A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Fiscal exposures may be explicit in that the federal government is legally required to pay for the commitment; alternatively, it may be implicit in that the exposure arises from expectations based on current policy or past practices. The nine programs GAO examined illustrate the range of federal fiscal exposures (see figure) and how they can change over time. Also, some programs may have elements of both explicit and implicit exposure. Federal insurance programs, for example, fall across the spectrum: if an event occurs, some payment is legally required--an explicit exposure. However, there may be an expectation that the government will provide assistance beyond the amount legally required--that is an implicit exposure. Prior to 2008, securities issued by Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac were explicitly not backed by the U.S. government. However, in response to the financial crisis, the government's agreement to provide temporary assistance to cover their losses up to a set amount created a new explicit exposure. The amount of future spending arising from federal fiscal exposures varies in the degree to which it is known and can be measured."

Testimony issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "The Department of Defense (DOD) must get better outcomes from its weapon system investments, which in recent years have totaled around $1.5 trillion or more. Recently, there have been some improvements, owing in part to reforms. For example, cost growth declined between 2011 and 2012 and a number of programs also improved their buying power by finding efficiencies in development or production and requirements changes. Still, cost and schedule growth remain significant; 39 percent of fiscal 2012 programs have had unit cost growth of 25 percent or more."

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "The Social Security Administration (SSA) struggles to effectively administer its Representative Payee Program, despite steps taken to address its challenges in identifying, selecting, and monitoring representative payees. For example, due to increasing workloads and staff attrition, SSA field office managers in some offices said they sometimes have to perform payee program duties that lower level staff typically handle. SSA has also experienced an increasing number of beneficiaries who may not have a suitable payee available. In an effort to address this challenge, SSA hosted a webinar to recruit additional payees. However, SSA officials said this effort did not result in the addition of any new payees. SSA also faces challenges ensuring that payees who are selected are suitable for the task. To help address this challenge, SSA implemented a pilot program in its Philadelphia region to screen and bar payee applicants who have been convicted of certain crimes. The pilot relies on self-reported information from payee applicants, but SSA plans to screen applicants by accessing a commercial database that contains state-level criminal information. This database, however, does not contain information from every state and it is …

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "The International Civil Service Commission (ICSC) determines changes to each component of United Nations (UN) Secretariat professional employees' salaries and calculates the difference between UN and U.S. civil service salaries annually. ICSC recommends adjustments to the first component, base salaries, each year to align with changes to U.S. civil service base salaries. For example, ICSC calculated that U.S. civil service base salaries, including the impact of tax changes, increased 1.37 percent on January 1, 2010 and recommended that the UN base salary scale increase 1.37 percent on January 1, 2011. To set post adjustments, an additional salary component intended to equalize purchasing power, ICSC calculates the cost of living in each duty station. ICSC monitors changes in inflation, exchange rates, and other factors, and updates post adjustments periodically to reflect those changes. ICSC conducts surveys of UN employees and collects data on prices at least once every 5 years to ensure that post adjustments reflect the cost of several categories of expenditures relative to New York City, such as goods and services, housing, and medical insurance. Additionally, ICSC calculates the margin, or percentage difference, between UN …

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "The Department of Defense (DOD) is taking steps to address the health care needs of deployed servicewomen. For example, DOD has put in place policies and guidance that include female-specific aspects to help address the health care needs of servicewomen during deployment. Also, as part of pre-deployment preparations, servicewomen are screened for potentially deployment-limiting conditions, such as pregnancy, and DOD officials and health care providers with whom GAO met noted that such screening helps ensure that many female-specific health care needs are addressed prior to deployment. GAO also found that DOD components have conducted reviews of the health care needs of servicewomen during deployments and are collecting data on the medical services provided to deployed servicewomen."

