Correspondence issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "The Thrift Savings Plan (TSP) is a retirement savings and investment plan for federal employees, governed by the Federal Retirement Thrift Investment Board (Board). The TSP is a defined contribution retirement plan available to eligible federal employees. The TSP had about 2.6 million participants and held about $100.6 billion in Net Assets Available for Benefits as of December 31, 2001, and about 3 million participants and $102.3 billion in Net Assets Available for Benefits as of December 31, 2002. In 1997, the Board awarded a contract to American Management Systems, Inc. (AMS) to develop and implement a new record-keeping system for the TSP. In 2001, after several implementation delays, the Board terminated the contract, and the Board's former Executive Director filed a lawsuit against the contractor on behalf of the TSP. On June 20, 2003, 2 days after we provided a draft of this report to the Board for its review, a settlement between the parties was reached. Then, on June 23, 2003, the net unrecovered cost from the system development failure was allocated to participant account balances as recommended in our draft report. While the loss has …

Testimony issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "It is important to ensure that longterm spending on transportation programs meets the goals of increasing mobility and improving transportation safety. In this testimony, GAO discusses what recently completed work on four transportation programs suggests about challenges and strategies for improving the oversight and use of taxpayer funds. These four programs are (1) the federal-aid highway program, administered by the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA); (2) highway safety programs, administered by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA); (3) the New Starts program, administered by the Federal Transit Administration (FTA); and (4) the Essential Air Service (EAS) program, administered out of the Office of the Secretary of Transportation. Differences in the structure of these programs have contributed to the challenges they illustrate. The federal-aid highway program uses formulas to apportion funds to the states, the highway safety programs use formulas and grants, the New Starts program uses competitive grants, and the EAS program provides subsidies. For each program, GAO describes in general how the program illustrates a particular challenge in managing or overseeing long-term spending and in particular what challenges and strategies for addressing the challenges GAO and others …

Testimony issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "The federal government invests over $11 billion in early childhood education and care programs. These programs exist to ensure that children from low-income families are better prepared to enter school and that their parents have access to early childhood education and care that allow them to obtain and maintain employment. The federal government invests more in Head Start, which was funded at $6.5 billion in fiscal year 2002, than any other early childhood education and care program. Head Start has served over 21 million children at a total cost of $66 billion since it began. The Chairman, Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions asked GAO to discuss Head Start--how it fits within the array of early childhood education and care programs available to low-income children and their families and what is known about its effectiveness."

Interview with Bernard Kubica, a crew chief in the US Marine Corps during the Vietnam War. He answers questions about his life prior to military service and his experiences overseas.