Correspondence issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "The Washington Convention Center Authority will build, maintain, and operate the new convention center as well as maintain and operate the existing convention center. This report reviews (1) the status of the new convention center project as of July 2001 and (2) the guaranteed maximum price (GMP) agreement. The revised GMP has not yet been set because WCCA and the construction manager haven't agreed on the project schedule and the estimated cost of pending charges. The GMP--which covers most of the hard costs of actual construction, such as masonry, carpentry, and metals, but excludes soft-cost items--is based on a set of agreed-upon assumptions about work quantities and unit costs of performing such work. The GMP amount of $500.6 million will be adjusted as the project progresses. As of July 2001, WCAA's monthly report estimates total construction costs at $778.2 million, including a $14.6 million contingency amount as a cushion against unforeseen future increases. This represents a nine-percent increase over the original estimate of $714 million. WCCA included a project contingency of $30.5 million in the September 1998 cost estimate. The estimated project cost of $778.2 million as of …

Correspondence issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "GAO reviewed the audit report covering the financial statements of the Jewish War Veterans, U.S.A., National Memorial, Incorporated, for fiscal year 2000. GAO found no reportable instances of noncompliance. The audit report included the auditors' opinion that the financial statements of the corporation were presented fairly in accordance with generally accepted accounting principles."

Correspondence issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "GAO reviewed the audit report covering the financial statements of the Military Order or the World Wars for fiscal year 2000. GAO found no reportable instances of noncompliance. The audit reports included the auditors' opinions that the financial statements of the corporation were presented fairly on a modified cash basis of accounting."

Correspondence issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "GAO reviewed the audit report covering the financial statements of the National Federation of Music Clubs for fiscal year 2000. The audit report included the auditors' opinions that the financial statements of the corporation were presented fairly in accordance with generally accepted accounting principles. GAO found no reportable instances of noncompliance."

Correspondence issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "GAO reviewed the audit report covering the financial statements of the Pearl Harbor Survivors Association for fiscal year 2000. GAO found no reportable instances of noncompliance. The audit report included the auditor's opinion that, without exception, the financial statements of the corporation were presented fairly on a modified cash basis of accounting."

Correspondence issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "GAO reviewed an audit report covering the financial statement of the Polish Legion of American Veterans, U.S.A., for fiscal year 2000. GAO found no reportable instances of noncompliance. The audit report included the auditors' opinion that the financial statements of the corporation were presented fairly in accordance with generally accepted accounting principles."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "It is essential that the U.S. military--the government's largest user of information technology (IT)--adopt effective IT acquisition practices. This report presents a generic framework of IT acquisition practices from leading commercial firms. Grouped into seven phases, the practices and underlying critical success factors provide the underpinnings for an effective IT outsourcing process."

Other written product issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "GAO published a functional requirements document intended to assist agencies when developing new systems and when improving or evaluating existing systems. It provides the baseline functionality that agency systems must have in order to support agency missions and comply with laws and regulations. Specifically, the document focuses on (1) micropurchases made with purchase cards, (2) information requirements relative to contract line item number, (3) information requirements relative to internal controls and security, (4) payment and closeout, (5) proposed requirements relating to the standard general ledger, (6) mandatory and value-added requirements, and (7) definitions of terms."

Correspondence issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "This report reviews the military's efforts to attack time-critical targets, such as mobile theater missiles, surface-to-air missile launchers, and cruise missile batteries. GAO found that the Defense Department (DOD) has developed guidance to help the armed services achieve system interoperability as well as develop oversight controls, directives, and policies and to achieve interoperability. DOD has also worked to develop joint capabilities through exercises and advanced concept technology demonstrations. The individual services have undertaken various efforts to improve their own capability to attack time-critical targets. Although these efforts are helping DOD to improve the sensor-to-shooter process, much more needs to be done to significantly reduce the time it takes to strike time-critical targets. First, DOD needs to overcome cultural impediments to joint warfighting. Second, some of DOD's current oversight and control mechanisms are simply not working. Third, DOD still lacks a joint service concept of operations to defeat time-critical targets. As a result, each military service plans and acquires systems to meet requirements under its own concept of operations. DOD has recently developed plans and initiatives to address these problems. It is too early to determine whether these steps …

