Future Years Defense Program (FYDP); (2) bases for the changes; and (3) potential impact of the changes on the services' future training budgets."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO reviewed the types of health research conducted outside the Common Rule and Federal Drug Administration (FDA) regulations, focusing on: (1) examining how medical information is used for research and the need for personally identifiable information; (2) identifying research that is and is not subject to current federal oversight requirements; (3) examining how institutional review boards (IRB) ensure the confidentiality of health information used in research; and (4) identifying the safeguards health care organizations have put in place to protect the confidentiality of health information used in research."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO reviewed the Health Care Financing Administration's (HCFA) ongoing efforts to develop resource-based practice expense relative value units (RVUs), focusing on: (1) whether the new methodology is an acceptable approach for revising Medicare's fee schedule; (2) questions about the data, assumptions, and adjustments underlying the new methodology that need to be addressed during the 3-year phase-in period; and (3) the need for future updates to the practice expense RVUs to reflect changes in health care delivery and for ongoing assessments of the fee schedule's effect on Medicare beneficiaries' access to physicians' care."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO reviewed the Navy's declining ship maintenance workload, focusing on: (1) the Navy's policies and procedures for allocating ship maintenance work to public and private facilities in the Norfolk area; (2) ship maintenance and modernization funding obligated to the Norfolk Naval Shipyard and private ship repair companies during the fiscal years (FY) 1994 through 1998; and (3) the extent to which the Atlantic Fleet's ship maintenance program has been affected by the movement of funds out of the ship depot maintenance program since FY 1994."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a legislative requirement, GAO provided information on the corrective actions taken by the Army following the deaths of four Ranger students in a 1995 training accident, focusing on the status of: (1) Army Ranger training manning levels required by the fiscal year 1996 National Defense Authorization Act; (2) establishing safety cell organizations required by the act; (3) corrective safety actions instituted after the accident; and (4) inspections of identified safety controls."