A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Available measures and awardee data provide some evidence that Hospital Preparedness Program (HPP) awardees have generally made progress in carrying out activities to achieve medical preparedness goals; however, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Office of the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response (ASPR) lacked a comprehensive performance management system to fully assess awardee progress. According to prior GAO work and the GPRA Modernization Act of 2010 (GPRAMA), successful performance measurement systems should include a select set of performance measures tied to realistically achievable targets with clearly defined milestones. GAO's analysis of ASPR data showed general progress. For example, the percentage of all 62 awardees' participating hospitals with medical evacuation and shelter-in-place plans increased from 79.9 percent to 88.3 percent from fiscal year 2007 to fiscal year 2011. However, while ASPR collected data on a range of activities, it did not have consistent performance measures and targets in place across this entire period. Beginning with fiscal year 2012, ASPR developed new provisional performance measures for the eight new capabilities that awardees are to use for HPP planning for the next 5 years and set …

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "As of December 2012, the Internal Revenue Service's (IRS) four offshore programs have resulted in more than 39,000 disclosures by taxpayers and over $5.5 billion in revenues. The offshore programs attract taxpayers by offering a reduced risk of criminal prosecution and lower penalties than if the unreported income was discovered by one of IRS's other enforcement programs. For the 2009 Offshore Voluntary Disclosure Program (OVDP), nearly all program participants received the standard offshore penalty--20 percent of the highest aggregate value of the accounts--meaning the account value was greater than $75,000 and taxpayers used the accounts (e.g., made deposits or withdrawals) during the period under review. The median account balance of the more than 10,000 cases closed so far from the 2009 OVDP was $570,000. Participant cases with offshore penalties greater than $1 million represented about 6 percent of all 2009 OVDP cases, but accounted for almost half of all offshore penalties. Taxpayers from these cases disclosed a variety of reasons for having offshore accounts, and more than half of them had accounts at Swiss bank UBS."

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "The three key federal energy efficiency programs--minimum energy efficiency standards led by the Department of Energy (DOE), EnergyGuide led by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), and Energy Star led by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) with support from DOE--take different approaches to the shared goal of improving the energy efficiency of selected categories of household appliances and consumer electronics. The scope of products covered by these three programs also varies, and a number of products are covered by only one program, while others are covered by two or all three. Examples are as follows:"

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has made several changes to its criteria for including assets on the National Critical Infrastructure Prioritization Program (NCIPP) list of the nation's highest-priority infrastructure, but has not identified the impact of these changes or validated its approach. In 2009, DHS changed the criteria to make the list entirely consequence based--that is, based on the effect of an event on public health and safety, and economic, psychological, and government mission impacts. Subsequent changes introduced specialized criteria for some sectors and assets. For example, infrastructure that has received a specific, credible threat, but otherwise does not meet NCIPP criteria, may be included on the list. DHS's changes to the NCIPP criteria have changed the composition of the NCIPP list, which has had an impact on users of the list, such as the Federal Emergency Management Agency. However, DHS has not reviewed the impact of changes on users nor validated its approach to developing the list. While the change to an entirely consequence-based list created a common approach to identify infrastructure and align the program with applicable laws and the National Infrastructure Protection …

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "From 2008 through 2011, the Department of Health and Human Services' Food and Drug Administration (FDA) received 6,307 reports of health problems--adverse event reports (AER)--for dietary supplements; 71 percent came from industry as serious adverse events as required by law, and most of these AERs were linked with supplements containing a combination of ingredients, such as vitamins and minerals or were otherwise not classified within FDA's product categories. However, FDA may not be receiving information on all adverse events because consumers and others may not be voluntarily reporting these events to FDA, although they may be contacting poison centers about some of these events. From 2008 to 2010, these centers received over 1,000 more reports of adverse events linked to dietary supplements than did FDA for the same period. FDA officials said that they are interested in determining whether the poison center data could be useful for their analysis and have held discussions with American Association of Poison Control Centers representatives, but cost is a factor."

