Correspondence issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "The Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008 (EESA) requires that we annually audit the financial statements of the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) which is implemented by the Office of Financial Stability (OFS). On December 9, 2009, we issued our audit report including (1) an unqualified opinion on OFS's financial statements for TARP as of and for the period ended September 30, 2009, and (2) an opinion that OFS maintained effective internal control over financial reporting as of September 30, 2009. We also reported that our tests of OFS's compliance with selected provisions of laws and regulations for the period ended September 30, 2009, disclosed no instances of noncompliance. Our December 9, 2009, audit report concluded that although certain internal controls could be improved, OFS maintained, in all material respects, effective internal control over financial reporting as of September 30, 2009, that provided reasonable assurance that misstatements, losses, or noncompliance material in relation to the financial statements would be prevented or detected and corrected on a timely basis. Our audit report also identified two significant deficiencies in OFS's internal control over financial reporting. This report presents (1) more …

Correspondence issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "In section 3 of the National Guard and Reservists Debt Relief Act of 2008 (Pub. L. No 110-438 (2008)), Congress mandated that we provide information on the use and the effects of the provisions of law amended (and as amended) by the act. Specifically, the act amended the existing bankruptcy code to exempt qualifying members of the National Guard and Reserve Components from the means test process when they file a petition for Chapter 7 bankruptcy relief. We are fulfilling the act's requirement by transmitting the this briefing to the President Pro Tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives."

Correspondence issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "This report is in response to section 1899L of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. The statute required the Comptroller General to examine issues related to participation in and administrative costs associated with the Health Coverage Tax Credit program administered by the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) in the Department of the Treasury, and to provide the results to Congress by March 1, 2010."

Correspondence issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "This letter formally transmits the summary of a briefing we gave in June 2010 in response to a mandate in the Department of Homeland Security Appropriations Act, 2010, and subsequent agency comments. This mandate required the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to complete an expenditure plan that satisfied 11 specified conditions, and for the plan to be submitted to and approved by the House and Senate Appropriations Committees before the agency could obligate $75 million of the $800 million appropriated for U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) border security fencing, infrastructure and technology. Also, the Act required us to review this expenditure plan. In addition, Conference, Senate, and House committee reports accompanying the act directed that the plan address 7 items (referred to as "committee reports' directions" in this letter). In response to these requirements, the Department of Homeland Security submitted a plan to Congress on May 20, 2010, titled "Border Security Fencing, Infrastructure and Technology (BSFIT) Fiscal Year 2010 Expenditure Plan." As required by the act, we reviewed the plan and on June 17 and 18, 2010, briefed the offices of the Senate and House Appropriations Subcommittees, …

Correspondence issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "This report formally transmits the briefing highlighting differences in the oversight of long-term care hospitals (LTCH), other types of hospitals, and nursing homes. This report is a partial response to a congressional request letter and was used to brief congressional staff on November 29, 2010. We provided a draft of this report to the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and to The Joint Commission (TJC)--an accrediting organization that oversees the majority of LTCHs."

Correspondence issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "During the course of a recent engagement reviewing noncompetitive contracting, we found that departments and agencies in the Department of Defense (DOD) are not submitting complete information, as required, to the Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Public Affairs (OASD[PA]), which then posts the information on its Web site as a public announcement. President Obama has emphasized transparency and openness in how the government spends taxpayer dollars. We are bringing this issue to the attention of the Defense Department's Defense Procurement and Acquisition Policy due to its responsibility for acquisition and procurement policy matters in DOD. The Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) requires contracting officers to make information on a contract action over a certain dollar amount publicly available on the same day the contract is awarded. The Defense Federal Acquisition Regulation Supplement (DFARS) further specifies that for contract actions over $5.5 million, departments and agencies are to submit certain information to the OASD(PA) by the close of business the day before the date of the proposed award, including, "as a minimum" (1) contract data, for example, contract number, face value of the action and total cumulative …

