A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "In performing agency tasks, contractor employees often require access to sensitive information that must be protected from unauthorized disclosure or misuse. This report assesses the (1) extent to which agency guidance and contracts contain safeguards for contractor access to sensitive information, and (2) adequacy of governmentwide guidance on how agencies are to safeguard sensitive information to which contractors may have access. To conduct this work, GAO identified key attributes involving sensitive-information safeguards, analyzed guidance and met with officials at three agencies selected for their extensive reliance on contractor employees, analyzed 42 of their contract actions for services potentially requiring contractor access to sensitive information, and analyzed the Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) and pending FAR changes regarding governmentwide guidance on contractor safeguards for access to sensitive information."

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "In accordance with authority granted by the Chief Financial Officers Act of 1990, GAO annually audits the financial statements of the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) to determine whether (1) the financial statements are fairly presented and (2) IRS management maintained effective internal control over financial reporting. GAO also tests IRS's compliance with selected provisions of significant laws and regulations and its financial systems' compliance with the Federal Financial Management Improvement Act of 1996 (FFMIA). IRS's tax collection activities are significant to overall federal receipts, and its financial management is of substantial interest to Congress.."

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "The Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) Federal Protective Service (FPS) is not assessing risks at federal facilities in a manner consistent with standards such as the National Infrastructure Protection Plan’s (NIPP) risk management framework, as FPS originally planned. Instead of conducting risk assessments, since September 2011, FPS’s inspectors have collected information, such as the location, purpose, agency contacts, and current countermeasures (e.g., perimeter security, access controls, and closed-circuit television systems). This information notwithstanding, FPS has a backlog of federal facilities that have not been assessed for several years. According to FPS’s data, more than 5,000 facilities were to be assessed in fiscal years 2010 through 2012. However, GAO was unable to determine the extent of FPS’s facility security assessment (FSA) backlog because the data were unreliable. Multiple agencies have expended resources to conduct risk assessments, even though the agencies also already pay FPS for this service. FPS received $236 million in basic security fees from agencies to conduct FSAs and other security services in fiscal year 2011. Beyond not having a reliable tool for conducting assessments, FPS continues to lack reliable data, which has hampered the …

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "To be competitive in the global economy, the United States relies heavily on innovation through research and development (R&D). The Small Business Innovation Development Act of 1982 established the Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Program to stimulate technological innovation among small businesses. SBIR offers one avenue for introducing technological innovation in the Department of Defense (DOD) space sector. GAO was asked to assess (1) the extent to which DOD is utilizing the SBIR program to develop and transition space-related technologies; and (2) whether small businesses face challenges to participating in the space industrial base. To do this, GAO analyzed program documentation and DOD data on the SBIR program and interviewed key officials."

Correspondence issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "In the wake of the ongoing conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan, thousands of current and former military servicemembers are undergoing a transition between their military service and their civilian employment. Congress enacted the Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act of 1994 (USERRA) to protect the employment and reemployment rights of federal and nonfederal employees when they leave their employment to perform military or other uniformed service. Among other rights, servicemembers who meet the statutory requirements are entitled to reinstatement to the positions they would have held if they had never left their employment or to positions of like seniority, status, and pay. USERRA applies to a wide range of employers, including federal, state, and local governments as well as private-sector firms. This report focuses on federal executive agencies. Under USERRA, an employee who believes that his or her USERRA rights have been violated may file a claim with the Department of Labor's (DOL) Veterans' Employment and Training Service (VETS), which investigates and attempts to resolve the claim. If DOL's VETS cannot resolve the claim and the servicemember is a federal government employee or applicant to a federal …

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Because of the significance of Internal Revenue Service (IRS) collections to overall federal receipts and, in turn, to the consolidated financial statements of the U.S. government, which GAO is required to audit, and Congress's interest in financial management at IRS, GAO audits IRS's financial statements annually to determine whether (1) the financial statements are fairly stated, and (2) IRS management maintained effective internal control over financial reporting. GAO also tests IRS's compliance with selected provisions of significant laws and regulations and its financial systems' compliance with the Federal Financial Management Improvement Act of 1996 (FFMIA)."

