Testimony issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "GAO appeared before Subcommittees on Oversight and Human Resources, House Committee on Ways and Means to discuss the results of our investigation of the extent to which states have found that companies manipulate state unemployment tax rates through a variety of methods in order to lower their unemployment taxes, a practice known as "SUTA dumping," and of the extent to which some consulting firms promote SUTA dumping methods. We conducted our investigation from March 2003 through June 2003 in accordance with quality standards for investigations as set forth by the President's Council on Integrity and Efficiency. To obtain an overview of the extent of the problem, we conducted a survey of unemployment insurance administrators, in the 50 states, the District of Columbia, U.S. Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico. Additionally, one of our agents, posing as a business owner who was looking for ways to reduce state unemployment insurance taxes, placed telephone calls to four consulting firms we identified through the Internet to determine whether they promote SUTA dumping techniques. We also interviewed officials of the Office of Workforce Security, Department of Labor to determine how the federal-state unemployment …

Testimony issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO discussed the impact of private health insurance premium increases on the number of covered individuals, focusing on: (1) the trends in employers' decisions to offer insurance and employees' decisions to purchase it; (2) an assessment of recent studies that have estimated the relationship between premium increases and insurance coverage; and (3) conditions or factors that could affect the impact of premium increases on insurance coverage."

Testimony issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Balancing our nation's security and commercial needs is a longstanding issue that is especially important in the aftermath of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks that changed the nation's security environment. Addressing this challenge now falls principally to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and its Border and Transportation Security directorate. Within this directorate, responsibility has been assigned primarily to the Bureau of Customs and Border Protection (BCBP). BCBP consists of the inspections component of the former U.S. Customs Service; the Border Patrol and Inspections component of the former Immigration and Naturalization Service, and a former component of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service. Achieving the balance between security and commercial needs is greatly affected by BCBP's commercial and border and immigration control workload. Regarding commercial workload, in fiscal year 2002, the former U.S. Customs Services processed 24.9 million trade import entries valued at over $1.1 trillion and collected $23.8 billion in duties and fees; it also processed about 6 million cargo containers arriving at U.S. sea ports. While the cargo workload has stabilized somewhat as a result of the recent global …

Testimony issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO discussed the role of the power marketing administrations (PMA) in a restructured electricity industry, focusing on five goals of deregulating the retail electricity market."

Testimony issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "This testimony discusses the results of GAO's investigation of health care billing consultants whose seminars and workshops advise health care providers on how to boost revenue and avoid audits. Consultants at two workshops that GAO attended provided in-depth discussions of regulations on billing for health care services and compliance with health care laws and regulations. Some of this advice was inconsistent with federal law and guidance provided by the Department of Health and Human Services' Office of Inspector General. Such advice could result in violations of both civil and criminal statutes. Some consultants urged health care providers to not report or refund overpayments from insurance carriers after they were discovered. The consultants also encouraged the performance of unnecessary tests and procedures to generate documentation that would support bills for evaluation and management services at a higher level of complexity than actually confronted during patients' office visits. This testimony summarizes a June report (GAO-01-818)."

Testimony issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO discussed proposed revisions to Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) regulations to clean up polluted waters, focusing on: (1) the reasonableness of EPA's economic analyses for the Unfunded Mandates Reform Act of 1995 and the Regulatory Flexibility Act; and (2) whether EPA's determinations under the two proposed regulations were adequately supported."

Testimony issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "In 2001, an estimated 2 million elderly households with very low incomes (50 percent or less of area median income) did not receive housing assistance. The Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) considered most of these households to be "rent burdened" because they spent more than 30 percent of their incomes on rent. The Section 202 Supportive Housing for the Elderly Program provides capital advances (grants) to nonprofit organizations to develop affordable rental housing exclusively for these households. Based on a report issued in May 2003, this testimony discusses the role of the Section 202 program in addressing the need for affordable elderly housing and factors affecting the timeliness of approving and constructing new projects."

Testimony issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO discussed the status of efforts by the Forest Service to develop a cohesive strategy to reduce the threat of catastrophic wildfires in national forests in the interior West."

