A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "During a 5-year period--fiscal years 2008 through 2012--costs for inmate mental health services in institutions run by the Bureau of Prisons (BOP) rose in absolute dollar amount, as well as on an annual per capita basis. Specifically, mental health services costs rose from $123 million in fiscal year 2008 to $146 million in fiscal year 2012, with increases generally due to three factors--inmate population increases, general inflationary increases, and increased participation rates in psychology treatment programs such as drug abuse treatment programs. Additionally, the per capita cost rose from $741 in fiscal year 2008 to $821 in fiscal year 2012. It is projected that these costs will continue to increase with an estimated per capita cost of $876 in fiscal year 2015, due, in part, to increased program funding and inflation."

Testimony issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "In September 2012, GAO reported that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) does not know the total amount its components invest in research and development (R&D) and does not have policies and guidance for defining R&D and overseeing R&D resources across the department. According to DHS, its Science & Technology Directorate (S&T), Domestic Nuclear Detection Office (DNDO), and U. S. Coast Guard (Coast Guard) are the only components that conduct R&D, and GAO found that these are the only components that report budget authority, obligations, or outlays for R&D activities to the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) as part of the budget process. However, GAO identified an additional $255 million in R&D obligations made by other DHS components. According to DHS, it is difficult to identify all R&D investments across the department because DHS does not have a department wide policy defining R&D or guidance directing components how to report all R&D spending and activities. As a result, it is difficult for DHS to oversee components' R&D efforts and align them with agency wide R&D goals and priorities. GAO recommended that DHS develop specific policies and guidance …

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "While the Department of Defense (DOD) has made some progress in promoting communication among the several organizations responsible for accounting for missing persons--known collectively as the accounting community--DOD's capability and capacity to accomplish its missing persons accounting mission is being undermined by longstanding leadership weaknesses and a fragmented organizational structure. Leadership from the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy (USD Policy) and U.S. Pacific Command (PACOM) have not been able to resolve disagreements among accounting community members, thereby impacting DOD's ability to meet the mandated goal of increasing its capability and capacity to account for 200 missing persons a year by 2015. DOD averaged 72 identifications annually in the decade ending in 2012. GAO found the following areas of progress and continuing areas of weakness:"

Correspondence issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "GAO was unable to compare ELL enrollment in charter schools to ELL enrollment in traditional public schools because Education's only available data on school-level ELL enrollment were unreliable and incomplete. Specifically, for over one-third of charter schools, the field for reporting the counts of ELLs enrolled in ELL programs was left blank. These blank fields cannot reliably be interpreted to mean that the charter schools did not have ELLs enrolled. Education officials told us that these school-level ELL data do not have a data steward (that is, an office responsible for overseeing the quality of the data) and that the quality of the data is not examined on a regular basis. A definitional issue may have resulted in states excluding some students from the reported counts, and some charter schools may have failed to submit required data to their states. Education officials said they had not systematically studied charter school nonreporting but acknowledged that states sometimes have difficulty obtaining data from charter schools. Some charter schools with blank ELL counts were also missing data from other important datasets, such as those on school performance, which suggests potential broader …

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins ""

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Agencies GAO surveyed reported operating fewer in-house printing plants than in 1990. Specifically, surveyed agencies reported operating 64 percent fewer plants than the number listed in the Congress's Joint Committee on Printing's (JCP) Government Printing and Binding Regulations, updated in 1990 (1990 JCP Regulations). The Department of Defense (DOD) accounted for the greatest decline in in-house printing plants. The 1990 JCP Regulations listed 142 DOD printing plants; however, the Defense Logistics Agency, which currently manages the majority of DOD's printing infrastructure, reported 17 in-house printing plants in GAO's survey. In addition, most agencies reported operating toner-based high-speed duplication machines, and fewer reported operating ink-based conventional printing presses. Of the 32 agencies operating in-house printing plants, 17 reported that all of their in-house printing was conducted on high-speed duplication machines; another 14 agencies reported operating some duplication equipment in addition to conventional printing presses (the remaining agency did not report its type of equipment). No agency reported having only ink-based conventional printing presses at its in-house plants. In addition, interviews with selected agencies showed declines in printing volumes and total spending, and suggested that agencies spent more …

Testimony issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "In brief, GAO's work found that CMS will operate a health insurance exchange in the 34 states that will not operate a state-based exchange for 2014. While CMS will retain full authority over each of these 34 FFEs, it planned to allow 15 of these states to assist it in carrying out certain FFE functions. However, the activities that CMS plans to carry out in these 15 exchanges, as well as in the 17 state-based exchanges, have evolved and may continue to change. For example, CMS approved states' exchange arrangements on the condition that states ultimately complete activities necessary for exchange implementation. Agency officials indicated that they were working with each state to develop mitigation strategies to ensure that all applicable exchange functions are operating in each state on October 1, 2013. CMS indicated that it would carry out more exchange functions if any state did not adequately progress towards implementation of all required activities."