A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Fewer small employers claimed the Small Employer Health Insurance Tax Credit in tax year 2010 than were estimated to be eligible. While 170,300 small employers claimed it, estimates of the eligible pool by government agencies and small business advocacy groups ranged from 1.4 million to 4 million. The cost of credits claimed was $468 million. Most claims were limited to partial rather than full percentage credits (35 percent for small businesses) because of the average wage or full-time equivalent (FTE) requirements. 28,100 employers claimed the full credit percentage. In addition, 30 percent of claims had the base premium limited by the state premium average."

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 "DOD is estimating and publishing approximate costs for selected types of internally and externally required reports, but in some cases its approach is not fully consistent with relevant cost estimating best practices and cost accounting standards. Specifically, DOD entities have been directed to use the cost estimating tool to capture marginal costs of activities associated with completing a report or study that would not have been performed otherwise. These costs consist of certain manpower costs (such as the prorated salaries of military and civilian personnel based on the time they spent) and nonlabor costs (such as contract services, travel, or printing). In comparing DOD’s approach to (1) GAO’s Cost Estimating and Assessment Guide—which states that high-quality, reliable cost estimates should be comprehensive, well documented, and accurate—and (2) relevant accounting standards, we found the following."

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Homelessness programs are fragmented across multiple agencies and some show evidence of overlap. In fiscal year 2010, eight federal agencies obligated roughly $2.8 billion to administer 26 homelessness programs. Three agencies—the Departments of Health and Human Services (HHS), Housing and Urban Development (HUD), and Veterans Affairs (VA)—are responsible for the majority of programs and dollars, 22 of 26 programs, and 89 percent of total funds. GAO found that these agencies and the Department of Labor (Labor) have multiple programs that offer similar services to similar beneficiaries. Fragmentation of services and overlap in some programs is partly due to their legislative creation and partly due to programs evolving to offer services that meet the variety of needs of persons experiencing homelessness. Fragmentation and overlap can lead to inefficient use of resources. For example, both HHS and VA have programs that provide similar services, but each agency separately manages its programs under different administrative units. In addition, some local service providers told us that managing multiple applications and reporting requirements was burdensome, difficult, and costly. Moreover, according to providers, persons experiencing homelessness have difficulties navigating services that are …

Correspondence issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "PCORI received an unqualified audit opinion on its 2011 and 2010 financial statements. In its audit of PCORI’s financial statements, the IPA found that the financial statements were presented fairly, in all material respects, and there was no reportable noncompliance with selected provisions of laws and regulations the IPA tested as part of its audit. However, the IPA identified a deficiency in PCORI’s internal control over financial reporting related to PCORI reporting on its receipt of appropriated funds. The IPA determined the deficiency to be significant enough to constitute a material weakness. We found no instances in which the IPA did not comply, in all material respects, with U.S. generally accepted auditing standards and generally accepted government auditing standards in the conduct of the financial statement audit. In e-mailed comments from PCORI’s Director of Finance, PCORI stated that the identified deficiency in financial reporting related to appropriations received resulted from uncertainty over differences between the federal government’s and PCORI’s fiscal years and cited action taken to adjust its records to correct the deficiency."

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "In determining that Salmonella is the primary food safety hazard in catfish, the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) officials stated that the agency focused on Salmonella at the direction of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), which considered Salmonella the most practical hazard to evaluate. However, GAO found that FSIS used outdated and limited information in its risk assessment as its scientific basis for a catfish inspection program that seeks to mitigate that hazard. For example, FSIS identified a single outbreak of Salmonella-caused illnesses, but this outbreak was not clearly linked to catfish. FSIS noted that this outbreak was before the Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) 1997 Seafood Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point regulations, which required firms to identify hazards in their processing systems and implement controls to prevent or mitigate these hazards; no similar outbreaks have occurred since. Other federal agencies questioned if FSIS had adequately demonstrated a Salmonella problem in catfish. For example, FDA does not generally have such concerns. Officials with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) also stated that FSIS …

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "The Department of Defense (DOD) has taken steps to establish its concept for conducting security force assistance, including broadly defining the term and identifying actions needed to plan for and prepare forces to execute these activities. For example, in October 2010, the department issued an instruction that broadly defines security force assistance and outlines responsibilities for key stakeholders, including the geographic combatant commands and military services. DOD also identified gaps in key areas of doctrine, organization, and training related to the implementation of security force assistance and tasks needed to address those gaps. The tasks include reviewing joint and service-level doctrine to incorporate security force assistance as needed and developing measures to assess progress in partner nations. Citing a need to clarify the definition of security force assistance beyond the DOD Instruction, DOD published a document referred to as a Lexicon Framework in November 2011 that included information to describe how security force assistance relates to other existing terms, such as security cooperation."