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "401(k) plan sponsors are responsible for offering an array of appropriate investment options, and participants are responsible for directing their investments among those options. While participants expect to be able to switch investment options or withdraw money from their accounts, during the recent economic downturn, some 401(k) plan sponsors and participants found that they were restricted from doing so. GAO was asked to (1) identify some of the specific investments and practices that prevented plan sponsors and participants from accessing their 401(k) plan assets and (2) determine any changes the Department of Labor (Labor) could make to assist sponsors in understanding the challenges posed by the investments and practices that restricted withdrawals. To do this, GAO reviewed relevant federal laws and regulations and consulted with experts, federal officials, service providers, and plan sponsors."

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Recovery Act) included $8.2 billion in funding for the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to be used to support additional scientific research-including extramural grants at universities and other research institutions. In 2009, the Acting Director of NIH testified that each extramural grant awarded with Recovery Act funding had the potential of supporting employment--full- or part-time scientific jobs--in addition to other impacts, such as contributing to advances in improving public health. GAO was asked to examine the use of Recovery Act funds by NIH grantees. Specifically, GAO addresses the information available from NIH and its grantees about the extent to which NIH Recovery Act funding (1) supported jobs, and (2) had other impacts. To obtain information on job impacts, GAO reviewed a database containing information NIH Recovery Act grantees reported to the national data collection system and interviewed NIH officials. To obtain more specific jobs information about individual grants, GAO administered a Web-based data collection instrument to 50 selected principal investigators who direct research at grantee institutions--10 principal investigators at each of five selected grantee institutions. The selected principal …

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Based on GAO’s previous work and the information obtained from other agencies, GAO identified eight individual practices that can be combined and considered steps within an overall lessons-learned process—that is, a systematic means for agencies to learn from an event and make decisions about when and how to use that knowledge to change behavior. Not all of the agencies with which GAO spoke used all of the practices, and the application of the practices varied among agencies. For example, to collect information about an incident—the first step of the process—the Bureau of Diplomatic Security within the Department of State collects incident reports, footage from security cameras, and interviews witnesses. To disseminate lessons learned—the fifth step—the Los Angeles Police Department produces a formal document after a critical incident that captures the lessons learned and disseminates the document to its units for use in planning, preparation, and coordination exercises."

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "The Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) senior leadership vacancy rates, while reaching a peak of 25 percent in 2006, have generally declined since that time—from 25 percent in fiscal year 2006 to 10 percent at the end of fiscal year 2011. From fiscal years 2006 through 2010—the most recent year for which governmentwide vacancy and attrition data were available—DHS vacancy rates in 2006, 2007, and 2010 were statistically higher than the average of other agencies subject to the Chief Financial Officers (CFO) Act but were not statistically different in 2008 and 2009. DHS’s components’—such as the Transportation Security Administration and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement—vacancy rates varied. Many had vacancy rates above 20 percent—one as high as 57 percent—in fiscal year 2006, but generally had lower rates at the end of fiscal year 2011."

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "At the end of fiscal year 2011, individuals and businesses owed a total of about $373 billion in federal unpaid tax debts--$258 billion in individual debt and $115 billion in business debt. How much of this debt would be suitable to report to credit bureaus could depend on the purpose of the reporting proposal, such as to collect more debts or simply to inform other potential creditors of the existence of tax debts. Most of debts were relatively small in size. Well over half of individuals and businesses with tax debts owed less than $5,000. However, much of the aggregate debt is concentrated among those owing relatively large amounts. Debts over $25,000 add up to a total of $310 billion. Some debts were in the collection process where the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) notifies the taxpayer of the debt and were subject to dispute by the taxpayer, while other debts were covered by installment agreements--about $60 billion of the debts owed were in these two categories. About $110 billion of the total debt was classified by IRS as uncollectable. IRS files tax liens on some tax …

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "The Department of Energy's (DOE) Office of Environmental Management (EM) is responsible for one of the world's largest cleanup programs: treatment and disposal of radioactive and hazardous waste created as a by-product of nuclear weapons production and energy research at sites across the country, such as EM's Hanford Site in Washington State and the Savannah River Site (SRS) in South Carolina. Computer models--which represent physical and biogeochemical processes as mathematical formulas--are one tool EM uses in the cleanups. GAO was asked to (1) describe how EM uses computer models in cleanup decisions; (2) evaluate how EM ensures the quality of its computer models; and (3) assess EM's overall strategy for managing its computer models. GAO analyzed the use of selected models in decisions at Hanford and SRS, reviewed numerous quality assurance documents, and interviewed DOE officials as well as contractors and regulators."

