    [House Hearing, 112 Congress]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]

                      HEARING ON THE USE OF TECHNOLOGY TO
          BETTER TARGET BENEFITS AND ELIMINATE WASTE, FRAUD, AND ABUSE

    =======================================================================

                                    HEARING

                                   before the

                        SUBCOMMITTEE ON HUMAN RESOURCES

                                     of the

                          COMMITTEE ON WAYS AND MEANS
                         U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

                          ONE HUNDRED TWELFTH CONGRESS

                                 SECOND SESSION

                                   __________

                                 April 19, 2012

                                   __________

                              Serial No. 112-HR11

                                   __________

             Printed for the use of the Committee on Ways and Means

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                          COMMITTEE ON WAYS AND MEANS

                         DAVE CAMP, Michigan, Chairman

    WALLY HERGER, California             SANDER M. LEVIN, Michigan
    SAM JOHNSON, Texas                   CHARLES B. RANGEL, New York
    KEVIN BRADY, Texas                   FORTNEY PETE STARK, California
    PAUL RYAN, Wisconsin                 JIM MCDERMOTT, Washington
    DEVIN NUNES, California              JOHN LEWIS, Georgia
    PATRICK J. TIBERI, Ohio              RICHARD E. NEAL, Massachusetts
    GEOFF DAVIS, Kentucky                XAVIER BECERRA, California
    DAVID G. REICHERT, Washington        LLOYD DOGGETT, Texas
    CHARLES W. BOUSTANY, JR., Louisiana  MIKE THOMPSON, California
    PETER J. ROSKAM, Illinois            JOHN B. LARSON, Connecticut
    JIM GERLACH, Pennsylvania            EARL BLUMENAUER, Oregon
    TOM PRICE, Georgia                   RON KIND, Wisconsin
    VERN BUCHANAN, Florida               BILL PASCRELL, JR., New Jersey
    ADRIAN SMITH, Nebraska               SHELLEY BERKLEY, Nevada
    AARON SCHOCK, Illinois               JOSEPH CROWLEY, New York
    LYNN JENKINS, Kansas
    ERIK PAULSEN, Minnesota
    KENNY MARCHANT, Texas
    RICK BERG, North Dakota
    DIANE BLACK, Tennessee
    TOM REED, New York

             Jennifer Safavian, Staff Director and General Counsel

                      Janice Mays, Minority Chief Counsel

                        SUBCOMMITTEE ON HUMAN RESOURCES

                        GEOFF DAVIS, Kentucky, Chairman

    ERIK PAULSEN, Minnesota              LLOYD DOGGETT, Texas
    RICK BERG, North Dakota              JIM MCDERMOTT, Washington
    TOM REED, New York                   JOHN LEWIS, Georgia
    TOM PRICE, Georgia                   JOSEPH CROWLEY, New York
    DIANE BLACK, Tennessee
    CHARLES W. BOUSTANY, JR., Louisiana

                                C O N T E N T S

                                   __________

                                                                       Page

    Advisory of April 19, 2012 announcing the hearing................     2

                                   WITNESSES

    Panel 1:

    Ms. Donna Roy, Executive Director, National Information Exchange
      Model (NIEM), U.S. Department of Homeland Security, Testimony       7
    The Honorable George Sheldon Acting Assistant Secretary,
      Administration for Children and Families, U.S. Department of
      Health and Human Services, Testimony                               23

    Panel 2:

    Mr. Robert Doar Commissioner, Human Resources Administration, New
      York City, Testimony                                               44
    Ms. Ginger Zielinskie Executive Director, Benefits Data Trust,
      Testimony                                                          54
    Mr. Darryl McDonald Executive Vice President, Teradata
      Corporation, Testimony                                             63
    Mr. Campbell Pryde President and Chief Executive Officer, XBRL
      US, Testimony                                                      74

                        HEARING ON THE USE OF TECHNOLOGY
        TO BETTER TARGET BENEFITS AND ELIMINATE WASTE, FRAUD, AND ABUSE

                                  ----------

                            THURSDAY, APRIL 19, 2012

                 U.S. House of Representatives,
                           Committee on Ways and Means,
                               Subcommittee on Human Resources,
                                                        Washington, DC.

