A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Chief Information Officers (CIO) at six federal agencies rated the majority of their information technology (IT) investments as low risk, and many ratings remained constant over time. Specifically, CIOs at the selected agencies rated a majority of investments listed on the federal IT Dashboard as low risk or moderately low risk from June 2009 through March 2012; at five of these agencies, these risk levels accounted for at least 66 percent of investments. These agencies also rated no more than 12 percent of their investments as high or moderately high risk, and two agencies (Department of Defense (DOD) and the National Science Foundation (NSF)) rated no investments at these risk levels. Over time, about 47 percent of the agencies' Dashboard investments received the same rating in every rating period. For ratings that changed, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and Office of Personnel Management (OPM) reported more investments with reduced risk when initial ratings were compared with those in March 2012; the other four agencies reported more investments with increased risk. In the past, the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) reported trends for risky IT …

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "At the end of fiscal year 2011, GAO identified more than $794 million in funding remaining in expired grant accounts—accounts that were more than 3 months past the grant end date and had no activity for 9 months or more—in the Payment Management System (PMS). GAO found that undisbursed balances remained in some grant accounts several years past their expiration date: $110.9 million in undisbursed funding remained unspent more than 5 years past the grant end date, including $9.5 million that remained unspent for 10 years or more. GAO also found $126 million in grant accounts in the Automated Standard Application for Payments (ASAP) for which there had been no activity for 2 years or more, including $11 million that remained inactive for 5 years or more. However, data from these two systems are not comparable because, unlike PMS, ASAP accounts can include multiple grant agreements between a federal agency and a grantee, only some of which may be eligible for closeout."

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Deficiencies exposed at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in 2007 served as a catalyst compelling the Departments of Defense (DOD) and Veterans Affairs (VA) to address a host of problems for wounded, ill, and injured servicemembers and veterans as they navigate through the recovery care continuum. This continuum extends from acute medical treatment and stabilization, through rehabilitation to reintegration, either back to active duty or to the civilian community as a veteran. In spite of 5 years of departmental efforts, recovering servicemembers and veterans are still facing problems with this process and may not be getting the services they need. Key departmental efforts included the creation or modification of various care coordination and case management programs, including the military services' wounded warrior programs. However, these programs are not always accessible to those who need them due to the inconsistent methods, such as referrals, used to identify potentially eligible servicemembers, as well as inconsistent eligibility criteria across the military services' wounded warrior programs. The departments also jointly established an integrated disability evaluation system to expedite the delivery of benefits to servicemembers. However, processing times for disability determinations …

Correspondence issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "The full spectrum training mile metric is similar in some ways to the tank mile metric and dissimilar in other ways. Both metrics measure training activity of nondeployed units associated with recommended training events based on the Army's approved training strategy. Specifically, they both calculate the average number of miles a unit is expected to drive its vehicles on an annual basis for training that occurs during the reset and train/ready stages of the Army’s Force Generation (ARFORGEN) cycle."

Correspondence issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Stakeholders—health care industry groups and experts in antitrust law—had different perspectives on the adequacy of three key aspects of antitrust guidance for health care provider collaboration. First, stakeholders’ perspectives differed on the sufficiency of guidance on clinical integration, which involves integrating clinical activities across providers in a collaborative arrangement. Clinical integration is one way for a collaborative arrangement to satisfy the requirement that the arrangement demonstrate the potential to yield significant benefits, such as reduced costs or improved quality, in order to be able to jointly negotiate prices. Five of the six experts and one of the four industry groups said that agency guidance was sufficient, while one expert and two industry groups asserted that agency guidance on clinical integration was inadequate. Second, stakeholders’ perspectives differed as to whether the agencies should permit greater use of exclusive collaborative arrangements, which restrict the ability of providers within a collaborative arrangement to contract with other arrangements or health plans. The use of exclusive arrangements has the potential to improve or reduce competition, depending on the circumstances. Four of the experts said that the agencies’ guidance on exclusive arrangements was reasonable, …

