This invited speech was delivered to the Business Law Section of the Dallas Bar Association. The speech addresses why the new UNT Dallas College of Law is being created and why now. The new UNT Dallas College of Law is anticipated to open in August 2014.

Correspondence issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "GAO's oversight has been comprehensive. To date, we have issued 65 products on the Troubled Asset Relief Programs (TARP) and activities and we have made 99 performance and financial statement audit recommendations. Our reviews have focused on several key areas, including the activities initiated under TARP and the challenges encountered in implementing them, Treasury's process for deciding how to unwind TARP programs and investments and the actions taken to terminate the programs and exit the investments, indicators of credit conditions in markets targeted by TARP programs, the management infrastructure for TARP programs, and the status of our recommendations to Treasury. Some of our reports have identified findings related to the effectiveness, accountability, and transparency of Treasury's management of TARP programs and its communication strategy."

Testimony issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "In preparing for the 2020 Census, the U.S. Census Bureau (Bureau) has launched several initiatives aimed at organizational transformation, some of which show particular promise. For example, the Bureau is attempting to develop Bureau-wide, or "enterprise," standards, guidance, or tools in areas such as risk management and information technology (IT) investment management to reduce duplicative efforts across the Bureau. Although the Bureau has made progress in these and other areas, if the Bureau is to transform itself to better control costs and deliver an accurate national headcount in 2020, several areas will require continued oversight: cost estimation, integrated long-term planning, and stakeholder involvement. For example, while the Bureau has made progress with long-term planning by implementing some elements of GAO's recommendation that it develop a road map for 2020 planning, it still needs to pull together remaining planning elements, such as milestones for decisions and estimates of cost, into its roadmap."

Correspondence issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "The United States Postal Service's (USPS) mail carriers--who delivered mail to nearly 132 million delivery points nationwide in fiscal year 2012--can be injured while delivering mail in a number of ways, for example by being bitten by a dog or being involved in a vehicle collision. According to USPS officials, there were 32,213 reported injuries in fiscal year 2012, 11,717 (36 percent) of which were related to mail delivery. According to USPS's 2012 data, the most frequently reported cause of injury for routes that are primarily conducted on foot is dog bites, while the most frequently reported cause of injury for delivery on rural routes--which is often conducted in vehicles--is vehicular collisions. Additionally, USPS's data indicate that most injuries that occurred from 2009 through 2012 on mail delivery routes were caused by falls and dog bites. Falls to the ground were among the most common circumstances leading to injury that resulted in either restricted work activity or days away from work, but repetitive motions were the most common cause of long-term occupational illnesses regardless of severity or route type."

Testimony issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Performance audits as well as traditional financial and compliance audits are essential tools that national audit offices have to help their respective governments identify and address challenging national and global problems. Performance auditing provides objective analysis so that management and those charged with governance and oversight can use the information to improve program performance and operations, reduce costs, facilitate decision making by parties with responsibility to oversee or initiate corrective action, and contribute to public accountability."

Testimony issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "The National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) was added to GAO's high-risk list in 2006 and remains high risk due to losses incurred from the 2005 hurricanes and subsequent losses, the financial exposure the program represents for the federal government, and ongoing management and operational challenges. As of July 31, 2013, the program owed approximately $24 billion to the U.S. Treasury (Treasury). NFIP's financial condition highlights structural weaknesses in how the program has been funded--primarily its rate structure. The annual amount that NFIP collects in both full-risk and subsidized premiums is generally not enough to cover its operating costs, claim payments, and principal and interest payments for the debt owed to Treasury, especially in years of catastrophic flooding, such as 2005. This arrangement results in much of the financial risk of flooding being transferred to the federal government and ultimately the taxpayer. Furthermore, weaknesses in NFIP management and operations, including financial reporting processes and internal controls, strategic and human capital planning, and oversight of contractors have placed the program at risk."