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services' (CMS) methodology for estimating a national improper payment rate for the Medicaid program is statistically sound. However, CMS's procedures did not provide for updating state data used in its methodology to recognize significant corrections or adjustments after the cutoff date. The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) requires that federal agencies establish a statistically valid methodology for estimating the annual amount of improper payments in programs and activities susceptible to significant improper payments. CMS developed the Payment Error Rate Measurement (PERM) program in order to comply with improper payment estimation and reporting requirements for the Medicaid program. Under the PERM methodology, CMS places states in one of three cycles, and each year one of the cycles reports new state-level data based on the previous year's samples. CMS then calculates the national Medicaid program improper payment estimate using these new data for one-third of the states and older data for the other two-thirds of the states. CMS's estimated national improper payment error rate for fiscal year 2011 for the Medicaid program was 8.1 percent, or $21.9 billion. However, CMS's procedures …

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Agencies reported real property cost savings of $3.8 billion in response to the June 2010 presidential memorandum from disposal, space management, sustainability, and innovation activities. Space management savings, defined by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) as those savings resulting from, among other things, consolidations or the elimination of lease arrangements that were not cost effective, accounted for the largest portion of savings reported by all agencies, and for about 70 percent of the savings reported by the six agencies GAO reviewed--the General Services Administration (GSA) and the Departments of Agriculture (USDA), Energy (DOE), Homeland Security (DHS), Justice (DOJ), and State (State). The requirements of the memorandum, as well as agencies' individual savings targets and the time frame for reporting savings, led the selected agencies to primarily report savings from activities that were planned or under way at the time the memorandum was issued."

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins ""

Correspondence issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "There are several key similarities and differences between Part 851, OSHA regulations, and the OSH Act. Several key similarities are that Part 851 incorporates by reference almost all OSHA standards and authorizes workers to file complaints about unsafe working conditions or hazards in the workplace. Several key differences are that Part 851 incorporates additional industry standards and authorizes DOE to accept hazard controls--in certain nonoperational facilities--that are not otherwise fully compliant with applicable DOE regulations for worker health and safety."

Other written product issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Fiscal sustainability presents a national challenge shared by all levels of government. Since 2007, GAO has published long-term fiscal simulations for the state and local government sector. These simulations have consistently shown that, like the federal government, the state and local sector faces persistent and long-term fiscal pressures and, absent any policy changes, would face an increasing gap between receipts and expenditures in future years."

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "As part of verifying if farm and conservation program participants had incomes below statutory limits--making them eligible to receive certain 2009 and 2010 program payments--reviews of tax returns by the U.S. Department of Agriculture's (USDA) Farm Service Agency's (FSA) state offices varied in quality. GAO's review of 115 tax return files from selected state offices found that some files met agency guidance and had no apparent errors. Other files did not meet agency guidance or contained errors, resulting in some potentially improper payments to participants whose incomes exceeded the limits. For example, GAO found errors in 19 of the 22 tax return files it reviewed from FSA offices in two states; one of these errors led to a potentially improper payment of $40,000. FSA headquarters does not monitor state offices' reviews of tax returns to ensure that the offices are applying program guidance consistently and making accurate eligibility determinations, even though federal standards for internal control direct agencies to monitor and assess the quality of performance over time. Also, 2008 Farm Bill provisions requiring a distinction between farm and nonfarm income make it difficult for agency …

Correspondence issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins ""

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "The Social Security Administration (SSA) will experience management challenges in four key areas over the next decade."