Testimony issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "NNSA has successfully ensured that the nuclear weapons stockpile remains safe and reliable in the absence of underground nuclear testing, accomplishing this complicated task by using state-of-the-art facilities as well as the skills of top scientists. Nevertheless, NNSA does not have reliable enterprise-wide management information on program budgets and costs, which potentially increases risk to NNSA’s programs. For example, in June 2010, GAO reported that NNSA could not identify the total costs to operate and maintain essential weapons activities facilities and infrastructure. In addition, in February 2011, GAO reported that NNSA lacks complete data on, among other things, the condition and value of its existing infrastructure, cost estimates and completion dates for planned capital improvement projects, and critical human capital skills in its contractor workforce that are needed for its programs. As a result, NNSA does not have a sound basis for making decisions on how to most effectively manage its portfolio of projects and other programs and lacks information that could help justify future budget requests or target cost savings opportunities. NNSA recognizes that its ability to make informed decisions is hampered and is taking steps to …

Correspondence issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Applying PHMSA’s new distribution integrity management requirements to low-stress transmission pipelines would result in less prescriptive safety requirements for these pipelines. Overall, requirements for distribution pipelines are less prescriptive than requirements for transmission pipelines in part because the former operate at lower pressure and pose lower risks in general than the latter. For example, the integrity management regulations for transmission pipelines allow three types of in-depth physical inspections. In contrast, distribution pipeline operators can customize their integrity management programs to the complexity of their systems, including using a broader range of methods for physical inspection. While PHMSA officials stated that “less prescriptive” does not necessarily mean less safe, they also stated that distribution integrity management requirements for distribution pipelines can be more difficult to enforce than integrity management requirements for transmission pipelines. Currently, PHMSA can grant special permits to modify requirements for individual pipelines, if merited, but applying the new distribution integrity management requirements to low-stress transmission pipelines would affect all such pipelines."

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "While plan representatives GAO contacted generally stated that their hedge fund and private equity investments met expectations in recent years, a number of plans experienced losses and other challenges, such as limited liquidity and transparency. National data indicated that hedge fund and private equity investments were significantly affected by the 2008-2009 financial crisis, and plans and experts GAO contacted indicated that pension plan investments were not insulated from losses. Most of the 22 plan representatives GAO interviewed said that their hedge fund investments met expectations overall, despite, in some cases, significant losses during the financial crisis. A few plan representatives, however, expected hedge fund investments to be much more resilient in turbulent markets, and found the losses disappointing. Given the long-term nature of private equity investments, almost all of the representatives were generally satisfied with these investments over the last 5 years. Some plan representatives described significant difficulties in hedge fund and private equity investing related to limited liquidity and transparency, and the negative impact of the actions of other investors in the fund—sometimes referred to as co-investors. For example, representatives from one plan reported they …

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Housing assistance is fragmented across 160 programs and activities. Overlap exists for some products offered, service delivery, and geographic areas served by selected programs—particularly in the Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) Rural Housing Service (RHS) and Department of Housing and Urban Development’s (HUD) Federal Housing Administration (FHA). For instance, RHS, FHA, and the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) all guarantee mortgage loans for homeowners. According to fiscal year 2009 data (the most recent available), FHA served a larger number of households than RHS in all areas, including a larger number of low- and moderate-income households in rural areas. Although selected HUD, USDA, and Department of the Treasury (Treasury) multifamily programs had overlapping purposes, the products, areas served, and delivery methods differed. For example, HUD, RHS, and Treasury provide financing for development and rehabilitation of multifamily housing for low- and moderate-income households, but RHS-financed properties were more concentrated in rural areas and HUD’s and Treasury’s tax credit properties were more concentrated in urban and suburban areas."