Testimony issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "The termination of the six defined benefit plans that were sponsored by the Delphi Corporation (Delphi) and the provision of benefit protections to some Delphi employees, but not others, culminated from a complex series of events involving Delphi, the General Motors Corporation (GM), various unions, the U.S. Department of the Treasury (Treasury), and the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation (PBGC). When Delphi spun off from GM in 1999, three unions secured an agreement that GM would provide a retirement benefit supplement (referred to as "top-ups") for their members should their pension plans be frozen or terminated and they were to suffer a resulting loss in pension benefits. These three unions were: (1) the International Union, United Automobile, Aerospace, and Agricultural Implement Workers of America (UAW); (2) the International Union of Electronic, Electrical, Salaried, Machine and Furniture Workers, AFL-CIO (IUE); and (3) the United Steelworkers of America (USWA). No other Delphi employees had a similar agreement to receive a top-up, including salaried workers and hourly workers belonging to other unions. Over the course of events that unfolded over the next decade, the agreements with these three unions ultimately were preserved …

Testimony issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "As GAO reported in September 2012, nine selected states had made varying degrees of progress in modernizing the information technology (IT) systems supporting their unemployment insurance (UI) programs. Specifically, the states' modernization efforts were at various stages--three were in early phases of defining business needs and requirements, two were in the process of building systems based on identified requirements, two were in a "mixed" phase of having a system that was partly operational and partly in development, and two had systems that were completely operational. The enhancements provided by these systems included supporting web-based technologies with more modern databases and replacing outdated programming languages, among others."

Other written product issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Internal control is the plans, methods, policies, and procedures an organization employs to ensure effective resource use in fulfilling its mission, goals, objectives, and strategic plan. GAO's Standards for Internal Control in the Federal Government, known as the Green Book, sets these standards for federal agencies."

Testimony issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "The Institute of Education Sciences (IES) supports high-quality research, according to stakeholders, but lacks certain key procedures needed to fulfill other aspects of its mission. Since its inception, IES has substantially improved the quality of education research. However, stakeholders expressed some concerns about IES's ability to produce timely and relevant research that meets their various needs. For example, IES's efforts to respond quickly to its stakeholders are slowed, in part, because the time IES's products have spent in peer review substantially increased this past year, and IES does not monitor some aspects of these timeframes. In addition, IES does not have a structured process for incorporating stakeholder input into its research agenda, which previous GAO work has shown to be key to sound federal research programs. Lastly, IES's performance measures do not fully reflect its current programs, which is not consistent with GAO's leading practices for performance management. IES officials said, however, that they have begun to develop new performance measures for all of their programs."

Testimony issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has made progress on both the Joint Polar Satellite System (JPSS) and Geostationary Operational Environment Satellite-R series (GOES-R) programs, but key challenges remain to ensure that potential gaps in satellite data are minimized or mitigated. On the JPSS program, NOAA has made noteworthy progress in using Suomi National Polar-orbiting Partnership (S-NPP) data in weather forecasts and developing the JPSS-1 satellite. However, NOAA does not expect to validate key S-NPP products until nearly 3 years after the satellite's launch, and there are remaining issues with the JPSS schedule that decrease the confidence that JPSS-1 will launch by March 2017 as planned. On the GOES-R program, progress in completing the system's design has been accompanied by continuing milestone delays, including delays in the launch dates for both the GOES-R and GOES-S satellites. The potential for further milestone delays also exists due to remaining weaknesses in developing and maintaining key program schedules. Faced with an anticipated gap in the polar satellite program and a potential gap in the geostationary satellite program, NOAA has taken steps to study alternatives and establish mitigation plans. However, the agency …

Testimony issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "GAO has previously established that the Department of Homeland Security's (DHS) acquisition policy reflects many sound program management practices intended to mitigate the risks of cost growth and schedule slips. The policy largely reflects the knowledge-based approach used by leading commercial firms, which do not pursue major investments without demonstrating, at critical milestones, that their products are likely to meet cost, schedule, and performance objectives. DHS policy requires that important acquisition documents be in place and approved before programs are executed. For example, one key document is an acquisition program baseline, which outlines a program's expected cost, schedule, and the capabilities to be delivered to the end user. However, in September 2012, GAO found that the department did not implement the policy consistently, and that only 4 of 66 programs had all of the required documents approved in accordance with DHS's policy. GAO made five recommendations, which DHS concurred with, identifying actions DHS should take to mitigate the risk of poor acquisition outcomes and strengthen management activities. Further, GAO reported that the lack of reliable performance data hindered DHS and congressional oversight of the department's major programs. Officials …