Correspondence issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "The Department of Defense (DOD) is facing the complex challenge of simultaneously supporting continuing operations in Iraq and Afghanistan and preparing its military forces to meet emerging threats of the new security environment. Congress appropriated $626 billion for DOD's fiscal year 2010 budget and to support current operations. As we have emphasized in previous reports, the federal government is facing serious long-term fiscal challenges, and DOD may confront increased competition over the next decade for federal discretionary funds. The 2010 Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR), the fourth since 1997 and the second since the start of operations in Afghanistan and Iraq, articulates DOD's strategic plan to rebalance capabilities in order to prevail in current operations and develop capabilities to meet future threats. The QDR acknowledged that the country faces fiscal challenges and that DOD must make difficult trade-offs where warranted. Also, the QDR results are intended to guide the services in making resource allocation decisions when developing future budgets. This letter provides our assessment of the degree to which DOD addressed each of these items in its 2010 report on the QDR and the supplemental information provided to the …

Correspondence issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "The Department of Defense (DOD) leads detection and monitoring of aerial and maritime transit of illegal drugs into the United States in support of law enforcement agencies. Additionally, DOD's counternarcotics activities include sharing information with U.S. and foreign agencies, as well as helping foreign countries build their counternarcotics capacity. In support of these activities, Congress provided just over $6.1 billion to DOD's Counternarcotics Central Transfer Account from fiscal year 2005 through 2010. In November 2005, GAO recommended that DOD, in conjunction with other agencies performing counternarcotics activities, develop and coordinate counternarcotics performance measures. GAO has found that measuring performance allows organizations to track the progress they are making toward their goals and provides managers a basis for making key decisions to improve programs and results. In May 2007, the Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP) released a circular that required agencies, including DOD, to submit a report on their performance-related information for counternarcotics activities, including how the agency's performance measures are used in the management of the program. The National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2010 (Pub. L. No. 111-84, 1016) mandated that GAO report on …

Correspondence issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "This letter formally transmits a summary of an oral briefing we gave to Congress on August 30, 2010 and subsequent agency comments. We gave this briefing in response to the Conference Report accompanying the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2010 (H.R. Rep. No. 111-366, at 662 (2009) (Conf. Rep.)), which directed us to evaluate the methods the Office of the Federal Detention Trustee (OFDT) uses to project the federal detainee population and the per diem rates OFDT pays for detention services, as well as other factors that are translated into OFDT's annual budget request. In conducting this work, we analyzed OFDT's documentation of its detainee population and cost estimation model, compared OFDT's projections in the President's budget submission with actual values of detainee population and costs, and interviewed OFDT and Department of Justice (DOJ) officials to (1) assess how OFDT develops its detainee population and cost estimates; (2) determine the extent to which OFDT follows best practices for developing high-quality cost estimates; and (3) determine the reasons why OFDT required funds in addition to its annual appropriation in fiscal years 2005, 2008, and 2009."

Correspondence issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "In June 2010, we issued our report on the results of our audit of the financial statements of the Deposit Insurance Fund (DIF) and the FSLIC Resolution Fund (FRF) as of, and for the years ending December 31, 2009, and 2008, and on the effectiveness of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation's (FDIC) internal control over financial reporting as of December 31, 2009. We also reported our conclusions on FDIC's compliance with selected provisions of laws and regulations. During our 2009 financial audit, we identified several control deficiencies over FDIC's process for deriving and reporting estimates of losses to the DIF from financial institution resolution transactions involving loss-sharing agreements. These deficiencies led to misstatements in the draft DIF financial statements, which were ultimately corrected through adjustments to achieve fair presentation in the final financial statements. Although the net adjustments were not material to the DIF's financial statements, the nature of the control deficiencies we identified were such that a reasonable possibility existed that a material misstatement of the DIF's financial statements would not be prevented, or detected and corrected on a timely basis. Thus, these control deficiencies collectively represented …

Correspondence issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "When potential borrowers apply for a mortgage loan, lenders typically use borrowers' credit scores--which are based on their credit payment histories, debt, length of credit history, new credit accounts or requests, and types of credit used--to help determine their creditworthiness. However, some borrowers have limited or no credit histories, and lenders are unable to determine their creditworthiness using this traditional method. For these nontraditional borrowers, lenders may assess creditworthiness through alternative means, including the compilation of performance on rental payments; utility, phone, and cable television bills; and insurance or tuition payments. While some lenders have developed statistical scoring methods to determine borrowers' creditworthiness based on these data, others rely on the judgment of their staff to make determinations on a case-by-case basis, according to Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) officials. HUD permits lenders that originate mortgages insured by HUD's Federal Housing Administration (FHA) to establish a borrower's credit history through alternative means and has provided guidance to FHA lenders for evaluating these nontraditional credit histories. According to HUD officials, 7,319 nontraditional borrowers were approved for FHA-insured mortgages in fiscal year 2009. Section 2124 of the Housing …