        The Subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:03 a.m. in
    Room 1100, Longworth House Office Building, the Honorable Geoff
    Davis [Chairman of the Subcommittee] presiding.
        [The advisory announcing the hearing follows:]

    HEARING ADVISORY

                     Davis Announces Hearing on the Use of

     Technology to Better Target Benefits and Eliminate Waste, Fraud, and
                                     Abuse

    Thursday, April 19, 2012

        Congressman Geoff Davis (R-KY), Chairman of the Subcommittee on
    Human Resources of the Committee on Ways and Means, today announced
    that the Subcommittee will hold a hearing on the use of technology to
    better target benefits and eliminate waste, fraud, and abuse. The
    hearing will take place on Thursday, April 19, 2012, in 1100 Longworth
    House Office Building, beginning at 10:00 A.M.

        In view of the limited time available to hear witnesses, oral
    testimony at this hearing will be from invited witnesses only.
    Witnesses will include representatives from the U.S. Department of
    Health and Human Services (HHS) and the U.S. Department of Homeland
    Security (DHS), as well as other public and private sector experts on
    the current status of and the potential for technology to improve the
    administration of public benefits. However, any individual or
    organization not scheduled for an oral appearance may submit a written
    statement for consideration by the Committee and for inclusion in the
    printed record of the hearing.

    BACKGROUND:

        During the 112th Congress, the President has signed into law
    bipartisan, no-cost legislation drafted by the Human Resources
    Subcommittee to standardize data used in child welfare, Temporary
    Assistance to Needy Families (TANF), and unemployment insurance
    programs. Efforts to standardize program data are designed to improve
    the efficiency of these programs, allow them to better communicate with
    one another, and improve program integrity by ensuring that program
    benefits are paid only to eligible individuals. The use of consistent
    identification codes and formatting methods will allow for more timely
    flow of data that could then be easily searched and analyzed to better
    target benefits and identify waste, fraud, and abuse. These provisions
    were enacted in the 2011 Child and Family Services Improvement and
    Innovation Act (P.L. 112-34) and the Middle Class Tax Relief and Job
    Creation Act of 2012 (P.L. 112-96).
        The Subcommittee's efforts to standardize data are reflected on a
    broader scale by the bipartisan H.R. 3339, The Standard Data and
    Technology Advancement Act, or the ``Standard DATA Act,'' introduced by
    Chairman Davis and Ranking Member Doggett (D-TX). This legislation
    requires the relevant agency secretary or program administrator to
    establish consistent requirements for the electronic content and format
    of data used in the administration of several additional human services
    programs established in the Social Security Act, including Child
    Support Enforcement and Supplemental Security Income.
        One example for improving the exchange of data among programs
    recommended by the enacted and proposed legislation is the National
    Information Exchange Model (NIEM). NIEM provides a data model,
    governance, and methodologies to engage stakeholders in adopting a
    standards-based approach to exchanging information. Initially used to
    coordinate the exchange of law enforcement information, HHS is a recent
    adopter and advocate for transitioning human services programs to NIEM.
        In announcing the hearing, Chairman Davis stated, ``The progress
    made in the last year is only the first step in a much longer process
    of bringing human service programs into the 21st century. The
    standardization activities reviewed in this hearing will promote
    transparency, flexibility, and accountability by ensuring data can be
    shared across the various information technology platforms used by
    federal and state agencies. Improving the use of this program data will
    benefit program recipients and taxpayers alike by ensuring efficient
    and effective stewardship of scarce taxpayer funds.''

    FOCUS OF THE HEARING:

        The hearing will focus on current and future data standardization
    efforts designed to increase the use of technology to improve the
    administration of public benefit programs.

    DETAILS FOR SUBMISSION OF WRITTEN COMMENTS:

        Please Note: Any person(s) and/or organization(s) wishing to submit
    for the hearing record must follow the appropriate link on the hearing
    page of the Committee website and complete the informational forms.
    From the Committee homepage, http://waysandmeans.house.gov, select
    ``Hearings.'' Select the hearing for which you would like to submit,
    and click on the link entitled, ``Click here to provide a submission
    for the record.'' Once you have followed the online instructions,
    submit all requested information. ATTACH your submission as a Word
    document, in compliance with the formatting requirements listed below,
    by the close of business on Thursday, May 3, 2012. Finally, please note
    that due to the change in House mail policy, the U.S. Capitol Police
    will refuse sealed-package deliveries to all House Office Buildings.
    For questions, or if you encounter technical problems, please call
    (202) 225-1721 or (202) 225-3625.