Correspondence issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "A "voided arrest" is any arrest resulting in the release of a person without the filing of formal charges, dismissal of proceedings against the person arrested, or a determination that the arrest was without probable cause. GAO's ongoing review of the number of "voided arrests," originally intended to support the Clear Your Good Name Act, was closed out because of the impact of the September 11 terrorist attacks on the legislative agenda in Congress. Complete data on the number of "voided arrests," as defined by the Clear Your Good Name Act (H.R. 1154) that occur at national and state levels are not available. None of the federal, state, or local agencies GAO contacted use the term "voided arrest." They do not have data for the category "voided arrests," and the data that they have do not include all arrests in those jurisdictions that can be considered "voided arrests" as defined by H.R. 1154. The Bureau of Justice Statistics and the state criminal history record repositories generally have data for the arrest disposition categories of prosecutor declinations and dismissals, and these dispositions can be considered "voided arrests." However, prosecutor …

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "The Small Business Reauthorization Act of 1997 requires the Small Business Administration (SBA) to complete mandated planning activities before developing a loan monitoring system (LMS). In February 2000, GAO testified that SBA had made substantial progress in completing the mandated planning actions and made recommendations on additional steps needed for each action, and for project management and control of LMS. In August 2000, GAO found that SBA had completed its work on only one recommendation. SBA's actions to develop and implement LMS software were not consistent with the Small Business Reauthorization Act of 1997 and SBA's agreement with the House Committee on Small Business not to acquire hardware or software before completing the mandated planning. These actions could result in significant project cost increases and delays."

Correspondence issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "In 1997, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) adopted a pilot program, known as the Corporate Maintenance Philosophy, that reduced the frequency of periodic maintenance and certification in FAA's Alaskan Region. In 2001, the Federal Labor Relations Authority ruled that FAA must revert back to the national maintenance and certification standards in the Alaskan Region because it had not negotiated an extension of the pilot program with its unions. GAO found that FAA's Alaskan Region has not fully returned to the national standards, but FAA officials believe that the transition will be completed by January 1, 2002. Seven of 12 locations had finished updating maintenance and certification information into FAA's computerized maintenance management system (MMS) by the October 1, 2001, deadline. In several locations where MMS had been updated, however, the standards that incorporated were not subjected to quality control checks. GAO was unable to determine whether periodic maintenance in some areas has been done with the frequency required by the national guidelines. FAA is hiring additional staff to perform maintenance and certifications and will appoint managers to check the accuracy of MMS data. The process of certifying equipment …

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "GAO reviewed purchase card activity at the Space and Naval Warfare Systems Command (SPAWAR) Systems Center and the Navy Public Works Center in San Diego and found significant breakdowns in internal controls over purchase card transactions, including fraudulent, improper, and abusive purchases and theft and misuse of government property. Neither SPAWAR nor the Navy Public Works Center had effective policies for issuing purchase cards, establishing credit limits, and minimizing the federal government's financial exposure. Any employee having supervisory approval could get a card. GAO found that the units did not do credit checks on prospective cardholders. GAO also found that nearly half of SPAWAR's fiscal year 2000 purchase card transactions and more than half of the Navy Public Works Center's transactions were made by employees who did not have documented evidence of timely training. Policies for rebate management were deficient, including a lack of procedures to maximize rebates and ensure that bank calculations of rebates were correct. Management was not effectively using internal reviews and audits to determine whether purchase card internal controls were effectively implemented. These internal control weaknesses allowed purchases that were potentially fraudulent, …