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Nearly two-thirds of the Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG) language services--offices that produce content for particular languages and regions-- overlap with another BBG service by providing programs to the same countries in the same languages. GAO identified 23 instances of overlap involving 43 of BBG's 69 services. For example, in 8 instances involving 16 services, a Voice of America service and a Radio Free Asia service overlapped. Almost all overlapping services also broadcast on the same platform (i.e., radio or television). BBG officials noted that some overlap may be helpful in providing news from various sources in countries of strategic interest to the United States; however, they acknowledged that overlap reduces the funding available for broadcasts that may have greater impact. BBG budget information indicates that BBG spent approximately $149 million in fiscal year 2011 to maintain language services broadcasting in the same countries and languages--nearly 20 percent of its total appropriations. However, BBG has not estimated the potential savings and efficiencies from reducing unnecessary overlap. Further, BBG's annual language service review--its primary means of prioritizing broadcast languages and planning resource allocations--does not systematically consider the …

Correspondence issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins ""

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "The Department of Defense's (DOD) policy for assessing the individual medical readiness of a servicemember to deploy establishes six elements to review, most of which are gender-neutral. Four of the six elements--immunization status, medical readiness laboratory tests, individual medical equipment, and dental readiness--apply equally to female and male servicemembers. The remaining elements of individual medical readiness--deployment-limiting conditions and periodic health assessments--include aspects that are specific to female servicemembers. For example, the Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marine Corps have policies that define pregnancy as a deployment-limiting condition."

Correspondence issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Since October 1994, the Export-Import Bank of the United States (Ex-Im) has had statutory authority to facilitate the financing of U.S. exports of defense articles and services, provided that Ex-Im determines that these items are nonlethal and primarily meant for civilian use. These “dual-use” exports include items such as vehicles that are used by the military mainly for civilian or humanitarian purposes. Ex-Im did not finance any transactions under its dual-use authority in fiscal year 2011 and financed three transactions under its dual-use authority in fiscal year 2012. The transactions financed in fiscal year 2012 were (1) a satellite for Eutelsat of France, (2) road construction equipment for the government of Cameroon, and (3) three satellites for the government of Mexico. At the time of publication of this report, little of the equipment financed had been delivered to end users. Prior to fiscal year 2012, Ex-Im last provided financing for dual-use exports in fiscal year 2002."

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "At least 22 pharmacy services administrative organizations (PSAO), which varied in the number and location of the pharmacies to which they provided services, were in operation in 2011 or 2012. In total, depending on different data sources, these PSAOs represented or provided other services to between 20,275 and 28,343 pharmacies in 2011 or 2012, most of which were independent pharmacies. While the number of pharmacies with which each PSAO contracted ranged from 24 to 5,000 pharmacies, most PSAOs represented or provided other services to fewer than 1,000 pharmacies. Additionally, some PSAOs contracted with pharmacies primarily located in a particular region rather than contracting with pharmacies located across the United States."

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Foreclosure rescue schemes remain at historically high levels and have become more complex. The Federal Trade Commission's (FTC) Consumer Sentinel Network--an online database of consumer complaints received by FTC, law enforcement agencies, and other organizations--showed that complaints about these schemes rose from around 9,000 in 2009 to more than 18,000 each year in 2010, 2011, and 2012. In addition, the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network reported steady increases over the same period in the number of Suspicious Activity Reports (SAR)--reports filed by financial institutions about suspected violations of financial laws and regulations--related to these schemes. Agency officials and representatives of nonprofits told GAO that the schemes had become increasingly complex, creating challenges for law enforcement. For example, schemes involving attorneys--which tend to involve greater losses--had become more common in recent years following a regulation that bans upfront fees, but provides an exception for attorneys. These schemes present unique challenges because attorneys typically collect fees upfront and enforcement officials have difficulty trying to determine whether attorneys are providing legitimate services. Furthermore, officials and representatives of nonprofits also noted that some populations, including minorities and the elderly, continued to …

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Since receiving federal assistance, General Motors Company (GM) has shown increasingly positive financial results. For each of the past 3 years, GM has reported profits, positive and growing operational cash flow, and a stable liquidity position. This improved financial performance has been reflected in GM's credit rating, as each of the three largest credit rating agencies has increased GM's long-term credit rating. However, GM faces continued challenges to its competitiveness. For instance, its market share of vehicles sold in North America remains smaller today than in 2008. Furthermore, GM continues to carry large pension liabilities."