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

Testimony issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Several federal entities, including the Government Accountability and Transparency Board (GAT Board), the Recovery Accountability and Transparency Board (Recovery Board), and the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), have initiatives under way to improve the accuracy and availability of federal spending data. The GAT Board, through its working groups, developed approaches to standardize key data elements to improve data integrity; link financial management systems with award systems to reconcile spending data with obligations; and leverage existing data to help identify and reduce fraud, waste, and abuse. With no dedicated funding, GAT Board plans are incremental and leverage ongoing agency initiatives and resources designed to improve existing business processes as well as improve data transparency. These initiatives are in an early stage, and some progress has been made to bring greater consistency to contract and grant award identifiers. The GAT Board's mandate is to provide strategic direction, not to implement changes. Further, while these early plans are being developed with input from a range of federal stakeholders, the GAT Board and OMB have not developed mechanisms for obtaining input from non-federal fund recipients."

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

Testimony issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "GAO has reported that Congress needs to modify the U.S. Postal Service's (USPS) retiree health benefit payments in a fiscally responsible manner. GAO also has reported that USPS should prefund any unfunded retiree health benefit liability to the maximum extent that its finances permit. Deferring funding for postal retiree health benefits could increase costs for future ratepayers and increase the risk that USPS may not be able to pay for these costs. Key considerations for funding postal retiree health benefits include:"

Correspondence issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "The Department of Defense's (DOD) rationale for waiving the competitive prototyping requirement in the Weapon Systems Acquisition Reform Act of 2009, as amended (WSARA), for the VXX program addresses one of the two bases provided in the statute; namely that the cost of producing competitive prototypes exceeds the expected life-cycle benefits (in constant dollars) of producing the prototypes. The VXX program's acquisition strategy provided the primary justification for the prototyping waiver. According to the waiver, VXX requirements can be met by integrating an existing, in-production, flight-proven aircraft with mature mission systems. The Navy in its waiver request also concluded that the integration activities planned for the VXX program do not require additional technology maturation or risk reduction beyond that already being accomplished by the government through its own prototyping of certain critical mission subsystems. Recognizing that the intent of competitive prototyping is to reduce cost and risk, DOD took other actions that could arguably achieve these goals. Specifically, DOD decided to reduce requirements, use an existing aircraft, and mature critical subsystems before integrating them on the aircraft. In the waiver, DOD also found reasonable the Navy's cost-benefit analysis, …

A statement of record issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Based on GAO's 2003 report, it was found that the district court case weights approved in 1993 to be a reasonably accurate measure of the average time demands a specific number and mix of cases filed in a district court could be expected to place on the district judges in that court. The methodology used to develop the weights used a valid sampling procedure, developed weights based on actual case-related time recorded by judges from case filings to disposition, and included a measure (standard errors) of the statistical confidence in the final weight for each weighted case type. Without such a measure, it is not possible to objectively assess the accuracy of the final case weights."

Application materials submitted to the Texas Historical Commission requesting a historic marker for the Ireland and Mary Graves House, in Austin, Texas. The materials include the inscription text of the marker, original application, narrative, floor plans, and photographs.

9 pages of "First AIDS Memorial Riderless Horse," a personal account by Marion Hayes about the horse, Jackson.

Minutes for the September 2nd meeting of the Dallas Way including details on the organization's project report.

Document issued by the Office of the Attorney General of Texas in Austin, Texas, providing an interpretation of Texas law. It provides the opinion of the Texas Attorney General, Greg Abbott, regarding a legal question submitted for clarification: Whether an official court reporter for a multi-county judicial district is a state employee or a county employee and related questions (RQ-1124-GA).

Minutes from the Global Studies Faculty Seminar September 2013 meeting.

Minutes for the September 19, 2013 TXSSAR meeting, held by the McKinney chapter.