Correspondence issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "GAO found that the Navy continued to make progress in the past year toward (1) establishing a knowledge-based program that generally aligned with acquisition best practices and (2) meeting corresponding statutory certification requirements for entering the Department of Defense (DOD) acquisition process in the engineering and manufacturing development phase. The Navy has met or expects to meet requirements relating to assessment of technology readiness, making appropriate trade-offs to achieve affordability and getting approval of requirements, and development of an independent cost estimate. DOD has, however, waived a requirement for competitive prototyping and the Navy plans to defer a system level preliminary design review (PDR) until after the start of development. GAO reviewed DOD’s waiver of competitive prototyping for the VXX program last year and found that it addresses one of the two bases provided in Weapon Systems Acquisition Reform Act of 2009 for such waivers; that is, that the cost to provide competitive prototypes exceeded the expected benefits. In addition, while the Navy’s plan to defer a system level PDR until after the start of system development deviates from acquisition best practices and is a waiver of a …

Correspondence issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Substance use disorders (SUD), such as alcohol abuse and drug addiction, are serious health conditions that affect many Americans, including a substantial number of veterans. According to the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), about 420,000 of the over 5 million veterans receiving health care from VA had SUD diagnoses in fiscal year 2009. Both older veterans and veterans of the current military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan are at risk for SUDs, as veterans may use drugs or alcohol to help cope with the effects of stressful events experienced during deployment or with difficulties they encounter in readjusting from wartime military service to civilian life. The identification and treatment of veterans with SUDs is important, as SUDs can have harmful effects on veterans' physical, psychological, and social well-being if left untreated. VA provides SUD services in a range of settings, including inpatient SUD programs that provide acute in-hospital care, which may include detoxification services; residential rehabilitation treatment programs, which provide intensive treatment and rehabilitation services with supported housing; intensive outpatient programs, which provide at least 3 hours of treatment services 3 days per week; and standard outpatient programs, …

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "According to data provided by FAA and the General Services Administration (GSA), federally maintained facilities FAA occupies are generally in fair to good condition. FAA assesses the condition of staffed facilities in several ways, including direct inspections. However, the condition of approximately 75 percent of Air Traffic Organization's (ATO) terminal facilities is based on estimates derived from the approximately 25 percent of facilities that have been inspected over the last 6 years. Our analysis of FAA's statistical model for estimating the condition of uninspected terminal facilities found it to be imprecise; it uses one variable--age of the facility--to estimate the facility's condition. Adding other variables that are correlated with condition, such as facility replacement value and use, could potentially improve the estimate's accuracy. In addition, facility condition data in FAA's Real Estate Management System (REMS)--FAA's database for tracking its inventory of real property assets, including the size, replacement value, and condition of each asset--are not derived from sound data collection practices and did not match facility condition data from ATO or other FAA organizational components responsible for maintaining these facilities. Inaccuracies in REMS data undermine its …

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 "The Institute of Education Sciences (IES) supports high-quality research, according to stakeholders, but lacks certain key procedures needed to fulfill other aspects of its mission. Since its inception, IES has substantially improved the quality of education research. However, stakeholders expressed some concerns about IES's ability to produce timely and relevant research that meets their various needs. For example, IES's efforts to respond quickly to its stakeholders are slowed, in part, because the time IES's products have spent in peer review substantially increased this past year, and IES does not monitor some aspects of these timeframes. In addition, IES does not have a structured process for incorporating stakeholder input into its research agenda, which previous GAO work has shown to be key to sound federal research programs. Lastly, IES's performance measures do not fully reflect its current programs, which is not consistent with GAO's leading practices for performance management. IES officials said, however, that they have begun to develop new performance measures for all of their programs."