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "The Office of Federal Procurement Policy (OFPP) sets standards and policies for the federal acquisition workforce, and has established certification requirements, including minimal training, for the three main acquisition roles--contracting staff, Contracting Officer's Representatives, and Program/Project Managers--to promote the development of government-wide core acquisition competencies and facilitate mobility across agencies. DOD follows separate certification standards. The Federal Acquisition Institute (FAI), which is responsible for fostering and promoting the training and development of the acquisition workforce, works closely with OFPP and has initiatives underway to improve the collection and management of training information, including cost data and course evaluations; streamline communication of acquisition training guidance; and coordinate efforts to leverage acquisition workforce training resources throughout the government."

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "The most severely distressed multiemployer plans have taken significant steps to address their funding problems and, while most plans expected improved financial health, some did not. A survey conducted by a large actuarial and consulting firm serving multiemployer plans suggests that the large majority of the most severely underfunded plans--those designated as being in critical status--either have increased or will increase employer contributions or reduce participant benefits. In some cases, these measures will have significant effects on employers and participants. For example, several plan representatives stated that contribution increases had damaged some firms' competitive position in the industry, and, in some cases, threatened the viability of such firms. Similarly, reductions in certain benefits--such as early retirement subsidies--may create hardships for some older workers, such as those with physically demanding jobs. Most of the 107 surveyed plans expected to emerge from critical status, but about 25 percent did not and instead seek to delay eventual insolvency."

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "GAO identified three states—Maine, Montana, and Washington—that have developed pilot programs focused on replacing older manufactured homes using a combination of state and federal funds. The three programs were relatively small, accounting for about $4.5 million in spending and responsible for replacing 81 homes, over about 2 years. The programs differed in requirements, including whether the land that the replacement home would occupy had to be owned or could be leased; the types of financing used, with some replacements requiring recipients to take on a partial mortgage; and the types of replacement homes."

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Jones Act requirements have resulted in a discrete shipping market between Puerto Rico and the United States. Most of the cargo shipped between the United States and Puerto Rico is carried by four Jones Act carriers that provide dedicated, scheduled weekly service using containerships and container barges. Although some vessels are operating beyond their expected useful service life, many have been reconstructed or refurbished. Jones Act dry and liquid bulkcargo vessels also operate in the market, although some shippers report that qualified bulk-cargo vessels may not always be available to meet their needs. Cargo moving between Puerto Rico and foreign destinations is carried by numerous foreign-flag vessels, often with greater capacity, and typically as part of longer global trade routes. Freight rates are determined by a number of factors, including the supply of vessels and consumer demand in the market, as well as costs that carriers face to operate, some of which (e.g., crew costs) are affected by Jones Act requirements. The average freight rates of the four major Jones Act carriers in this market were lower in 2010 than they were in 2006, which was …

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Progress toward U.S. strategic goals for Yemen has been mixed. The Departments of State (State) and Defense (DOD) and the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) have conducted numerous civilian and security assistance activities in support of these strategic goals. Although some progress has been made since the civil unrest in 2011, obstacles remain to achieving each goal. For example, while there has been an orderly political transition to a new president, key milestones—such as convening a national dialogue to promote reconciliation—have been delayed. In addition, while Yemeni security forces have retaken territory seized by al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) in 2011, the security situation remains unstable."

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "The Department of Defense (DOD) 2012 portfolio of 86 major defense acquisition programs is estimated to cost a total of $1.6 trillion, reflecting decreases in both size and cost from the 2011 portfolio. Those decreases are largely the result of more programs exiting than entering the portfolio, as well as reductions in procurement quantities due to program cancelations and restructurings. Notably a majority of programs in the portfolio gained buying power in the last year as their acquisition unit costs decreased. DOD's 10 costliest programs, excluding the Missile Defense Agency's Ballistic Missile Defense System (BMDS), drive most of the portfolio's cost performance and funding needs. The majority (65 percent) of the funding that DOD estimates it will need to complete its current programs is associated with those 10 programs, and almost all of that funding is for procurement."