    FORMATTING REQUIREMENTS:

        The Committee relies on electronic submissions for printing the
    official hearing record. As always, submissions will be included in the
    record according to the discretion of the Committee. The Committee will
    not alter the content of your submission, but we reserve the right to
    format it according to our guidelines. Any submission provided to the
    Committee by a witness, any supplementary materials submitted for the
    printed record, and any written comments in response to a request for
    written comments must conform to the guidelines listed below. Any
    submission or supplementary item not in compliance with these
    guidelines will not be printed, but will be maintained in the Committee
    files for review and use by the Committee.

        1. All submissions and supplementary materials must be provided in
    Word format and MUST NOT exceed a total of 10 pages, including
    attachments. Witnesses and submitters are advised that the Committee
    relies on electronic submissions for printing the official hearing
    record.

        2. Copies of whole documents submitted as exhibit material will not
    be accepted for printing. Instead, exhibit material should be
    referenced and quoted or paraphrased. All exhibit material not meeting
    these specifications will be maintained in the Committee files for
    review and use by the Committee.

        3. All submissions must include a list of all clients, persons and/
    or organizations on whose behalf the witness appears. A supplemental
    sheet must accompany each submission listing the name, company,
    address, telephone, and fax numbers of each witness.

        The Committee seeks to make its facilities accessible to persons
    with disabilities. If you are in need of special accommodations, please
    call 202-225-1721 or 202-226-3411 TTD/TTY in advance of the event (four
    business days notice is requested). Questions with regard to special
    accommodation needs in general (including availability of Committee
    materials in alternative formats) may be directed to the Committee as
    noted above.
        Note: All Committee advisories and news releases are available on
    the World Wide Web at http://www.waysandmeans.house.gov/.