Testimony issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Discussions about how to reform and modernize the Medicare Program have, in part, focused on whether the structure that was adopted in 1965 is optimal today. Questions have been raised about whether the program could benefit from changes to the way that Medicare's claims processing contractors are chosen and the jobs they do. Medicare could benefit from full and open competition and its relative flexibility to promote better performance and accountability. If the current limits on Medicare contracting authority are removed, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services could (1) select contractors on a competitive basis from a broader array of entities capable of performing needed program activities, (2) issue contracts for discrete program functions to improve contractor performance through specialization, (3) pay contractors based on how well they perform rather than simply reimbursing them for their costs, and (4) terminate poor performers more efficiently."

Testimony issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "The Federal Financial Management Improvement Act (FFMIA) of 1996 ensures that agency financial management systems routinely provide reliable and timely financial information on the investment of resources, reduced costs and programs oversight. Although many agencies are receiving unqualified opinions on their financial statements, auditor determinations of FFMIA compliance are lagging. To achieve the financial management improvements envisioned by the Chief Financial Officers Act, FFMIA, and more recently, the President's Management Agenda, agencies need to modernize their financial systems to generate reliable, useful, and timely financial information throughout the year and at year-end."

Testimony issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "This testimony discusses the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's (NASA) X-33 and X-34 reusable launch vehicle programs. The two programs experienced difficulties achieving their goals primarily because NASA did not develop realistic cost estimates, timely acquisition and risk management plans, and adequate and realistic performance goals. In particular, neither program fully (1) assessed the costs associated with developing new, unproven technologies, (2) provided for the financial reserves needed to deal with technical risks and accommodate normal development delays, (3) developed plans to quantify and mitigate the risks to NASA, or (4) established performance targets showing a clear path leading to an operational reusable launch vehicle. As a result, both programs were terminated. Currently, NASA is in the process of taking steps in the Second Generation Reusable Launch Vehicle Program to help avoid problems like those encountered in the X-33 and X-34 programs."

Testimony issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO discussed the Department of Defense's (DOD) payment problems and how recovery auditing is being used to identify and recover overpayments."

Testimony issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "The Medicaid program served 33.4 million low-income families as well as elderly, blind, and disabled persons at a cost of $119 billion to the federal government and $88 billion to the states in fiscal year 2000. States are responsible for safeguarding Medicaid funds by making proper payments to providers, recovering misspent funds, and accurately reporting costs for federal reimbursement. At the federal level, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) is responsible for overseeing state financial activities and ensuring the propriety of expenditures reported for federal reimbursement. Audits of state Medicaid finances have identified millions of dollars of questionable or unallowable costs. In addition, annual financial statement audits have identified many internal control weaknesses in CMS oversight of state Medicaid operations. CMS has only recently begun to assess areas at greatest risk for improper payments. As a result, controls that focus on the highest risk areas and resources had not yet been deployed for areas of greatest risk. Since 1998, auditors have noted that CMS failed to institute an oversight process that effectively reduced the risk of inappropriate medical claims and payments. CMS attributed most of the …

Testimony issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "During World War I, the U.S. Army operated a large research facility to develop and test chemical weapons and explosives in the area that became the Spring Valley neighborhood in Washington, D.C. Buried ordnance, discovered there in 1993, led to the designation by the Department of Defense (DOD) of 61 acres as a formerly used defense site. Through fiscal year 2001, DOD had spent over $50 million to identify and remove hazards at the site. The government entities involved have identified and removed a large number of hazards, but the number remaining is unknown. The health risks influencing cleanup activities at Spring Valley are the possibility of injury or death from exploding or leaking ordnance and containers of chemical warfare agents and potential long-term health problems from exposure to arsenic-contaminated soil. As of April 2002, the U.S. Army estimated that the remaining cleanup activities would cost $7.1 million and take 5 years, but these estimates are unreliable. This testimony summarized a June report (See GAO-02-556)."

Testimony issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Federal housing assistance in rural America dates back to the 1930s, when most rural residents worked on farms. Without electricity, telephone service, or good roads connecting residents to population centers, residents were comparatively isolated and their access to credit was generally poor. These conditions led Congress to authorize separate housing assistance for rural residents, to be administered by USDA. Over time, the quality of the housing stock has improved and credit has become more readily available in rural areas. Also, advances in transportation, computer technology, and telecommunications have diminished many of the distinctions between rural and urban areas. These changes call into question whether rural housing programs still need to be maintained separately from urban housing programs, and whether RHS is adapting to change and managing its resources as efficiently as possible."