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "The Department of Defense (DOD) developed and used a quantitative model known as the Cost of Base Realignment Actions (COBRA), which GAO has found to be a reasonable estimator for comparing potential costs and savings among candidate alternatives, to estimate the costs and savings associated with Base Realignment and Closure (BRAC) 2005 recommendations. However, DOD’s process for providing the BRAC Commission with cost and savings estimates was hindered in many cases by underestimating recommendation specific requirements that were entered into the COBRA model. For example, military construction costs for BRAC 2005 increased from $13.2 billion estimated by the BRAC Commission in 2005 to $24.5 billion after implementation ended in 2011. Most of this 86 percent increase was caused by requirements that were added or identified after implementation began. While GAO recognizes that some military construction requirements were added after DOD submitted its initial cost estimates to the BRAC Commission, GAO found that other cost estimates increased because requirements were initially understated or not identified as inputs into COBRA. DOD also did not fully anticipate information technology requirements for many recommendations. For example, the initial information technology …

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) reports that it is moving forward with strategic human capital and workforce planning efforts after several years of delays. HUD's most recent workforce plan expired in 2009 and since then HUD has launched several planning efforts. According to HUD, these efforts were preempted by other important priorities, such as responding to the economic crisis. HUD undertook initiatives such as training key program office staff on the need to determine up front the staff HUD could afford to hire. In HUD's latest effort, a contractor is expected to complete human capital and workforce plans no later than fiscal year 2014. In June 2012, an Office of Personnel Management (OPM) review found that HUD's human capital and workforce planning activities did not always follow key principles for planning, implementing, and evaluating the results of human capital management policies and practices. For example, the review found that HUD's human resources policies and programs are not aligned with the organization's mission, strategic goals, or performance outcomes. As a result of these weaknesses, OPM concluded that HUD cannot continually assess and improve …

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "The low-volume payment adjustment (LVPA) did not effectively target low-volume facilities that had high costs and appeared necessary for ensuring access to care. Nearly 30 percent of LVPA-eligible facilities were located within 1 mile of another facility in 2011, and about 54 percent were within 5 miles, indicating these facilities might not have been necessary for ensuring access to care. Furthermore, in many cases, LVPA-eligible facilities were located near high-volume facilities. Among the freestanding facilities in GAO's analysis, LVPA-eligible facilities had substantially higher costs per dialysis treatment than the average facility ($272 compared with $235); however, so did other facilities that provided a relatively low volume of treatments (and were isolated) but were ineligible for the LVPA. The design of the LVPA gives facilities an adverse incentive to restrict service provision because facilities could lose a substantial amount of Medicare revenue over 3 years if they reach the treatment threshold. In another payment system, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) implemented a tiered adjustment that decreases as facility volume increases. Such an adjustment could diminish the incentive for dialysis facilities to limit service provision …

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Since 2009, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has made progress implementing its new approach to managing toxic chemicals under its existing Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) authority; particularly by increasing efforts to obtain chemical toxicity and exposure data and initiating chemical risk assessments--which EPA uses, along with other information, to decide what regulatory or other actions, if any, are warranted. The results of EPA's data collection activities, in most cases, have yet to be realized, and it may take several years before EPA obtains much of the data it is seeking. Also, EPA has not pursued some opportunities to obtain chemical data that companies submit to foreign governments or to obtain data from chemical processors that prepare chemical substances after their manufacture for distribution in commerce--some of which could help support the agency's risk assessment activities. Of the 83 chemicals EPA has prioritized for risk assessment, it initiated 7 assessments in 2012 and plans to start 18 additional assessments in 2013 and 2014. However, it may take several years to complete these initial risk assessments and, at the agency's current pace, over a decade to complete …

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 "The Department of Defense’s (DOD) competition rate for all contract obligations declined over the past five fiscal years, from 62.6 percent in fiscal year 2008 to 57.1 percent in fiscal year 2012. GAO also found that the competition rate in fiscal year 2012 varied by specific DOD component with the Air Force having the lowest at 37.1 percent and the Defense Logistics Agency the highest at 83.3 percent. The majority of the noncompetitive awards cited the availability of only one responsible source to meet the government’s needs as the reason for using noncompetitive procedures."