Testimony issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "In its October 2010 report, GAO noted that oil shale development presents the following opportunities for the United States:"

Testimony issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Over the past several years, GAO has made a number of recommendations to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS)—an agency within the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS)—to increase savings in Medicare fee-for-service and Medicare Advantage (MA), which is a private plan alternative to the traditional Medicare fee-for-service program. Open recommendations that could yield billions of dollars in savings remain in many areas, such as the following:"

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "The United States provided an estimated $13.9 billion for foreign police assistance during fiscal years 2009 through 2011. Funds provided by U.S. agencies rose and then fell between fiscal years 2009 and 2011. During fiscal years 2009 through 2011, the United States provided the greatest amount of its foreign police assistance to Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, Colombia, Mexico, and the Palestinian Territories. Department of Defense (DOD) and State (State) funds constituted about 97 percent of U.S. funds for police assistance in fiscal year 2009 and 98 percent in fiscal years 2010 and 2011."

Testimony issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "GAO’s past work has found that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) have faced challenges in developing and meeting program requirements when acquiring screening technologies. GAO’s past work has demonstrated that program performance cannot be accurately assessed without valid baseline requirements established at the program start. In June 2010, GAO reported that more than half of the 15 DHS programs GAO reviewed awarded contracts to initiate acquisition activities without component or department approval of documents essential to planning acquisitions, setting operational requirements, or establishing acquisition program baselines. At the program level, in January 2012, GAO reported that TSA did not fully follow DHS acquisition policies when acquiring advanced imaging technology (AIT)—commonly referred to as a full body scanner that identifies objects or anomalies on the outside of the body—which resulted in DHS approving full AIT deployment without full knowledge of TSA’s revised specifications. In July 2011, GAO reported that in 2010 TSA revised its explosive detection systems (EDS) requirements to better address current threats and planned to implement these requirements in a phased approach; however, GAO reported that some number of the …

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "The Department of Justice (DOJ) administered 13 grant programs from fiscal years 2005 through 2010 that recipients could use to support indigent defense, 4 of which required recipients to use all or part of the funding for this purpose. DOJ also provides training to indigent defense providers, among other things."

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), within the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), implemented the durable medical equipment (DME) competitive bidding program’s (CBP) bidding process for the round 1 rebid. Nearly the same number of suppliers submitted a similar number of bids for both the CBP round 1 rebid and round 1. Many suppliers continued to have difficulty complying with financial documentation requirements; however, the number of bids disqualified in the round 1 rebid was significantly less than for round 1. After being notified of their bid results, some suppliers were found to have bids that were disqualified incorrectly and were subsequently offered round 1 rebid contracts. About one-third of the bidding suppliers were awarded CBP contracts."

Testimony issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Our work on the outcomes of the CBP round 1 rebid found that the number of bidding suppliers and the number of contracts awarded in the CBP round 1 rebid were very similar to the CBP round 1 and about a third of the 1,011 suppliers that bid in the rebid were awarded at least one CBP contract. CMS made improvements to the bidding process for the CBP round 1 rebid—such as providing additional information about disqualification reasons—and significantly fewer bids were disqualified than in round 1. However, many suppliers still had difficulty meeting bid requirements. Of the bids that were disqualified during the initial bid review, 73 percent were disqualified because suppliers failed to provide the required financial documentation or did not meet CMS’s minimum financial standard threshold for suppliers. The number of bids disqualified for missing financial documentation in the CBP round 1 rebid would have been higher if many suppliers had not benefited from a MIPPA provision that required that CMS provide suppliers the opportunity to be notified of and to submit missing required financial documentation—a process not available during CBP round 1. As a …

Testimony issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Since 2001, SSA has reported spending more than $5 billion on the development, modernization, and enhancement of its IT systems and capabilities. SSA officials identified 120 initiatives undertaken from 2001 to 2011 that the agency considered to be key investments in modernization. These comprise a subset of the hundreds of projects and modernization activities SSA undertakes yearly, which vary greatly in level of effort, scope, and cost. These initiatives affected all of the agency’s main program areas:"

Testimony issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "GAO’s prior work has highlighted progress and challenges in various areas related to Border Patrol’s implementation of its 2004 National Strategy, which could provide insights as Border Patrol transitions to its 2012 Strategic Plan. Border Patrol officials stated that the 2012 Strategic Plan will rely on Border Patrol and federal, state, local, tribal, and international partners working together to use a risk-based approach to secure the border, and include the key elements of “Information, Integration, and Rapid Response” to achieve objectives. These elements were similar to those in the 2004 Strategy and GAO’s past work highlighted the progress and challenges the agency faced obtaining information necessary for border security; integrating security operations with partners; and mobilizing a rapid response to security threats. Border Patrol successfully used interagency forums and joint operations to counter threats, but challenges included assessing the benefits of border technology and infrastructure to, among other things, provide information on situational awareness. For example, in May 2010 GAO reported that the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) had not accounted for the effect of its investment in border fencing and infrastructure …

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "In the last 8 years, the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) Science and Technology Directorate has used its special acquisition authority to enter into 58 “other transaction” agreements. Use of the authority has declined since 2005. DHS officials said the decline is due to uncertainty about the agency’s continuing authority to enter into these agreements, among other things."