Testimony issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "People are at the heart of an organization's ability to perform its mission. Yet a key challenge for the Department of Defense (DOD), as for many federal agencies, is to strategically manage its human capital. DOD's proposed National Security Personnel System would provide for wide-ranging changes in DOD's civilian personnel pay and performance management and other human capital areas. Given the massive size of DOD, the proposal has important precedent-setting implications for federal human capital management. This testimony provides GAO's observations on DOD human capital reform proposals and the need for governmentwide reform."

Testimony issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO discussed the Customs Service's progress in addressing the year 2000 computing problem."

Testimony issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "The Department of Labor's Unemployment Insurance (UI) program is a federal-state partnership designed to partially replace lost earnings of individuals who become unemployed through no fault of their own and to stabilize the economy in times of economic downturn. The health of each state's UI program depends, in part, on their ability to control benefit payments by accurately determining eligibility for UI benefits in a timely manner. Labor's Office of Inspector General (OIG) and others have identified numerous aspects of the UI program that may be vulnerable to overpayments and fraud. Of the $30 billion in UI benefits paid in calendar year 2001, Labor estimates that this includes $2.4 billion in overpayments, including $560 million attributable to fraud or abuse. Labor's analysis also suggests that the states could have detected or recovered $1.3 billion of the total overpayments given their current policies and procedures. The management and operational practices at both the state and federal level contribute to overpayments in the UI program. At the state level, many states place a higher priority on quickly processing and paying UI claims than on taking the necessary steps to adequately …

Testimony issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "The Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) hazardous waste ombudsman was established as a result of the 1984 amendments to the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act. Recognizing that the ombudsman provides a valuable service to the public, EPA retained the ombudsman function as a matter of policy after its legislative authorization expired in 1988. Over time, EPA expanded the national ombudsman's jurisdiction to include Superfund and other hazardous waste programs, and, by March 1996, EPA had designated ombudsmen in each of its ten regional offices. In November 2001, the agency announced that the national ombudsman would be relocated from the Office of Solid Waste and Emergency Response to the Office of the Inspector General (OIG) and would address concerns across the spectrum of EPA programs, not just hazardous waste programs. Although there are no federal requirements or standards specific to the operation of ombudsman offices, several professional organizations have published standards of practice relevant to ombudsmen who deal with public inquiries. If EPA intends to have an ombudsman function consistent with the way the position is typically defined in the ombudsman community, placing the national ombudsman within the OIG does …

Testimony issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO discussed the Federal Aviation Administration's (FAA) Wide Area Augmentation System (WAAS), focusing on: (1) difficulties in developing WAAS; (2) actions FAA is taking to get the system on track; and (3) next steps for FAA to take to help mitigate future delays in implementing WAAS."

Testimony issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO discussed the International Monetary Fund (IMF), focusing on the: (1) conditions IMF negotiates with its borrower countries; and (2) trade policies of borrower countries."

Testimony issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Since the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, and the subsequent anthrax incidents, there has been concern about the ability of the federal government to prepare for and coordinate an effective public health response given the broad distribution of responsibility for that task at the federal level. More then 20 federal departments and agencies carry some responsibility for bioterrorism preparedness and response. The President's proposed Homeland Security Act of 2002 would bring many of these federal entities with homeland security responsibilities--including public health preparedness and response--into one department to mobilize and focus assets and resources at all levels of government. The proposed reorganization has the potential to assist in the coordination of public health preparedness and response programs at the federal, state, and local levels. There are concerns, however, about the proposed transfer of control of public health assistance programs that have both basic public health and homeland security functions from Health and Human Services to the new department. Transferring control over these programs, including priority setting, to the new department has the potential to disrupt some programs critical to basic public health responsibilities. The President's proposal is …

Testimony issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "GAO discussed its recent findings on the effectiveness of federal and state nursing home complaint investigation processes, with a specific focus on its work in Maryland."

Testimony issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO discussed the rise in claims for administrative costs associated with school-based health services, focusing on: (1) trends in Medicaid's spending for administrative costs; (2) the distribution of Medicaid payments for administrative claims to schools and other entities; and (3) the adequacy of federal oversight in approving school districts' claims for reimbursement."