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "The annual appropriation for the Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) program allows grantees to use up to 20 percent of program funds for planning, management, and administration (collectively referred to as "administration"). Specifically, grantees may use these funds for a range of activities, including general management, oversight, and coordination; fair housing activities; preparing community development plans; and policy planning. The Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) uses broad categories, such as "general program administration" and "fair housing activities," to record grantees' administrative expenses. According to HUD's data for the last decade, grantees primarily recorded their administrative expenses under the general program administration category, which includes staff salaries. Grantees GAO interviewed added that they also used administrative funds to cover general administrative costs such as supplies, training, and travel."

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Complexity of the reviews, overly broad guidance, and limited monitoring for consistency impeded the ability of the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) and the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (Federal Reserve) to achieve the goals of the foreclosure review--to identify as many harmed borrowers as possible and ensure similar results for similarly situated borrowers. Regulators said that coordinating among foreclosure review participants was challenging, and consultants said that the reviews were complex. In spite of regulators' steps to foster consistency, broad guidance and limited monitoring reduced the potential usefulness of data from consultants and increased risks of inconsistency. For example, GAO found that guidance was revised throughout the process, resulting in delays. Other guidance did not specify key sampling parameters for the file reviews and regulators lacked objective monitoring measures, resulting in difficulty assessing the extent of borrower harm. Good planning and collecting objective data during monitoring provide a basis for making sound conclusions. Without using objective measures to assess sampling or comparing review methods across consultants, regulators' ability to monitor progress toward achievement of foreclosure review goals was hindered."

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "The California High-Speed Rail Authority (Authority) met some, but not all of the best practices in GAO's Cost Estimating and Assessment Guide (Cost Guide) for producing cost estimates that are accurate, comprehensive, well documented, and credible. By not following all best practices, there is increased risk of such things as cost overruns, missed deadlines, and unmet performance targets. The Authority substantially met the criteria for the accurate characteristic by, for example, the cost estimate's reflecting the current scope of the project. However, the Authority partially met the criteria for the other three characteristics since the operating costs were not sufficiently detailed (comprehensive), the development of some cost elements were not sufficiently explained (well documented), and because no systematic assessment of risk was performed (credible). The Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) issued limited guidance for preparing cost estimates, and this guidance did not reflect best practices in the Cost Guide. The Authority plans to improve its cost estimates."

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "For the contracts GAO reviewed, the National Science Foundation (NSF) generally used key contracting practices in each of the three phases of the acquisition process, but the agency needs additional guidance on early acquisition planning as well as arrangements for contract audits."

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "GAO identified 20 technology transition programs--managed by the Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD) and the military departments--that provide structured mechanisms and funding to facilitate technology transition. All of the programs GAO reviewed are consistent in providing opportunities to transition technologies from the science and technology (S&T) environment to a user, such as a weapon system acquisition program or the warfighter in the field. To help speed the delivery of technologies to users, most transition programs target fairly mature technologies, which are suitable for final stages of development and demonstration. Collectively, the programs GAO reviewed obligated about $7.9 billion in Department of Defense (DOD) research, development, test, and evaluation funding for fiscal years 2010 through 2012 to support technology transition."

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "The F-35 program achieved 7 of 10 key management objectives for 2012 and made substantial progress on one other. Two objectives on aircraft deliveries and a corrective management plan were not met. Also in 2012, the program conducted more developmental flight tests than planned and made considerable progress in addressing critical technical risks, such as the helmet-mounted display. With about one-third of development flight testing completed, much testing remains to demonstrate and verify F-35 performance. Software management practices are improved, but with significant challenges ahead as software integration and testing continue to lag behind plans."

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "From fiscal year 2008 to fiscal year 2012, the U.S. Export-Import Bank's (Ex-Im) outstanding financial commitments (exposure) grew from about $59 billion to about $107 billion, largely in long-term loans and guarantees. Factors associated with this growth include reduced private-sector financing following the financial crisis and Ex-Im's authorization of direct loans--a product not offered by export credit agencies in some other countries--to fill the gap in private-sector lending."