Correspondence issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "GAO reviewed the Bureau of Prisons to determine whether it had made overpayments to contractors. During fiscal year 2001, the Bureau of Prisons had 24 open construction contracts that totaled about $1.9 billion. In addition to general disbursement controls, GAO found internal controls specific to construction contracts in which both the project representative and the contracting officer must approve each monthly progress payment invoice. GAO sampled 27 payments on five construction contracts to determine if construction contract payment controls were properly designed, in place, and operating to prevent or detect overpayments. GAO found that the internal controls were in place and operating and construction contract payment amounts were correct, or, if errors occurred, they were detected and corrected promptly as a normal part of the payment system. A few minor clerical errors were subsequently detected and corrected by the Bureau of Prisons through its own routine control procedures before GAO made its review. GAO concludes that the risk of undetected construction contractor overpayments at the Bureau of Prisons appears to be small."

Testimony issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Financial management problems at the Department of Defense (DOD) are complex, long-standing, and deeply rooted throughout its business operations. DOD's financial management deficiencies represent the single largest obstacle to achieving an unqualified opinion on the U.S. government's consolidated financial statements. So far, none of the military services or major DOD components have passed the test of an independent financial audit because of pervasive weaknesses in financial management systems, operations, and controls. These problems go back decades, and earlier attempts at reform have been unsuccessful. DOD continues to rely on a far-flung, complex network of finance, logistics, personnel, acquisition, and other management information systems for financial data to support day-to-day management and decision-making. This network has evolved into an overly complex and error-prone operation with (1) little standardization across DOD components; (2) multiple systems performing the same tasks; (3) the same data stored in multiple systems; (4) manual data entry into multiple systems; and (5) a large number of data translations and interfaces, which combine to exacerbate problems with data integrity. Many of the elements that are crucial to financial management reform and business process transformation--particularly those that rely …

Correspondence issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "GAO reviewed the audit report covering the financial statements for the Military Order of the Purple Heart of the United States of America, Incorporated, for fiscal year 2001. GAO found no reportable instances of noncompliance. The audit report included the auditors' opinions that the financial statements of the corporation were presented fairly in accordance with generally accepted accounting principles."

Correspondence issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "GAO reviewed the audit report covering the financial statements of the National Conference on Citizenship, for fiscal years 2001 and 2002. GAO found no reportable instances of noncompliance. The audit report included the auditors' opinions that the financial statements of the corporation were presented fairly in accordance with generally accepted accounting principles."

Correspondence issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "GAO reviewed the audit report covering the financial statements of the National Fallen Firefighters Foundation, for fiscal years 2000 and 1999. GAO found no reportable instances of noncompliance. The audit report included the auditors' opinion that the financial statements of the corporation were presented fairly in accordance with generally accepted accounting principles."

Correspondence issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "GAO reviewed the audit report covering the financial statements of the National Federation of Music Clubs, for the fiscal year ended June 30, 2001. GAO found no reportable instances of noncompliance. The audit report included the auditors' opinions that the financial statements of the corporation were presented fairly in accordance with generally accepted accounting principles."

Correspondence issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "GAO reviewed the audit reports covering the financial statements of the National Fund for Medical Education, for fiscal year 2000. GAO found no reportable instances of noncompliance. The audit reports included the auditors' opinions that the financial statements of the corporation were presented fairly in accordance with generally accepted accounting principles."

Correspondence issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "GAO reviewed the audit report covering the financial statements for the National Ski Patrol System, Incorporated, for fiscal years 2000 and 2001. GAO found no reportable instances of noncompliance. The audit report included the auditors' opinions that the financial statements of the corporation were presented fairly in accordance with generally accepted accounting principles."

Correspondence issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "GAO reviewed the audit report covering the financial statements of the Pearl Harbor Survivors Association, for fiscal year 2001. GAO found no reportable instances of noncompliance. The audit report included the auditors' opinions that, with one exception, the financial statements of the corporation were presented fairly on a modified cash basis of accounting. The exception related to the fact that the auditors were not present to observe the physical inventory count at September 30, 2001, and the Association's records do not permit adequate retroactive tests of inventory balances."

Correspondence issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "GAO reviewed the audit report covering the financial statements of the Polish Legion of American Veterans, U.S.A., for fiscal year 2001. GAO found no reportable instances of noncompliance. The audit report included the auditors' opinion that the financial statements of the corporation were presented fairly on a modified cash basis of accounting."

Correspondence issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "GAO reviewed the audit report covering the financial statements of the Vietnam Veterans of America, Inc., for fiscal year 2001. GAO found no reportable instances of noncompliance. The audit report included the auditors' opinions that the financial statements of the corporation were presented fairly in accordance with generally accepted accounting principles."

Correspondence issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "GAO reviewed the audit report covering the financial statements of the Retired Enlisted Association, Incorporated, for fiscal years 2001, 2000, and 1999. GAO did not review the auditors' working papers and did not render an audit opinion. The audit reports included the auditors' opinions that the financial statements of the corporation do not present fairly, in accordance with generally accepted accounting principles, the financial position of the corporation or the changes in its net assets or cash flows for 2001, 2000, and 1999."

