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; Calculation of impact fees for a platted subdivision(RQ-0854-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; Method by which a hospital district may set an ad valorem tax rate when it has not set a tax rate since 1996(RQ-0856-GA).

Correspondence issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "The United States has allocated over $72 billion to secure, stabilize, and rebuild Afghanistan since 2002, and the President requested over $18 billion for these purposes for fiscal year 2012. GAO has on numerous occasions raised doubts about the Government of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan's (GIRoA) ability to fund its public expenditures--funds spent to provide public services to the Afghan population, such as security, infrastructure projects, and government salaries. In 2005, we reported that Afghanistan had limited resources and recommended that the Secretaries of State and Defense develop plans for funding the Afghan national security forces (ANSF).1 In 2007 and 2008, we reported that it was essential to develop future funding requirements for the ANSF and a strategy for transitioning these responsibilities to GIRoA.2 In 2008, Congress also mandated that the Department of Defense provide a long-term plan for sustaining the ANSF, including future funding requirements. The Department of Defense, however, has yet to provide the Congress an estimate of the cost to sustain the Afghanistan National Security Forces.3 In 2011, we again recommended that the U.S. and international partners develop estimates of the future funding needed …

Testimony issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "From fiscal years 2005 through 2011, the physical condition of the Coast Guard's legacy vessels was generally poor. A primary Coast Guard measure of a vessel's condition--the operational percent of time free of major casualties--shows that the high endurance cutters, medium endurance cutters, and patrol boats generally remained well below target levels from fiscal years 2005 through 2011."

Testimony issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "The November 2011 memorandum that discussed the management of the Chemical Facility Anti-Terrorism Standards (CFATS) program was prepared based primarily on the observations of the former Director of the Department of Homeland Security's (DHS) Infrastructure Security Compliance Division (ISCD), a division of the Office of Infrastructure Protection (IP) within the National Protection and Programs Directorate (NPPD). The memorandum was intended to highlight various challenges that have hindered ISCD efforts to implement the CFATS program. According to the former Director, the challenges facing ISCD included not having a fully developed direction and plan for implementing the program, hiring staff without establishing need, and inconsistent ISCD leadership--factors that the Director believed place the CFATS program at risk. These challenges centered on three main areas: (1) human capital issues, including problems hiring, training, and managing ISCD staff; (2) mission issues, including problems reviewing facility plans to mitigate security vulnerabilities; and (3) administrative issues, including concerns about NPPD and IP not supporting ISCD's management and administrative functions."

Testimony issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Since we designated the implementation and transformation of DHS as high risk in 2003, DHS has made progress addressing management challenges and senior department officials have demonstrated commitment and top leadership support for addressing the department's management challenges. However, the department has significant work ahead to achieve positive outcomes in resolving high-risk issues. For example, DHS faces challenges in modernizing its financial systems, implementing acquisition management controls, and improving employee satisfaction survey results, among other things. As DHS continues to mature as an organization, it will be important for the department to continue to strengthen its management functions, since the effectiveness of these functions affects its ability to fulfill its homeland security and other missions."

Correspondence issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "In August and September 2009, Humana--a large private health insurer--sent a letter to the approximately 930,000 beneficiaries enrolled in its Medicare Advantage (MA) plans, advising that leading health reform proposals could adversely affect MA beneficiaries. Signed by Humana's Chief Medical Officer, the letter stated that if proposed funding cuts became law, "millions of seniors and disabled individuals could lose many of the important benefits and services that make MA health plans so valuable," and encouraged beneficiaries to contact their members of Congress and ask them to protect MA funding. Once the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) learned about the mailing, the agency directed Humana on September 18, 2009, and all other MA organizations on September 21, 2009, to immediately stop all communications to beneficiaries about the potential impact of health reform legislation while CMS investigated whether such communications violated federal laws, regulations, or MA program guidance. CMS issued clarifying guidance to all MA organizations on October 16, 2009, and took compliance action against some organizations, closing its investigation. CMS is responsible for overseeing communications between MA organizations and beneficiaries enrolled in their plans. Because MA organizations …

Correspondence issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "DOD's fiscal year 2011 report partly addressed the required reporting elements and omitted some additional information that, while not required by law, would be useful for congressional oversight and decision making. Specifically, DOD's report addressed the first five required elements. However, information on the sixth element was incomplete because, while DOD highlighted concerns relative to the commands' theater objectives and strategies and prepositioned materiel and equipment, DOD's report did not provide a list of operation plans affected by a shortfall in prepositioned stocks and a description of actions taken to mitigate risk. In addition, DOD's report did not address the six elements added by the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2012. DOD officials said that those elements were not addressed in DOD's fiscal year 2011 report because the report was already drafted when the requirements were enacted last December, and they plan to address these elements in their next annual report. DOD's report also did not contain some additional information on prepositioned materiel and equipment, which we recommended in our May 2011 report because it would provide a fuller scope of DOD's prepositioning programs. For example, …

Other written product issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "This supplementary report to GAO-10-999 provides individual state appendixes for 16 states and the District of Columbia for GAO's work on the seventh of its bimonthly reviews of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (Recovery Act)."

Correspondence issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "In February 2009, Congress created two new programs as part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Recovery Act): (1) the Tax Credit Assistance Program (TCAP) administered by the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) and (2) the Grants to States for Low-Income Housing Projects in Lieu of Low-inome Housing Credits Program under Section 1602 of the Recovery Act (Section 1602 Program) administered by the Department of the Treasury (Treasury). Congress created these new programs to address the lack of private investment capital in Low-Income Housing Tax Credit (LIHTC) projects after the credit market was disrupted in 2008. Both programs were intended to provide gap financing for stalled, "shovel-ready" projects and to offset a drop in tax credit demand and pricing. Under these programs, state Housing Finance Agencies (HFA) administer federal funds in the form of grants and loans from HUD and Treasury to fill financing gaps in planned tax credit projects."

Correspondence issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "According to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, women made up nearly 47 percent of the total workforce in the United States in July 2010. Women's participation in the labor force, particularly among women with children, is much higher today than several decades ago. For example, using data from the Current Population Survey, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that couples in which only the husband worked represented 18 percent of married couple families in 2007, compared with 36 percent in 1967. In addition, an increasing proportion of women are attaining higher education. Among women aged 25 to 64 in the labor force, the proportion with a college degree roughly tripled from 1970 to 2008. Further, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission found that the percentage of female officials and managers in the private sector increased from just over 29 percent in 1990 to 36.4 percent in 2002. Although women's representation across the general workforce is growing, there remains a need for information about the challenges women face in advancing their careers. In 2001, using 1995 and 2000 data from the Current Population Survey, we found women were …