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Before Social Security, being old often meant being poor. Today, dependency on public assistance has dropped to a fraction of its Depression-era levels, and poverty rates among the elderly are now lower than for the population as a whole. At the same time, Social Security has become the single largest source of retirement income for more than 90 percent of persons aged 65 and older. Automatic adjustments were introduced in 1972 to reflect increases in the cost of living. Other program changes gradually increased social security coverage to larger portions of the workforce and extended eligibility to family members and disabled workers. Other benefit programs, such as Supplemental Security Income (SSI), Medicare, and Medicaid, have also been added over the years. With regard to measuring income adequacy, various measures help examine different aspects of this concept, but no single measure can provide a complete picture. For various subgroups of beneficiaries that have lower lifetime earnings, poverty rates have also declined. Although the Social Security benefit formula favors lower lifetime earners, their lower earnings and work histories can leave them with incomes below the poverty level when …

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Although the Department of Education spent millions of dollars to modernize and integrate its nonintegrated financial aid systems during the past 10 years, these efforts have met with limited success. Recently, Education's Office of Student Financial Assistance (SFA) began using a software approach known as middleware to provide users with a more complete and integrated view of information in its many databases. In selecting middleware, SFA has adopted a viable, industry-accepted means for integrating and utilizing its existing data on student loans and grants. To meet its human capital needs, SFA has solicited the help of a private sector "modernization partner" with experience in implementing and managing middleware solutions--particularly in the financial industry--and has also chosen to use a leading middleware software product."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "U.S. drinking water and wastewater systems encompass thousands of treatment and collection facilities and more than a million miles of pipes and conduits. The estimated cost to repair, replace, or upgrade aging facilities; accommodate the nation's growing population; and meet new water quality standards ranges from $300 billion to $1 trillion over the next 20 years. Although user rates are the major source of facilities' financing, federal and state government agencies also offer financial support. From fiscal years 1991 through 2000, nine federal agencies provided $44 billion for drinking water and wastewater capital improvements. Four agencies--the Environmental Protection Agency and the Departments of Agriculture, Housing and Urban Development, and Commerce--accounted for about 98 percent of that account. State governments made $25 billion available for water infrastructure programs during the past 10 years."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Although national rates of violent juvenile crime and youth victimization have declined during the past five years, critical problems affecting juveniles, such as drug dependency, the spread of gangs, and child abuse and neglect, persist. The Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP) has funded various demonstration, replication, research and evaluation, and training and technical assistance programs to prevent and respond to juvenile delinquency and juvenile victimization. GAO's review of 16 of OJJDP's major programs found that, although virtually all grantees must report on their progress twice a year, the information they reported varied. Grantees receive standard, general guidance for reporting on their projects and providing OJJDP information to monitor grantee's projects and accomplishments. According to OJJDP officials, such guidance needs to be general because of differences among individual projects and local needs and circumstances. GAO identified eight programs in which all grantees reported the number of juveniles they directly served. OJJDP does not require grantees in all its programs to report directly on the number of juveniles served directly because many of its programs are not intended to serve juveniles directly. GAO's in-depth review …

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Some states have taken advantage of the flexibility that Congress built into the Medicaid program by devising schemes that inappropriately boost the federal share of program expenditures. These schemes were adding billions of dollars a year to federal Medicaid costs without the states paying their statutorily specified share of program costs. Moreover, some of the federal funds were being spent for non-Medicaid purposes. After hearing about these financing schemes, Congress passed the Medicare, Medicaid, and SCHIP Benefits Improvement and Protection Act of 2000 (BIPA). In response, the Health Care Financing Administration (HCFA) issued regulations in January 2001 to curtail financing schemes involving excessive payments to local government providers for which a separate upper payment limit did not exist. However, less than a month after the revised upper payment limit regulation became effective, HCFA decided to amend the regulation to shorten the time some states were allowed to comply with it. This reversal resulted in the approval of new financing schemes for several states that had pending proposals mimicking the schemes identified last year. The transition periods were of varying lengths, depending on how long a state …

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Small businesses often have serious difficulty finding skilled employees, upgrading the skills of their existing employees, and identifying strategies to meet future workforce needs. The Workforce Investment Act of 1998 seeks to address these workforce development issues and give federal training programs a greater employer focus. Although these problems are common throughout the country, small businesses in some areas have joined with business and trade organizations, community colleges, and other public and private groups to form workforce development networks--often referred to as workforce consortia. This new approach offers small businesses access to various workforce development activities in which they might otherwise be unable to participate. Limited information exists on the outcome of workforce consortia at the sites GAO reviewed. There were no systematic efforts to evaluate overall consortium effectiveness, but there were isolated attempts to monitor participation rates and assess the impact of specific activities on job retention and future earnings."