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

Testimony issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Workforce board officials and their partners in the 14 initiatives cited a range of factors that facilitated building innovative collaborations. Almost all of the collaborations grew out of efforts to address urgent workforce needs of multiple employers in a specific sector, rather than focusing on individual employers. The partners in these initiatives made extra effort to engage employers so they could tailor services such as jobseeker assessment, screening, and training to address specific employer needs. In all the initiatives, partners remained engaged in these collaborations because they continued to produce a wide range of reported results, such as an increased supply of skilled labor, job placements, reduced employer recruitment and turnover costs, and averted layoffs. While these boards were successful in their efforts, they cited some challenges to collaboration that they needed to overcome. Some boards were challenged to develop comprehensive strategies to address diverse employer needs with WIA funds. For example, some boards’ staff said that while their initiatives sought to meet employer needs for higher-skilled workers through skill upgrades, WIA funds can be used to train current workers only in limited circumstances, and the boards used …

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "In a review of 30 major ATC acquisition programs, all of which will contribute to the transition to NextGen, GAO found that costs for 11 of the 30 programs have increased from their initial estimates by a total of $4.2 billion and 15 programs experienced delays. The 11 acquisitions that experienced cost increases account for over 60 percent of FAA’s total acquisition costs ($11 billion of $17.7 billion) for the 30 programs. The 15 acquisitions that experienced schedule delays, of which 10 also had cost increases, ranged from 2 months to more than 14 years and averaged 48 months."

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Given the mobility of money and proliferation of foreign financial institutions (FFI), the potential for U.S. taxpayers to evade taxes on funds held in offshore accounts is greater than ever. To improve tax compliance for foreign accounts and entities, and cross-border transactions, Congress passed the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA) as part of the Hiring Incentives to Restore Employment Act of 2010. FATCA requires certain U.S. taxpayers to report to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) their overseas assets and requires U.S. entities to withhold a portion of certain payments made to FFIs that have not entered into an agreement with IRS to report certain information with respect to the FFI’s U.S. accounts. FATCA is an effort to reduce tax evasion by creating greater transparency and accountability with respect to offshore accounts and entities held by U.S. taxpayers and by providing IRS with tools to further enforce tax laws. IRS believes that implementing these new requirements will increase tax compliance, which will help close the gap between taxes owed and taxes paid. IRS recently estimated a net tax gap of $385 billion for tax year 2006, …

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

Correspondence issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "For fiscal years 2009 and 2010, the Fund’s recorded transactions consisted of 136 investment and operating transactions recorded and accounted for by the Library. The Fund’s recorded transactions were authorized in advance, supported by documentation, and accurately accounted for. However, while the Fund’s transactions were generally recorded promptly, we did identify five instances where transactions were not promptly recorded by the Library. We found that all recorded transactions were in compliance with the applicable laws that we deemed significant to the objectives of our audit."

Correspondence issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "During our audit of FHFA’s fiscal years 2011 and 2010 financial statements, we identified one internal control issue and a continuing issue related to information systems controls that could adversely affect FHFA’s ability to meet its internal control objectives. We do not consider these issues to represent material weaknesses or significant deficiencies in relation to FHFA’s financial statements. Nonetheless, we believe they warrant management’s attention and action."

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has taken some steps toward developing a conflict minerals disclosure rule, but it has not issued a final rule. For example, SEC published a proposed rule in December 2010 and has gathered and reviewed extensive input from external stakeholders through comment letters and meetings. SEC has also announced, on several occasions, new target dates for the publication of a final rule. In July 2012, SEC announced that the Commission will hold an open meeting in August 2012 to consider whether to adopt a final rule. According to SEC officials, various factors have caused delays in finalizing the rule beyond the April 2011 deadline stipulated in the act, including the intensity of input from stakeholders and the public; the amount of time required to review this input; and the need to conduct a thorough economic analysis for rule making."

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "IRS implemented numerous controls and procedures intended to protect key financial and tax-processing systems; nevertheless, control weaknesses in these systems continue to jeopardize the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of the financial and sensitive taxpayer information processed by IRS’s systems. Specifically, the agency continues to face challenges in controlling access to its information resources. For example, it had not always (1) implemented controls for identifying and authenticating users, such as requiring users to set new passwords after a prescribed period of time; (2) appropriately restricted access to certain servers; (3) ensured that sensitive data were encrypted when transmitted; (4) audited and monitored systems to ensure that unauthorized activities would be detected; or (5) ensured management validation of access to restricted areas. In addition, unpatched and outdated software exposed IRS to known vulnerabilities, and the agency had not enforced backup procedures for a key system."