Correspondence issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Recovery Act) assigns GAO a range of responsibilities to help promote accountability and transparency. One of the act's recurring requirements includes having GAO conduct bimonthly reviews of selected states' and localities' use of funds made available under the act. GAO's review of the use of Recovery Act funding in Mississippi this year included the Weatherization Assistance Program. The Weatherization Assistance Program, administered by the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy within the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), enables low-income families to reduce their utility bills by making long-term energy-efficiency improvements to their homes by, for example, installing insulation, sealing leaks, and modernizing heating equipment, air circulation fans, and air-conditioning equipment. As part of our overall review of the weatherization program in Mississippi, we visited community action agencies responsible for weatherization activities located in Columbia, D'Lo, McComb, and Meridian. In our review of client files, and other data provided by the Division of Community Services (DCS) personnel and one community action agency, we found several problems at the community action agency, which we shared with DCS. We also identified issues …

Correspondence issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "More than 4 years after Hurricane Katrina made landfall, the greater New Orleans area continues to face challenges restoring health care services disrupted by the storm and flooding that followed. In July 2007, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) awarded the $100-million Primary Care Access and Stabilization Grant (PCASG) to the Louisiana Department of Health and Hospitals (LDHH). The PCASG was intended to restore and expand access to primary care services in the greater New Orleans area without regard to a patient's ability to pay. The PCASG was designed to provide a temporary funding source--from July 23, 2007, through September 30, 2010. Despite the various types of assistance offered, concerns remain about whether the primary care gains made will be sustainable after the PCASG funding ends. Given the federal investment in providing and sustaining health care in the greater New Orleans area, Congreess asked GAO to describe what steps CMS and the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) have taken to help the PCASG-funded organizations--LDHH, LPHI, and the PCASG-funded providers--sustain the primary care gains made in the greater New Orleans area."

Correspondence issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "To increase access to primary and preventive care services for individuals living in medically underserved communities, Congress authorized federally qualified health centers (FQHC) as a health care facility type and established requirements for Medicare coverage and payment as FQHCs under the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act (OBRA) of 1990. FQHCs are typically rural and urban safety net providers that provide primary and preventive care services to individuals regardless of their ability to pay. In general, a health center may qualify as a FQHC if it receives a federal grant under Section 330 of the Public Health Service Act; meets the requirements to receive such a grant; or is an outpatient health program/facility operated by certain tribal or urban Indian organizations. Currently, Medicare reimburses FQHCs for these services with an all-inclusive payment rate--resulting costs exceeding the maximum Medicare reimbursement under the upper payment limits every year from 1997 to 2004. The Medicare Improvements for Patients and Providers Act of 2008 required GAO to examine the payment structure that Medicare used to pay FQHCs for services provided to Medicare beneficiaries and to take into consideration the prospective payment methodology used by …

Testimony issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Recognizing the humanitarian crisis in Darfur, Sudan, Congress enacted the Sudan Accountability and Divestment Act (SADA) in 2007. This law supports U.S. states' and investment companies' decisions to divest from companies with certain business ties to Sudan. It also seeks to prohibit federal contracting with these companies. This testimony (1) identifies actions that U.S. state fund managers and investment companies took regarding Sudan-related assets, (2) describes the factors that these entities considered in determining whether and how to divest, and (3) determines whether the U.S. government has contracted with companies identified as having certain Sudan-related business operations and assesses compliance with SADA's federal contract prohibition provision. This testimony is based on a GAO report (GAO-10-742), for which GAO surveyed states, analyzed investment data, assessed federal contracts, and interviewed government officials."

Testimony issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Agencies can use several different types of contracts to leverage the government's buying power for goods and services. These include interagency contracts--where one agency uses another's contract for its own needs--such as the General Services Administration (GSA) and the Department of Veterans Affairs multiple award schedule (MAS) contracts, multiagency contracts (MAC) for a wide range of goods and services, and governmentwide acquisition contracts (GWAC) for information technology. Agencies spent at least $60 billion in fiscal year 2008 through these contracts and similar single-agency enterprisewide contracts. GAO was asked to testify on the management and oversight of interagency contracts, and how the government can ensure that interagency contracting is efficient and transparent. GAO's testimony is based on its recent report, Contracting Strategies: Data and Oversight Problems Hamper Opportunities to Leverage Value of Interagency and Enterprisewide Contracts (GAO-10-367, April 2010). In that report, GAO made recommendations to the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) to strengthen policy, improve data, and better coordinate agencies' awards of MACs and enterprisewide contracts, and to GSA to improve MAS program pricing and management. Both agencies concurred with GAO's recommendations."

