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 city manager of a general-law municipality may simultaneously serve as a member of the board of trustees of an independent school district whose boundaries contain the municipality (RQ-0828-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; Authority of the Board of Directors of the Texas School Safety Center under various provisions of sub chapters G, chapter 37,Texas Education Code (RQ-0835-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 certain endowment funds of a state university may be invested only in investments authorized under Texas Public Funds Investment Act, Chapter 2256 Government Code (RQ-0830-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 a county commissioner has announced his candidacy or become a candidate in fact for election to another office ,thereby automatically resigning the office of county commissioner by virtue of article 16 ,section 65 of the Texas Constitution (RA-0836-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 a utility company that contracts with a county to collect the fees for the county's solid waste disposal service may suspend its own utility service for non-payment of the solid waste disposal fee (RQ-0837-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; Application of Local Government Code section 143.014(c) to municipalities that have adopted chapter 174 of the Local Government Code, the Fire and Police Employee Relations Act; reconsideration of Attorney General Opinion GA-0662(2008)(RQ-0840-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 volunteer assistant fire marshals may be designated as “reserve deputies” (RQ-0927-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: Authority of the Harris County Department of Education to operate an on-site health clinic for its employees (RQ-0928-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 Texas Health and Safety Code section 773.008(2) authorizes a court of record, independently of any other source of authority, to order emergency medical treatment of a local jail detainee (RQ-0915-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; Municipality's selection of a local newspaperfor the purpose of publication of official notices (RQ-0919-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: Authority of the Department of Public Safety to contract with a county tax assessor-collector to performs its duties relating to the issuance of driver’s licenses and personal identification certificates (RQ-1002-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 the receipt of a nondisclosure order requires the Board of Nursing to redact information relating to a licensee’s criminal history record (RQ-0997-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: Approval of expenditures from asset forfeiture fund of a district attorney (RQ-1004-GA)

Testimony issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "The U.S. Coast Guard manages a broad major acquisition portfolio. GAO has reported extensively on the Coast Guard's significant challenges with its major acquisition programs, including its Deepwater Program. GAO has also recognized steps the Coast Guard has taken to improve acquisition management. Additionally, GAO has recommended that the Coast Guard complete a review of the Deepwater Program to clarify the mix of assets that are needed to meet mission needs and trade-offs while considering fiscal constraints, because the program had exceeded its $24.2 billion baseline. This testimony updates (1) Coast Guard efforts to manage major acquisitions, (2) challenges programs are facing in the areas of cost and schedule, and (3) the status of the Deepwater fleet mix analysis. This statement is largely based on GAO-11-480, which is being issued today. In that report, GAO recommended that the Coast Guard formalize its database of agreements with the Department of Defense (DOD). The Department of Homeland Security agreed with the recommendation. This statement also draws from prior GAO reports and ongoing work related to Deepwater. GAO reviewed the first phase of the Coast Guard's fleet mix analysis, contract documents, …

Testimony issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "The attempted passenger aircraft bombing of Northwest flight 253 on December 25, 2009, provided a vivid reminder that the civil aviation system remains an attractive terrorist target. To enhance aviation security, in October 2003 the Department of Homeland Security's (DHS) Transportation Security Administration (TSA) began testing of its Screening of Passengers by Observation Techniques (SPOT) program to identify persons who may pose a risk to aviation security. The SPOT program utilizes behavior observation and analysis techniques to identify potentially high-risk passengers. This testimony provides information on (1) the extent to which TSA has validated the scientific basis for SPOT and (2) other operational challenges. This statement is based on a prior report GAO issued in May 2010 on SPOT, including selected updates made in March 2011. For the updates, GAO reviewed documentation on TSA's progress in implementing the report's recommendations."

Testimony issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "This testimony discusses the U.S. Government Accountability Office's (GAO) budget request for fiscal year 2011. In fiscal year 2009, GAO supported congressional decision making and oversight on a range of critical issues, including the government's efforts to help stabilize financial markets and address the most severe recession since World War II. In addition to providing oversight for the 2008 Economic Stabilization Act and the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Recovery Act), we continued to provide the Congress updates on programs that are at high risk for waste, fraud, abuse, and mismanagement or are in need of broad reform, and delivered advice and analyses on a broad array of pressing domestic and international issues that demand urgent attention and continuing oversight. These include modernizing the regulatory structure for financial institutions and markets to meet 21st century demands; controlling escalating health care costs and providing more effective oversight of medical products; restructuring the U.S. Postal Service to ensure its financial stability; and improving the Department of Defense's management approaches to issues ranging from weapons system acquisitions to accounting for weapons provided to Afghan security forces. Overall, we responded …

Testimony issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "To assist law enforcement agencies in their efforts to combat money laundering, terrorist financing, and other financial crimes, the Bank Secrecy Act (BSA) requires financial institutions to file suspicious activity reports (SAR) to inform the federal government of transactions related to possible violations of law or regulation. Depository institutions have been concerned about the resources required to file SARs and the extent to which SARs are used. The Subcommittee asked GAO to discuss our February 2009 report on suspicious activity reporting. Specifically, this testimony discusses (1) factors affecting the number of SARs filed, (2) actions agencies have taken to improve the usefulness of SARs, (3) federal agencies' use of SARs, and (4) the effectiveness of the process used to revise SAR forms. To respond to the request, GAO relied primarily on the February 2009 report titled Bank Secrecy Act: Suspicious Activity Report Use Is Increasing, but FinCEN Needs to Further Develop and Document Its Form Revision Process (GAO-09-226), and updated it with additional information provided by FinCEN. In that report, GAO recommended that FinCEN work to further develop a strategy that fully incorporates certain GAO-identified practices to enhance …