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "From 2004 to 2011, the total number of mental health records that states made available to the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) increased by approximately 800 percent—from about 126,000 to 1.2 million records—although a variety of challenges limited states’ ability to share such records. This increase largely reflects the efforts of 12 states. However, almost half of all states increased the number of mental health records they made available by fewer than 100 over this same time period. Technological, legal, and other challenges limited the states’ ability to share mental health records. To help address these challenges, the Department of Justice (DOJ) provides assistance to states, such as grants and training, which the 6 states GAO reviewed reported as helpful. DOJ has begun to have states share their promising practices at conferences, but has not distributed such practices nationally. By disseminating practices that states used to overcome barriers to sharing mental health records, DOJ could further assist states efforts."

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Federal agency assessments of the performance of information technology (IT) investments in operations and maintenance (O&M)--commonly referred to as operational analyses (OAs)--vary significantly. Office of Management and Budget (OMB) guidance calls for agencies to develop an OA policy and perform such analyses annually to ensure steady state investments continue to meet agency needs. The guidance also includes 17 key factors (addressing areas such as cost, schedule, customer satisfaction, and innovation) that are to be assessed. The five agencies GAO reviewed varied in the extent to which they carried out these tasks."

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "From fiscal years 2005 through 2011, the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s (FBI) human capital strategies contributed to reductions in the vacancy rate for all positions in the Counterterrorism Division (CTD) from 26 percent to 6 percent. Most vacancies were caused by transfers to other parts of the FBI. While overall vacancies declined, trends in vacancies varied by position. For example, vacancies for special agents and professional staff generally decreased each year while vacancies for intelligence analysts varied during the same time period."

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Security cooperation officials report three major types of challenges--training and workforce structure, defining partner country requirements, and obtaining acquisition and delivery status information--in conducting assistance programs. Ongoing Department of Defense (DOD) reforms address challenges that DOD security cooperation officials reported in meeting staff training needs and achieving the optimum workforce structure. The Defense Security Cooperation Agency (DSCA) has also initiated efforts to respond to challenges in developing assistance requests resulting from the limited expertise of partner countries and U.S. Security Cooperation Organization (SCO) staff in identifying country assistance requirements and the equipment that can meet them. However, according to DOD security cooperation officials, information gaps in the acquisition and delivery phases of the security assistance process continue to hinder the effectiveness of U.S. assistance. Nearly all of GAO's focus groups and interviews reported persistent difficulties obtaining information on the status of security assistance acquisitions and deliveries because information systems are difficult to access and contain limited information. DOD's existing delivery tracking system provides only limited data on the status of equipment deliveries because partner country agents and DOD agencies are not entering the needed data into …

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Both the Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) have provided limited oversight of county spending under Title III of the Secure Rural Schools Act. Neither agency has issued regulations, and guidance available from these agencies is limited and sometimes unclear about which types of expenditures are allowable under the act. In addition, their guidance appears to be inconsistent with certain provisions of the act. For example, the Forest Service website contains a brief overview document of Title III, which generally echoes wording in the act, and a “frequently asked questions” document. These documents, however, do little to clarify language in the act, neither defining terms from the act, such as “emergency services,” nor specifying which activities the terms cover. Moreover, the agencies do not review the annual certifications of expenditures that counties are required to complete to determine whether counties spent funds appropriately and do not have assurance that they have an accurate accounting of the amounts of Title III funding spent and unspent by the counties. According to agency officials, the steps they have taken to provide guidance have been limited because …

Correspondence issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Some compliance activities for the export of controlled items under State and Commerce licenses differ from compliance activities under country-based license exemptions, but enforcement activities are generally the same. Compliance activities provide information for exporters, licensing officials, and enforcement agencies to help assess the validity of export transactions, identify potential violations, or prevent violations before they occur. Of the seven compliance activities we identified, three differ for licensed exports compared with country-based license exemptions. These activities are (1) license application review, (2) vetting parties to transactions, and (3) compliance program reviews (recordkeeping). In contrast to these compliance activities, the other four compliance and three enforcement activities, such as inspection of exports, investigations, and punitive actions for violations, are generally the same for both licensed exports and country-based, license-exempt exports."