Testimony issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "On May 1, 2010, the U.S. Census Bureau (Bureau) will launch its massive follow-up effort with the roughly 48 million households that did not mail back their census forms (130 million forms were delivered). As part of this nonresponse follow-up effort, over 600,000 enumerators will fan out across the country, personally contacting nonresponding housing units as many as six times in an effort to ensure everyone is counted. As requested, GAO's testimony in Los Angeles (L.A.) focuses on the importance of census participation, paying particular attention to (1) the Bureau's preparedness for nonresponse follow-up in terms of workload and staffing levels, (2) why it will be critical for Angelenos and others across the country to cooperate with enumerators during nonresponse follow-up, and (3) key steps the Bureau needs to take moving forward to ensure nonresponse follow-up is timely and accurate. The testimony is based on previously issued and ongoing GAO work."

Testimony issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "This testimony discusses air cargo screening. In 2008, about 7.3 billion pounds of cargo was transported on U.S. passenger flights--approximately 58 percent of which was transported domestically (domestic cargo) and 42 percent of which was transported on flights arriving in the United States from a foreign location (inbound cargo). The 2009 Christmas Day plot to detonate an explosive device during an international flight bound for Detroit provided a vivid reminder that terrorists continue to view passenger aircraft as attractive targets. According to the Transportation Security Administration (TSA), the security threat posed by terrorists introducing explosive devices in air cargo shipments is significant, and the risk and likelihood of such an attack directed at passenger aircraft is high. To help enhance the security of air cargo, the Implementing Recommendations of the 9/11 Commission Act of 2007 (9/11 Commission Act) mandated the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to establish a system to physically screen 50 percent of cargo on passenger aircraft--including the domestic and inbound flights of foreign and U.S. passenger operations--by February 2009, and 100 percent of such cargo by August 2010. The 9/11 Commission Act defines screening for …

Testimony issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Since 2003, GAO has designated implementing and transforming the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) as high risk because DHS had to transform 22 agencies--several with significant management challenges--into one department, and failure to effectively address its mission and management risks could have serious consequences for national and economic security. This high-risk area includes challenges in management functional areas, including acquisition, information technology, financial, and human capital management; the impact of those challenges on mission implementation; and management integration. GAO has reported that DHS's transformation is a significant effort that will take years to achieve. This testimony discusses DHS's progress and actions remaining in (1) implementing its management functions; (2) integrating those functions and strengthening performance measurement; and (3) addressing GAO's high-risk designation. This testimony is based on GAO's prior reports on DHS transformation and management issues and updated information on these issues obtained from December 2009 through September 2010."

Other written product issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Department of Homeland Security (DHS) acquisitions represent hundreds of billions of dollars in life-cycle costs to support a wide range of missions. Creating acquisition policies and processes to provide insight into the performance of a wide array of complex investments, while also providing oversight for many component agencies new to acquisition management, has been an ongoing challenge for DHS. GAO performed this review because DHS implementation and transformation is on GAO's high risk list. This report (1) provides an update on DHS's efforts to implement acquisition oversight for all investments; (2) describes acquisition performance and common challenges across selected programs; and (3) provides individual profiles for 18 selected programs, 15 of which were major programs that had initiated acquisition activities. GAO selected programs based on relevance to frontline homeland security missions and assessed cost and schedule performance and acquisition planning challenges."

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 a particular activity constitutes an offense under chapter 47 of the penal code,which prescribes certain forms of gambling(RQ-0852-GA).

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; Proper method of appraising the value of residence homesteads damaged by Hurricane Ike in 2008(RQ-0851-GA).

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 section 11.059 of the Education Code prohibits an independent school district from changing the length of terms of its board of trustees after it changes the election date pursuant to section 41.0052(a-1) of the Election Code (RQ-0864-GA)

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: Meaning of “normal course load” as used in section 42.159 of the Education Code for the purposes of determine whether electronic courses provided by school districts fall under the funding method of section 42.159(b) or section 42.159(d) (RQ-0866-GA)