        Chairman DAVIS. Welcome to the most recent installment in
    the Subcommittee's ongoing efforts to promote the
    standardization of program data within the cross public benefit
    programs.
        One of the key purposes for today's hearing will be to
    review the progress that has already been made with relevant
    agencies and outside experts, as well as consider next steps.
        It was just 13 months ago that this Subcommittee held its
    first hearing on the use of data matching to improve customer
    service, program integrity, and taxpayer savings.
        One of the initial factors driving this effort was the
    rising level of Federal improper payments which peaked at $125
    billion in fiscal year 2010.
        It was about much more than that. It really became about
    making Government work smarter, faster, and more efficiently
    for both beneficiaries and taxpayers.
        We should expect more from Government. We should expect it
    not to operate from an era before the personal computer
    existed, but one from the 21st Century using integrated
    technologies and information systems, not unlike the private
    sector uses today in competitive industry, and also most
    consumers do within their homes today in terms of how they
    manage their finances and their purchases.
        Companies like Google and Facebook have grown based on
    their ability to help customers search, access, share and
    interpret data.
        It is long past time for Government to use those same sorts
    of tools to improve the services we offer to help the less
    fortunate and the taxpayer dollars spent on them.
        In September, the President signed our bipartisan and
    bicameral Child and Family Services Improvement and Innovation
    Act, which codified into law for the first time in history our
    data standards language for all child welfare programs.
        This was followed by another example of bipartisanship when
    the same language was included in the Middle Class Tax Relief
    and Job Creation Act of 2012, and applied to the Unemployment
    Insurance and Temporary Assistance to Needy Families programs.
        We hope to expand this effort through H.R. 4282, which was
    recently introduced by Representative Berg and Ranking Member
    Doggett and co-sponsored by the entire Subcommittee.
        This bill would apply the same data standardization
    language to the Child Support Enforcement Program under our
    jurisdiction.
        With enactment in three programs already, Congress has sent
    a clear bipartisan message that it wants to improve the
    operation of public benefit programs through data
    standardization.
        H.R. 3339, the Standard DATA Act, would apply this
    provision more broadly to all programs within the
    Subcommittee's jurisdiction.
        We believe this bill is firm but flexible so that those
    with the most knowledge of how these programs operate can come
    together to craft a better path forward.
        We also need to hold the Executive Branch accountable for
    its role in modernizing the operation of Government programs.
    That is why we have asked several key agencies, the Department
    of Health and Human Services and the Department of Homeland
    Security, to testify at this hearing about their progress and
    plans for the future.
        We plan to continue expanding this effort across other
    programs that serve similar populations so we can achieve a
    truly beneficiary-centered approach to how these programs are
    run.
        We also need a more complete view of how many people
    receive benefits under multiple programs, which will help to
    better target benefits to people in need, as well as improve
    understanding of program effectiveness, especially given our
    budget challenges ahead. We simply have no choice but to take
    these steps to make sure programs operate more efficiently and
    to provide benefits to those most in need and only to those in
    need.
        We look forward to all testimony from both of our panels.
    We also look forward to continuing to work in a bipartisan
    manner to improve how public benefit programs serve the
    children and families who depend on them, while assuring
    taxpayer dollars are used efficiently and effectively.
        Now I would like to turn the microphone over to my friend
    and partner in this effort over the last year and a half, the
    Ranking Member, Lloyd Doggett from Texas.
        Mr. DOGGETT. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you for the
    great personal interest that you have shown in this whole data
    matching effort and for the partnership we have enjoyed in
    working as you mentioned on child welfare legislation on data
    matching for Temporary Assistance for Needy Families and for
    Unemployment Insurance Programs.
        It is important to improve the administration of public
    programs through technology. It benefits taxpayers and it
    benefits those who rely on those programs.
        Abuse of Government programs, whether by multinational
    pharmaceutical companies or a person collecting unemployment
    insurance is never acceptable. It denies the benefits that are
    needed to others, and it unjustly treats the taxpayer.
        I hope we can continue to make progress on standardizing
    data that would include incorporating existing non-proprietary
    standards such as XBRL, that has the support of the Texas
    Society of Certified Public Accountants.
        I think the better use of data matching and data sharing
    across agencies improves our efforts to reduce fraud and abuse.
    We want to get these benefits to those who need them and who
    are eligible for them.
        My interest in this is not only about program integrity but
    seeing that programs satisfy their legislative purpose.
        This is particularly true when there are so many families
    in my home State of Texas and across the country that struggle
    to maintain their footing.
        In Bexar County, for example, one in four children are
    poor.
        We must find a way to ensure that our most vulnerable
    citizens are provided with the assistance that they need to
    weather economic storms, and improving the ability to do this
    through better data is one important aspect of outreach.
        Those efforts are now underway in Philadelphia, through a
    collaboration between the State of Pennsylvania and the
    Benefits Data Trust, a non-profit organization from whom we
    will hear this morning.
        The Benefits Data Trust has been able to use state data to
    determine if an individual who is receiving assistance from a
    certain program is likely eligible for assistance in another.
    It is true that there are too many duplicative programs, but
    the total benefits provided by all of them, if delivered
    efficiently in the most effective way, probably do not begin to
    meet the needs that are out there.
        Identifying and connecting low income individuals to the
    services for which they are eligible allows the organization to
    work in a cost effective manner while also dramatically
    improving the outcomes of those individuals who are to receive
    benefits and our economy in the process.
        I think this is particularly relevant to the current
    attention on the delivery of food assistance through SNAP.
        A report released recently by the Department of Agriculture
    found that SNAP benefits helped to reduce national poverty in a
    significant way.
        These benefits play an important role in providing critical
    assistance that I saw recently at the food bank on the west
    side of San Antonio.
        Mr. Chairman, I look forward to hearing from today's
    witnesses and continuing our work together to improve the
    outreach, the efficiency, and the effectiveness of these vital
    public initiatives through the use of technology.
        Thank you so much.
        Chairman DAVIS. I thank the gentleman. I want to remind our
    witnesses to limit their oral statements to five minutes,
    please. However, without objection, all of the written
    testimony will be made part of the permanent record.
        Our first panel this morning, we will be hearing from Ms.
    Donna Roy, Executive Director, National Information Exchange
    Model or NIEM, U.S. Department of Homeland Security.
        The Honorable George Sheldon, Acting Assistant Secretary,
    Administration for Children and Families, U.S. Department of
    Health and Human Services.
        We happened to stand together behind President Obama as he
    signed into law that very first piece of data standardization
    language on September 30 of last year.
        We are excited to have you here.
        Before we move on to our testimony, without objection, I
    would like to change pace for one moment and recognize Dr.
    Price, Chairman of the Republican Policy Committee, who is a
    member of the Subcommittee, and able to be here with us today,
    who would like to introduce a witness from his home state who
    will speak on our second panel today.
        Mr. PRICE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I apologize for going
    out of order and I appreciate the indulgence of the Chair.
        I wanted to take this opportunity, not knowing the schedule
    that is going to break as the morning proceeds, to introduce
    Darryl McDonald, who is going to be on our second panel.
        Darryl is the Executive Vice President of Teradata
    Corporation, a wonderful corporate citizen and job creator in
    Georgia and in my District.
        Teradata is responsible for providing strategic direction
    for their products, solutions and services, and is among the
    world's largest companies focused solely on analytics and data
    warehousing.
        Teradata is a growing business with over 8,000 employees
    worldwide.
        Mr. McDonald has deep roots in Georgia, attended the
    University of Georgia, and can give a good ``go Dogs'' with the
    best of them. He currently lives in the 6th Congressional
    District, and his testimony on the second panel today will
    highlight how both business and Government can benefit from
    technology and ultimately save the taxpayers money.
        I am pleased and honored to introduce and welcome Darryl
    McDonald to our committee. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
        Chairman DAVIS. Thank you. With that, Ms. Roy, please
    proceed with your testimony.

