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) authority, which was established under Section 845 of the Fiscal Year 1994 National Defense Authorization Act, to use nonstandard contracting approaches to procure research and development services, focusing on: (1) the extent to which DOD has used Section 845 agreements; (2) the benefits reported from their use; (3) how DOD tailored these agreements to address issues normally governed by standard contract provisions; and (4) recent DOD efforts to provide additional guidance on their use."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "The Department of Defense (DOD) reported on its Office of Management and Budget Circular A-76 studies in July 2000. GAO found that DOD generally complied with the reporting requirements that Congress had imposed on it. DOD took steps to ensure that the information it provided on 286 A-76 studies was complete and accurate. GAO determined that the information was generally consistent with data it had collected on other A-76 studies. However, because of historical weaknesses in DOD's database from which the data were obtained, GAO could not be sure of the data's accuracy. Overall, DOD reported that the A-76 studies over the five year period saved about $290 million in fiscal year 1999. GAO's work showed that savings were being achieved, but limitations in DOD's baseline cost data made it difficult to determine precisely how much was being saved. In addition, DOD reported that 40 percent of the A-76 studies resulted in contracts with the private sector. At the same time, the report indicated that only 23 percent of the studies resulted in outside contracts in 1999. This was considerably lower than in earlier years when …

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO reviewed issues related to the closing of the Lorton correctional facilities that house felon inmates from the District of Columbia and the transfer of these inmates to the federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP), focusing on: (1) the D.C. Department of Corrections' response to the Office of the Corrections Trustee's 1999 recommendations on the Youngstown prison facility; (2) BOP's efforts to comply with the privatization requirements of the National Capital Revitalization and Self-Government Improvement Act of 1997; and (3) any challenges concerning the closing of Lorton faced by the District of Columbia and BOP as December 31, 2001, the statutory date for closing all of Lorton, nears."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO provided information on the H-1B program's implementation and implications for the American workforce, focusing on: (1) the jobs that H-1B workers are filling in the United States and the characteristics of those workers; (2) the adequacy of the H-1B visa program's implementation and enforcement; and (3) efforts underway to improve information technology (IT) skills in the American workforce."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a legislative requirement, GAO reviewed the Health Care Financing Administration's (HCFA) research on a home health prospective payment system (PPS), focusing on: (1) the objectives, findings, and costs of the research and demonstration projects HCFA has funded that were related to the design of the PPS; and (2) how these projects contributed to the proposed PPS design and which design decisions were based on incomplete information."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO provided information on Natural Resources Conservation Service's (NRCS) efforts to improve its accountability, focusing on the: (1) agency's new approach and the status of its implementation; and (2) extent to which the approach will improve accountability."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO reviewed the U.S. Postal Service's (USPS) electronic commerce (e-commerce) initiatives, focusing on USPS': (1) e-commerce initiatives that have been implemented or are being developed; (2) goals and strategies for the e-commerce area; (3) processes for approving these initiatives; and (4) expected performance and results to date related to e-commerce."

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 recover Medicare's overpayments, focusing on: (1) how the Health Care Financing Administration (HCFA) and its contractors identify potential overpayments, and whether techniques used by recovery auditors would improve overpayment identification; (2) how well HCFA and its contractors collect overpayments once they are identified, and whether the services of recovery auditors would improve HCFA collection efforts; and (3) what challenges HCFA would face if it were required to hire recovery auditors to augment its overpayment identification and collection activities."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO provided information on the expansion of Medicare beneficiaries' access to prescription drugs, focusing on the: (1) federal drug price discounts available to federal and nonfederal purchasers and the size of those discounts; and (2) potential effects that extending such discounts to nonfederal purchasers may have on outpatient drug prices paid by federal and nonfederal purchasers."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO reviewed the Veterans Benefits Administration's (VBA) claims processing procedures, focusing on: (1) practices that individual regional offices believe have helped them improve the accuracy of their disability decisions and remand rates; and (2) VBA's efforts to evaluate and disseminate information on individual regional office practices that hold promise for improving accuracy and remand rates of regional offices nationwide."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO reviewed the efforts of states and the Food and Nutrition Service (FNS) to reduce Food Stamp trafficking, focusing on the: (1) extent to which the states with statewide electronic benefit transfer (EBT) systems are identifying and disqualifying recipients who engage in trafficking; and (2) actions FNS has taken to encourage the states to identify and disqualify recipients engaged in trafficking."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO reviewed a public opinion survey regarding the United States Mint's promotion of the new dollar coin as the "Golden Dollar," focusing on whether the public: (1) has seen or heard any advertising of the new dollar coin; and (2) believes the new dollar coin contains any gold on the basis of that advertising or the use of the term "Golden Dollar.""