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Since its establishment in 2009, the Office of Government Information Services (OGIS) has provided comments on proposed Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) regulations for 18 of 99 federal agencies that administer FOIA, as well as a number of Privacy Act system of records notices. While OGIS has suggested improvements to a number of those regulations and notices, it has not performed the reviews of regulations and notices in a proactive, comprehensive manner, and has not conducted any reviews of agencies' compliance with the law. In addition, since it was established 4 years ago, the office has not developed a methodology for conducting reviews of agencies' FOIA policies and procedures, or for compliance with FOIA requirements. OGIS is in the early stages of developing a methodology for conducting such reviews, but has not established a time frame for completion. Until OGIS establishes a methodology and time frame for proactively reviewing agencies' FOIA policies, procedures, and compliance, the office will not be positioned to effectively execute its responsibilities as required by the act."

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "The KC-46 program has made good progress over the past year—acquisition costs have remained relatively stable, the critical design review was successfully completed, the program is on track to meet performance parameters, and the contractor started building development aircraft. As shown, total program acquisition costs—which include development, production, and military construction costs—and unit costs have changed less than 1 percent since February 2011."

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

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "The U.S. Department of Education (Education) manages one of the largest discretionary appropriations of any federal agency, and plays a key role in supporting efforts to meet the nation's education goals. While Education managed a discretionary appropriation of over $160 billion in fiscal year 2009 and was responsible for administering about 200 grant programs, it has the smallest workforce of any cabinet agency. As requested, this report examines (1) the key high-level management challenges facing Education, (2) Education's strategic management of its workforce, (3) Education's design of internal controls to help ensure accountability over contracts and student aid grants, and (4) Education's information technology (IT) management controls. To do this, GAO reviewed relevant Education documents and interviewed Education program and management officials about strategic workforce management, IT, contracts, and Pell Grants."

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Cargo containers present significant security concerns given the potential for using them to smuggle contraband, including weapons of mass destruction. In January 2009, U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP), within the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), implemented the Importer Security Filing (ISF) and Additional Carrier Requirements, collectively known as the 10+2 rule. Collection of cargo information (10 data elements for importers, such as country of origin, and 2 data elements for vessel carriers), in addition to that already collected under other CBP rules, is intended to enhance CBP's ability to identify high-risk shipments. As requested, GAO assessed, among other things, (1) the extent to which CBP conducted the 10+2 regulatory assessment in accordance with Office of Management and Budget (OMB) guidance, (2) how CBP used information it collected and assessed to inform its efforts to implement the 10+2 rule since January 2009, and (3) the extent to which CBP has used the additional 10+2 data to identify high-risk cargo. GAO analyzed relevant laws, OMB guidance, and CBP's 10+2 regulatory assessment, and interviewed CBP officials."

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "The Federal Employees' Group Life Insurance program (FEGLI), administered by the Office of Personnel Management (OPM), insures over 4 million federal employees and annuitants in the event of an enrollee's death. As a result, it is important that the program is clearly explained and properly overseen. However, some aspects of FEGLI, such as program disclosures and the use of retained asset accounts (RAA)--financial accounts used to settle life insurance claims--have raised questions about the program's operations. GAO was asked to describe and evaluate (1) the FEGLI program's structure and operations, (2) OPM's administration and oversight of the program, and (3) the use of RAAs in FEGLI claims payments. To address these objectives, GAO reviewed FEGLI law and regulations, interviewed OPM, Metropolitan Life Insurance Company (MetLife), and state insurance officials, and met with insurance industry experts."

Testimony issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "GAO's simulation found that under the current Federal Employees' Compensation Act (FECA) program, the median wage replacement rate--the percentage of take-home pay replaced by FECA--for total-disability beneficiaries was 88 percent for U.S. Postal Service (USPS) beneficiaries and 80 percent for non-USPS beneficiaries in 2010. GAO also found that proposals to set initial FECA benefits at a single compensation rate would reduce these replacement rates by 3 to 4 percentage points under the 70-percent option and 7 to 8 percentage points under the 66-2/3 percent option. Beneficiaries with dependents would receive reduced FECA benefits under both options. The decreases in wage replacement rates were due to the greater proportion of beneficiaries who had a dependent--over 70 percent of both USPS and non-USPS beneficiaries."