Testimony issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "The Department of Labor's (DOL) Disabled Veterans' Outreach Program (DVOP) and Local Veterans' Employment Representative (LVER) program allow states to hire staff members to serve veterans exclusively. The two programs are mandatory partners in the new one-stop center system created in 1998 by the Workforce Investment Act, which requires that services provided by numerous employment and training programs be made available through one-stop centers. The act also gives states the flexibility to design services tailored to local workforce needs. Although the DVOP and LVER programs must operate within the one-stop system, the act does not govern the programs--and the law that governs them does not provide the same flexibility that the act does. Because Congress sees employment service for veterans as a national responsibility, it established the Veterans' Employment and Training Service (VETS) to ensure that veterans, particularly disabled veterans and Vietnam-era veterans, receive priority employment and training opportunities. To make better use of DVOP and LVER staff services, VETS needs the legislative authority to grant each state more flexibility to design how this staff will fit into the one-stop center system. VETS also needs to be able …

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "The armed services have had problems for years with their ability to adequately test their electronic combat systems. The success of the new Joint Service Electronic Combat Systems Tester Program in providing improved test capability is a positive development. Because the tester has identified many more faults in the F-15C and F/A-18C electronic combat systems than has the current test equipment, existing readiness, logistics, and maintenance problems with such systems could worsen. However, pilots would at least have greater knowledge about the readiness and reliability of their self-protection systems and their need for support from specialized aircraft designed to suppress enemy air defenses. GAO believes that it makes sense for the Air Force and Navy to consider using the new test equipment on their non-fighter aircraft."

Other written product issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "This document is a conceptual statement on the objectives of financial reporting by the federal government. It focuses on the uses, user needs, and objectives of such reporting. The objectives are designed to guide the Federal Accounting Standards Advisory Board in developing accounting standards to enhance the financial information reported by the federal government to (1) demonstrate its accountability, (2) provide useful information, and (3) help internal users of financial information improve the government's management. In addition to guiding the Board, the objectives may serve as useful guidance to others involved in federal financial reporting."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "The military's ability to carry out its mission depends on its having adequate supplies of spare parts on hand for maintenance and repairs. Shortages are a key indicator that the billions of dollars being spent on these parts are not being used effectively, efficiently, and economically. Despite additional funding from Congress, the Army still has concerns about spare parts shortages. Spare parts shortages for the Apache, Blackhawk, and Chinook helicopters have harmed operations and lowered morale among maintenance personnel. Cannibalization of parts from one aircraft to another is an inefficient practice that results in double work for the maintenance personnel, masks parts shortages, and lowers morale. Parts were unavailable for various reasons, including higher-than-expected demand for parts, delays in obtaining parts from contractors, and problems with overhaul and maintenance. Another factor contributing to the shortage was the Army's inability to obtain parts for these aging aircraft from the original manufacturers, which sometimes had gone out of business. The Army and the Defense Logistics Agency have efforts planned or underway to improve the availability of aviation spare parts. Once these initiatives are further along, GAO will review …

Correspondence issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "In March 2001, GAO issued a report (GAO-01-394) on the results of its audit of the Internal Revenue Service's (IRS) financial statements and on the effectiveness of its internal controls for fiscal year 2000. This report reviews additional matters identified during GAO's fiscal year 2000 audit regarding accounting procedures and internal controls that could be improved. GAO found that IRS had immaterial internal control issues that affected reporting. IRS (1) was unable to determine if its costs for reimbursable activities were accurate and whether it was recouping the costs of the goods or services it provided, (2) lacked procedures to properly record its working capital fund prepaid expenses, (3) accepted information from its contractors for inclusion in its year-end financial reporting without sufficient oversight or review, and (4) did not always follow standard procedures with respect to the transfer of funds between appropriations."