Testimony issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "The Highway Trust Fund "guarantees" specific annual funding levels for most highway programs on the basis of projected receipts to the fund. It also makes annual adjustments to these funding levels on the basis of actual receipts and revised projections of trust fund revenue. These adjustments are called the Revenue Aligned Budget Authority (RABA). GAO concludes that the fiscal year 2003 RABA calculation appears reasonable. Although the RABA adjustment is clearly severe, it reflects the many ways in which an economic downturn affects the calculation. In late January 2002, the administration announced that the fiscal year 2003 RABA adjustment would be a negative $4.965 billion. Within a few days of the announcement, the administration reported that an error had been made and the correct amount was a negative $4.369 billion--a $600 million difference. Treasury is taking steps to improve its internal controls in order to prevent this type of error from reoccurring. The use of ethanol blended fuel instead of gasoline reduces Highway Trust Fund revenue because it is partially exempt from the standard excise tax on gasoline and 2.5 cents of the tax received on each gallon …

Testimony issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "The challenges posed by homeland security exceed the capacity and authority of any one level of government. Protecting the nation against these threats calls for a truly integrated approach, bringing together the resources of all levels of government. The proposed Department of Homeland Security will clearly have a central role in efforts to enhance homeland security. The proposed consolidation of homeland security programs has the potential to reduce fragmentation, improve coordination, and clarify roles and responsibilities. Realistically, the challenges that the new department faces will clearly require substantial time and effort, and it will take additional resources to make it effective. Moreover, formation of a department should not be considered a replacement for the timely issuance of a national homeland security strategy to guide implementation of the complex mission of the department. Appropriate roles and responsibilities within and between the levels of government and with the private sector are evolving and need to be clarified. New threats are prompting a reassessment and shifting of long-standing roles and responsibilities, but these shifts are being considered on a piecemeal basis without benefit of an overarching framework and criteria to guide …

Testimony issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "The Federal Transportation Administration's (FTA) New Starts Program helps pay for designing and constructing rail, bus, and trolley projects through full funding grant agreements. The Transportation Equity Act for the 21st Century (TEA-21), authorized $6.1 billion in "guaranteed" funding for the New Starts program through fiscal year 2003. Although the level of New Starts funding is higher than ever, the demand for these resources is also extremely high. Given this high demand for new and expanded transit facilities across the nation, communities need to examine approaches that stretch the federal and local dollar yet still provide high quality transit services. Although FTA has been faced with an impending transit budget crunch for several years, it is likely to end the TEA-21 authorization period with $310 million in unused New Starts commitment authority if its proposed fiscal year 2003 budget is enacted. Bus Rapid Transit is designed to provide major improvements in the speed and reliability of bus service through barrier-separated busways, buses on High Occupancy Vehicle Lanes, or improved service on arterial streets. GAO found that Bus Rapid Transit was a less expensive and more flexible approach than …

Correspondence issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "The Army National Guard's funding requests for fiscal years 2000 and 2001 were overstated by $42.9 million and $31.6 million, respectively, because of inaccurate military strength and participation rates used to develop projected and actual military force levels. To correct these overstatements, the Guard is placing more emphasis on an existing personnel database reporting system that identifies the personnel assigned to a unit but who have not been paid for inactive duty training for three months or more. The Guard also improved the method it uses to calculate inactive duty training participation rates, now basing the rate on the number of people who have actually been paid for training, rather than on expected program costs."

Testimony issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "In fiscal years 1996 to 2000, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) was one of the few agencies that received an unqualified opinion on its financial statements and was in substantial compliance with the Federal Financial Management Improvement Act (FFMIA). This suggested that NASA could generate reliable information for annual external financial reporting and could provide accurate, reliable information for day-to-day decision-making. In contrast with the unqualified or "clean" audit opinions of its previous auditor, Arthur Andersen, NASA's new independent auditor, PricewaterhouseCoopers, disclaimed an opinion on the agency's fiscal year 2001 financial statements because of significant internal control weaknesses. PricewaterhouseCoopers also concluded that NASA's financial management systems do not substantially comply with the requirements of FFMIA. Modernizing NASA's financial management system is essential to providing accurate, useful information for external financial reporting as well as internal management decision-making. NASA is working on an integrated financial management system that it expects to have fully operational in fiscal year 2006 at an estimated cost of $475 million. This is NASA's third attempt to implement a new financial management system. The first two efforts were abandoned after 12 years and …

Correspondence issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "In fiscal year 2000, U. S. Postal Service employees accounted for about one-third of both the federal civilian workforce and the $2.1 billion cost of the Federal Workers' Compensation Program (WCP). During that same year, Postal Service employees submitted 85,000 claims, or one-half of all claims for new work-related injuries, to the Department of Labor's (DOL) Office of Workers' Compensation Program (OWCP), which is charged with administering the program. Because of complaints the subcommittee received from injured federal employees about the untimely receipt of WCP benefits and because Postal Service employees account for such a large portion of the WCP, the Chairman, House Subcommittee on Government Efficiency, Financial Management, and Intergovernmental Relations, Committee on Government Reform, asked us to determine specifically whether Postal Service employees were receiving WCP benefits in a timely manner. For our current review, we agreed to (1) determine the extent to which Postal Service employees provided all of the evidence required by OWCP regulations for determining the claimants' eligibility for WCP benefits and (2) determine whether claims for WCP eligibility and WCP compensation payments for lost wages or schedule awards were submitted and processed …