A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "The Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) serves almost half of all infants and about one-quarter of all children between one and four years of age in the United States. The WIC program faces the following challenges: (1) coordinating its nutrition services with health and welfare programs undergoing considerable change, (2) responding to health and demographic changes in the low-income population, (3) recruiting and keeping a skilled staff, (4) improving the use of information technology to enhance service delivery and program management, (5) assessing the effect of nutrition services, and (6) meeting increased program requirements without a corresponding increase in funding. This report identifies 16 approaches to address these challenges. Each of the approaches has advantages and disadvantages that policymakers should consider."

Correspondence issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "This report reviews the U.S. Customs Service's Compliance Measurement Examination (COMPEX) and Immigration and Naturalization Service's (INS) Inspections Traveler Examination (INTEX). These programs, which help Customs and INS assess the nature and extent of enforcement risks at ports of entry, compare violations found during targeted inspections with violations found during random inspections. GAO found that both Customs and INS inspectors did not always adhere to guidance on sample selection and did not always conduct inspections with the minimum level of thoroughness required. As a result, statistical data generated by the programs may not reliably reflect the extent to which travelers who seek entry into the U.S. are in violation of customs or immigration laws. GAO also found that the COMPEX and INTEX programs both draw from the same population of international travelers; have similar purposes and goals; and often use Customs and INS inspectors who work side by side, particularly at land border ports of entry. Customs and INS might realize efficiencies if the two programs were combined."

A chapter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "In most of the requests approved by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) to transfer licenses to own or operate nuclear power plants, the financial arrangements have sought to ensure that adequate funds will be available to decommission those plants. However, when new owners proposed to continue relying on periodic deposits to external sinking funds, NRC's reviews were not always rigorous enough to ensure that decommissioning funds would be adequate. Varying cleanup standards and proposed new decommissioning methods introduce additional uncertainty about the future costs of decommissioning nuclear power plants. Changes to the Financial Accounting Standards Board's financial reporting standard will require, for the first time, owners of facilities that require significant end-of-life cleanup expenditures--such as nuclear power plants--to consistently report estimated decommissioning costs as liabilities in their financial statements. However, the new accounting standard is not intended to, and will not, establish a legal requirement that these licensees set aside adequate funding for decommissioning costs."

Guidance issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "A statement of budgetary resources (SBR) and related disclosures can provide useful information on the budgetary resources provided to a federal agency as well as the status of those resources at the end of a fiscal year. The audit of an SBR and other disclosures can help assess the reliability of a reported budget execution data and the amounts reported as "actual" in the President's budget. The audit also tests provisions of relevant laws and regulations that significantly affect the financial statements, including budget restrictions. An earlier GAO review found that the SBR was not always properly audited and that explanations of material differences between the SBR and the President's Budget were not always disclosed as required. These deficiencies break the linkage between the documents and make it difficult to assess the reliability of budget execution data."

Guidance issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "This publication supersedes GAO-01-554G, Property Management Systems Requirements: Checklist for Reviewing Systems Under the Federal Financial Management Improvement Act (Exposure Draft), June 2001. The Joint Financial Management Improvement Program's Property Management Systems Requirements assist (1) agencies implement and monitor their property management systems and (2) managers and auditors review agency property management systems to determine if they substantially comply with the Federal Financial Management Improvement Act. This checklist is provided as a tool for use by experienced staff and is one in a series of documents issued by GAO to help agencies improve or maintain effective operations."

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 chapter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Since the end of the Cold War, the United States and its European allies are using smaller militaries, disbursing more development assistance, and increasing their reliance on multilateral organizations to provide for European security. Despite reductions in force levels and budgets, U.S. and European military forces have been actively engaged in peacekeeping and other security-enhancing activities in the region. The United States and its European allies have contributed to stability in the Balkans through various military and financial means. The Balkans operations have highlighted numerous shortfalls in the military capabilities of European allies, but competing budgetary priorities may limit their ability to remedy them before the end of the decade. Defense expenditures are expected to remain relatively flat in constant 2000 dollars over the next four to five years for most European allies, placing major defense initiatives sponsored by NATO and the European Union in jeopardy."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "The United States maintains 100,000 military personnel in Europe to provide rapid response in the event of a military crisis and help shape the international environment. These forward-deployed forces and equipment also facilitate the movement of U.S. forces to an area of operations. DOD has not quantified the impact of a forward presence in Europe on mobility requirements. However, Defense officials believe that, without forward-deployed forces and equipment in Europe, mobility requirements and costs would be considerably higher and deployment times longer, increasing war-fighting risk. The U.S. en-route system of airbases is critical to operations in Europe and Southwest Asia. U.S. prepositioned weapons and equipment in Europe facilitate military operations in nearby areas. Air Force aircraft and personnel deployed in Europe allow forces to move more quickly to small-scale contingencies in the area and reduce the airlift and sealift burden on U.S.-based units. As with the Air Force, Army combat and support units stationed in Europe allow forces to move more quickly and at less cost to small-scale contingencies in the area."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "GAO reviewed grant monitoring and evaluation efforts by the U.S. Department of Justice's (DOJ) Office of Justice Program (OJP). This report discusses the monitoring of discretionary grants awarded by the Bureau of Justice Assistance's (BJA) Byrne Program and the Violence Against Women Office (VAWO) within OJP. In constant 2000 dollars, Byrne and VAWO discretionary grants grew about 85 percent--from $105 million to $194 million between fiscal years 1997 and 2000. These funds were awarded to state and local governments, either on a competitive basis or pursuant to legislation allocating funds through congressional earmarks. BJA and VAWO, together with OJP's Office of the Comptroller, are responsible for monitoring these grants to ensure they are implemented as intended, are responsive to grant goals and objectives, and comply with statutory regulations and policy guidelines. OJP's monitoring requirements include the development of monitoring plans that articulate who will conduct monitoring, the manner in which it will be done, and when and what type of monitoring activities are planned. Grant managers are to maintain documentation in grant files using such techniques as written reports of on-site reviews and telephone interview write-ups. …