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "GAO provided information on United States infrastructure, focusing on: (1) trends in the government's investment in infrastructure; (2) how federal agencies can improve their decision-making for the acquisition and management of infrastructure; and (3) the challenges to an effective investment in infrastructure at the federal level."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO reviewed the status of the Internal Revenue Service's (IRS) continuous levy program, focusing on: (1) the number of taxpayers that could be subject to a continuous levy, the revenue that might be generated, and the cost to IRS to have the Financial Management Service (FMS) levy the federal payments of those taxpayers; (2) issues that could delay program implementation or otherwise affect revenues from the program; (3) the controls and testing that IRS and FMS have planned to prevent levying taxpayers not subject to levy and to prevent levying payments for more than the taxpayer owes; and (4) changes, if any, IRS and FMS could make to yield increased revenues from the program."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO provided information on differences in the Army's and Air Force's disbursing and accounting records, focusing on: (1) if, and to what extent, contract payment transactions recorded in the Army and the Air Force official accounting records differed from mechanization of contract administration services (MOCAS) disbursing system records; (2) the types of differences between the disbursing and accounting systems and, to the extent possible, the causes for the differences; and (3) the potential effect any identified deficiencies may have on the Department of Defense's (DOD) planned contract payment system improvements."

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 Reserve Banks' (FRB) computer control vulnerabilities."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO reviewed the impact of organized crime and public sector corruption on the efforts of the international community to rebuild Bosnia and meet the benchmarks for the withdrawal of North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) forces, focusing on: (1) how organized crime and public sector corruption might affect the successful implementation of the General Framework Agreement for Peace in Bosnia and Herzegovina (Dayton Agreement) in Bosnia; (2) whether the international community's anticorruption efforts have improved Bosnia's law enforcement and judicial system and reduced corruption; and (3) whether international assistance resources are being safeguarded and whether such assistance is being used by Bosnia in place of domestic revenues lost due to crime and corruption."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO reviewed health care plans' withdrawal from the Medicare Choice program, focusing on the: (1) geographic distribution and the distribution among plans of enrollees affected by the recent plan withdrawals; (2) factors associated with plans that terminated or reduced their participation in the program; and (3) likely role of payment rates in affecting plans' decisions."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO provided information on recent trends in retention rates among officers and enlisted personnel in the four armed services, focusing on: (1) how much information the Department of Defense (DOD) has on retention trends across the services; and (2) analyzing changes in retention rates in the aggregate and by career stage and occupation from 1988 through 1998."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO provided information on U.S. and European defense contractors' business alliances, focusing on: (1) the types alliances companies are establishing and their reasons for forming alliances; (2) why companies prefer certain types of alliances over others; and (3) whether U.S. laws, regulations, policies, and practices influence a company's decision to form an alliance or its choice of a type of alliance."

A chapter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO reviewed issues relating to mutual fund fees, focusing on: (1) the trend in mutual fund advisers' costs and profitability; (2) the trend in mutual fund fees; (3) how mutual funds compete; (4) how fees are disclosed to fund investors and how industry participants view these disclosures; and (5) what mutual fund directors' responsibilities are regarding fees and how industry participants view directors' activities."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a legislative requirement, GAO reviewed the Department of Defense's (DOD) base closure accounts and its budget request for base closure activities, focusing on: (1) how trends in base realignment and closure appropriations in recent years and estimates for future years compare to the fiscal year (FY) 2001 budget request; and (2) unliquidated obligations and unobligated balances from prior years' appropriations and the extent to which DOD considered these balances and obligations in preparing the FY 2001 budget request."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO reviewed five foreign countries' efforts to combat terrorism, focusing on: (1) how other governments are organized to combat terrorism; and (2) how they allocate their resources to combat terrorism."

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