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Since GAO’s last report in July 2011, more of the assistance provided by the Department of the Treasury (Treasury) and the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (Federal Reserve) to benefit American International Group, Inc. (AIG) has been repaid. As of March 22, 2012, the remaining assistance to AIG was $46.3 billion, including unpaid dividends and accrued interest. This amount includes Treasury’s $35.9 billion investment in AIG common stock and a balance of $8.3 billion owed by Maiden Lane III to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York (FRBNY). This remaining assistance was down from $92.5 billion in March 2011 and $154.7 billion in December 2010. Several indicators show that as of March 2012, the government’s remaining outstanding assistance to AIG has continued to be reduced, mostly because of repayments on the FRBNY loan to Maiden Lane II; repayment of AIA Aurora, LLC, a special purpose vehicle; and sales of Treasury’s common stock in AIG. The government’s outstanding assistance to AIG is largely composed of Treasury’s common stock in AIG. Treasury’s sales of AIG stock in May 2011 and March 2012 have yielded total …

Correspondence issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "In summary, we found the following:"

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Since 1996, federal agencies have taken several actions to strengthen their oversight of phosphate mining on federal land. For example, BLM now conducts more detailed environmental analysis when evaluating new mine plans; requires phosphate mine operators to provide more comprehensive plans for reclaiming mine sites (restoring the land to a stable condition that can support other uses); and requires the mine operators to provide financial assurances that are based on the full estimated cost of reclaiming mines, in contrast to BLM’s previous practice of calculating financial assurances based simply on the acreage associated with mines. However, gaps remain in agency policies and coordination that could limit the agencies’ efforts to address contamination from phosphate-mining operations. For example, BLM has not documented its new full-cost financial assurance practice in agency policy and therefore has limited assurance that it will be implemented consistently. BLM also has not fully coordinated with the Forest Service when establishing mine lease conditions and setting financial assurance amounts. Limited coordination is of particular concern because 16 phosphate leases in Idaho are scheduled for review and possible readjustment in the next 5 years, and …

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "The Department of Defense (DOD) set two goals—reducing on-order and on-hand excess inventory—with percentage targets for each based on the best available data in fiscal year 2009 as part of its Comprehensive Inventory Management Improvement Plan (Plan). Sustained management oversight led to reductions in on-order and on-hand excess inventory in fiscal year 2010 prior to the Plan’s implementation, and thus DOD may find the current targets are not meaningful in guiding improvement. Specifically, at the end of fiscal year 2010, DOD had reduced its percentage of on-order excess inventory to 5.5 percent, thereby achieving its 2014 target 4 years early. It also revised the definition and calculation of on-hand excess inventory, which resulted in DOD being below the fiscal year 2012 target of 10 percent. It is DOD policy to conduct periodic evaluations of its inventory management, and results-oriented management practices emphasize validating performance measures to ensure they remain appropriate. Without challenging, yet achievable targets, DOD’s Plan will not be effective in guiding further improvement."

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "The Department of Defense (DOD) has taken some steps to improve its approach to managing and implementing Item Unique Identification (IUID) technology, but has yet to incorporate some key elements of best management practices into its evolving framework for management of IUID implementation. These include internal controls and analysis of return on investment. DOD has included certain internal controls, such as defining key areas of authority for IUID implementation, and it is revising policy to incorporate IUID. However, DOD does not have performance measures, such as reliable schedules for predicting when its enterprise information systems will be able to manage items using IUID data, or a full estimate of IUID’s cost and benefits. Without a management framework that includes such key practices, DOD has faced challenges in implementing IUID technology and may not be well positioned to achieve potential financial and nonfinancial benefits."

Testimony issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "The five agencies varied in the extent to which they collected the over 100 land and resources, revenue, and federal land use designation data elements that GAO asked them about. Specifically, all five agencies collected data on four basic data elements, which related to total surface acres managed, total acres managed within each state, the number of special use permits generated for filming activities on federal land, and the number of cultural and historic sites listed on the National Register of Historic Places. In contrast, none of them collected information for 33 other data elements, such as the percent of total acres under oil, gas, or coal leases that have surface disturbance or where the surface disturbance has been reclaimed, or information on the potential quantities of oil, gas, and coal resources on federal land. Agency officials cited various reasons why the agencies did not collect certain information, such as believing another federal agency collected it, it was inconsistent with the agency’s mission, or they lacked the authority or resources to do so."

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Total projected cost of the F-22A modernization program and related reliability and maintainability improvements more than doubled since the program started–from $5.4 billion to $11.7 billion–and the schedule for delivering full capabilities slipped 7 years, from 2010 to 2017. The content, scope, and phasing of planned capabilities also shifted over time with changes in requirements, priorities, and annual funding decisions. Visibility and oversight of the program’s cost and schedule is hampered by a management structure that does not track and account for the full cost of specific capability increments. Substantial infrastructure costs for labs, testing, management, and other activities directly support modernization but are not charged to its projects. The Air Force plans to manage its fourth modernization increment as a separate major acquisition program, as defined in DOD policy and statutory requirements."