Testimony issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and foreign tax administrators face similar issues regardless of the particular provisions of their laws. These issues include, for example, helping taxpayers prepare and file returns, and assuring tax compliance. GAO was asked to describe (1) how foreign tax administrators have approached issues that are similar to those in the U.S. tax system and (2) whether and how the IRS identifies and adopts tax administration practices used elsewhere. To do this, GAO reviewed documents and interviewed six foreign tax administrators as well as tax experts, tax practitioners, taxpayers, and trade group representatives. GAO also examined documents and met with IRS officials. This preliminary information is based on GAO's ongoing work for the Committee to be completed at a later date."

Testimony issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins ""

Testimony issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "This testimony discusses the findings from our recent work on fragmentation, overlap, and potential duplication in federally funded programs that support teacher quality. We recently issued a report addressing fragmentation, overlap, and potential duplication in federal programs that outlined opportunities to reduce potential duplication across a wide range of federal programs, including teacher quality programs. Our recent work on teacher quality programs builds on a long history of work where we identified a number of education programs with similar goals, beneficiaries, and allowable activities that are administered by multiple federal agencies. This work may help inform congressional deliberations over how to prioritize spending given the rapidly building fiscal pressures facing our nation's government. In recent years, the Department of Education (Education) has faced expanded responsibilities that have challenged the department to strategically allocate resources to balance new duties with ongoing ones. For example, we reported the number of grants Education awarded increased from about 14,000 in 2000 to about 21,000 just 2 years later and has since remained around 18,000, even as the number of full-time equivalent staff decreased by 13 percent from fiscal years 2000 to 2009. …

Testimony issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Indian tribes are among the most economically distressed groups in the United States. In 2008, the U.S. Census Bureau reported that the poverty rate among American Indian and Alaska Natives was almost twice as high as the population as a whole--27 percent compared with 15 percent. Residents of tribal lands often lack basic infrastructure, such as water and sewer systems, and sufficient technology infrastructure. Without such infrastructure, tribal communities often find it difficult to compete successfully in the economic mainstream. This testimony statement summarizes GAO's observations on (1) five broad categories of unique issues that may create uncertainty and therefore affect economic activity in Indian country and (2) tribes' use of special gaming and small business contracting provisions. It is based on prior GAO reports."

Testimony issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "This testimony discusses the findings from our recent work on fragmentation, overlap, and potential duplication in federally funded employment and training programs and our prior work on the Workforce Investment Act of 1998 (WIA). We recently issued two reports addressing fragmentation, overlap, and potential duplication in federal programs--one that outlined opportunities to reduce potential duplication across a wide range of federal programs and another that focused more specifically on employment and training programs. This work and our larger body of work in the area will help government policymakers address the rapidly building fiscal pressures facing our nation's government--pressures that stem, in part, from our mounting debt and sustained high unemployment. Our work to examine fragmentation, overlap, and potential duplication in employment and training programs has a long history. As early as the 1990s we issued a series of reports that raised questions about the efficiency and effectiveness of the federally funded employment and training system, and we concluded that a structural overhaul and consolidation of these programs was needed. Partly in response to these concerns, Congress passed WIA. The purpose of WIA, in part, was to transform the …

Testimony issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Financial literacy plays an important role in helping ensure the financial health and stability of individuals, families, and our broader national economy. Economic changes in recent years have highlighted the need to empower Americans to make informed financial decisions, yet evidence indicates that many U.S. consumers could benefit from a better understanding of financial matters. For example, recent surveys indicate that many consumers have difficulty with basic financial concepts and do not budget. This testimony discusses (1) the state of the federal government's approach to financial literacy, (2) observations on overall strategies for addressing financial literacy, and (3) the role GAO can play in addressing and raising awareness on this issue. This testimony is based largely on prior and ongoing work, for which GAO conducted a literature review; interviewed representatives of organizations that address financial literacy within the federal, state, private, nonprofit, and academic sectors; and reviewed materials of the Financial Literacy and Education Commission. While this statement includes no new recommendations, in the past GAO has made a number of recommendations aimed at improving financial literacy efforts.."

Testimony issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "The Department of Defense (DOD) and other executive agencies increasingly deploy civilians in support of contingency operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. Prior GAO reports show that the use of deployed civilians has raised questions about the potential for differences in policies on compensation and medical benefits. When these civilians are deployed and serve side by side, differences in compensation or medical benefits may become more apparent and could adversely impact morale. This statement is based on GAO's 2009 congressionally requested report, which compared agency policies and identified any issues in policy or implementation regarding (1) compensation, (2) medical benefits, and (3) identification and tracking of deployed civilians. GAO reviewed laws, policies, and guidance; interviewed responsible officials at the Office of Personnel Management (OPM); and conducted a survey of civilians deployed from the six agencies between January 1, 2006 and April 30, 2008. GAO made ten recommendations for agencies to take actions such as reviewing compensation laws and policies, establishing medical screening requirements, and creating mechanisms to assist and track deployed civilians. Seven of the agencies--including DOD-- generally agreed with these recommendations; U.S. Agency for International Development did not. …