         STATEMENT OF DONNA ROY, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, NATIONAL
    INFORMATION EXCHANGE MODEL (NIEM), U.S. DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND
                                SECURITY

        Ms. ROY. Chairman Davis, Ranking Member Doggett and Members
    of the Subcommittee, thank you and good morning.
        My name is Donna Roy. I am the Executive Director of the
    Information Sharing Environment Office in the Department of
    Homeland Security's Office of the Chief Information Officer.
        I also serve as the Executive Director of the National
    Information Exchange Program or NIEM. I have had the privilege
    of holding this position for the past three and a half years.
        I appreciate the opportunity to discuss with you today how
    NIEM helps Government agencies enhance mission performance,
    gain efficiencies, and reduce costs associated with exchanging
    information across IT systems.
        NIEM is a federally supported Government-wide initiative
    that helps communities of people with common interests connect
    and exchange information in order to successfully and
    efficiently accomplish their missions.
        NIEM is not a system or a database, nor does it transmit,
    store or engage in operational data storing. Rather, NIEM
    provides the tools, the training, and importantly, the
    community driven support to assist users in adopting a
    standards based approach.
        It is fitting that we are having this discussion today on
    the seventh birthday of NIEM. The program began on April 19 in
    2005 when the CIOs of DOJ and DHS signed an agreement to
    establish the interagency program.
        This action brought to fruition the work started by half a
    dozen or so practitioners at the state and local level of
    government who had worked to build a national model for sharing
    law enforcement and homeland security information.
        Today, all 50 states and 18 Federal agencies are committed
    to using NIEM in some capacity and at varying levels of
    maturity.
        NIEM is now recognized and used by international partners,
    such as Canada, Mexico, and member countries of the European
    Union.
        Despite NIEM's growth over the past seven years, the
    program has maintained at its core a strong commitment to
    community involvement.
        In my opinion, this is one of the main reasons why NIEM
    stands apart as an example of a Government collaboration at its
    best.
        Whether NIEM is involved in a situation to protect
    citizens, respond to disasters, promote public health, or
    provide needed support services to children and their families,
    the lack of standardization in information exchange across this
    broad landscape of systems, agencies, and jurisdictions creates
    challenges in providing effective and efficient citizen
    services, often leading to fraud, waste and abuse.
        The challenge is clear. How do we connect the wide array of
    systems across the whole of Government while supporting an
    appropriate privacy and security framework flexible enough to
    accommodate the diverse laws, regulations and policies across
    the United States.
        The majority of the work within NIEM is accomplished within
    a strong and active community of volunteers at the state and
    local level.
        The NIEM community stewards a common vocabulary and a
    mature framework to facilitate information exchange. NIEM
    breaks down agency stovepipes and creates opportunities for
    agencies to share information quickly and effectively without
    rebuilding systems.
        As an example of success, NIEM has helped the State of
    Colorado connect child support systems with judicial processing
    systems, improving the speed of administrative case processing
    and execution of child support orders.
        The project reduced manual data entry, eliminated most of
    the paper forms, and improved data reliability. In effect, NIEM
    helped Colorado provide faster, cheaper, and better services to
    its citizens.
        In the difficult fiscal times facing the Government today,
    it is core systemic improvements that will save scarce
    financial resources, improving the effectiveness in Government
    and ultimately making our country safer.
        NIEM is one of these rare systemic improvement
    opportunities.
        As a former Marine who possesses a sincere passion for good
    government, I am continually impressed and energized by the
    level of support across the NIEM community.
        On a more personal note, as the daughter of a woman who
    aged out of the system, and as a former foster mom, I am
    particularly touched by the positive changes NIEM is making in
    the lives of the most vulnerable in our society, which are the
    children and the families that support them.
        Again, I appreciate the opportunity to testify before you
    today, and I look forward to answering any questions you may
    have.
        [The prepared statement of Ms. Roy follows:]

    [GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

        Chairman DAVIS. Thank you, Ms. Roy. We wish a happy
    birthday to NIEM as well.
        The Chair now recognizes Secretary Sheldon for his
    testimony.

       STATEMENT OF GEORGE SHELDON, ACTING ASSISTANT SECRETARY,
     ADMINISTRATION FOR CHILDREN AND FAMILIES, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF
                       HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES

        Mr. SHELDON. Chairman Davis, Ranking Member Doggett,
    Members of the Subcommittee, thank you for the opportunity to
    testify about the development of standardized data exchanges
    and the use of technology to better target benefits and
    eliminate waste, fraud and abuse.
        This is my second opportunity to testify in front of this
    Committee. I testified two years ago as Secretary of the
    Department of Children and Families in Florida on this
    Committee's efforts to provide expansion of the IV-E waiver
    concept.
        I thank you for the legislation that passed this year.
        I would like to acknowledge the leadership of Chairman
    Davis in this area. Like you, I believe that these efforts will
    lead to better targeting of benefits to eligible households,
    and at the same time, will reduce fraud, waste and abuse.
        Much work is occurring in this regard already. Clearly,
    much more needs to be done, and the hearing today furthers this
    critical conversation.
        I have a deep personal commitment to the effort you are
    promoting because I experienced firsthand as a state
    administrator what a difference improved data sharing can make
    for those on the front line delivering services.
        We all recognize the problem that we are trying to tackle.
    Valuable information which could support more accurate
    eligibility and benefit determinations, and more thoughtful
    case planning is siloed among multiple systems across related
    but not fully integrated programs.
        Even in cases in which organizations are allowed to share
    information, uncertainties about legal requirements, cultural
    differences, and misperceptions about privacy requirements too
    often stymie efforts to exchange information, even when the
    benefits are obvious.
        We face this situation in the State of Florida, for
    instance.
        The first point I would like to emphasize is the solution
    is not purely a technical one. The initial hurdle is to promote
    a new way of thinking, a cultural exchange that promotes the
    sharing of information.
        In Florida, we worked across eight state agencies to
    develop what we called a ``Children and Youth Cabinet
    Information Sharing System.''
        Rather than develop the initiative from start, we piggy
    backed on the success of another initiative that the court
    system had in place for several years.
        The court system was a multi-agency data sharing system. In
    this manner, we not only benefitted from their technology
    platforms, but we were also able to incorporate the lessons
    that they had learned.
        I emphasize our use of the piggy back in Florida because we
    are taking that same approach at ACF.
        I will talk more about NIEM later, but as you know, we know
    a good idea when we see it. It does not make sense to pay to
    replicate systems we already own or have invested in heavily.
        I believe that the Committee's initial emphasis on data
    exchange is wise. While I am not discounting the need for
    investment to support systems at the Federal, state and local
    levels, there are significant returns that we can realize by
    improving data sharing within the systems that we currently
    have.
        Implementing our system in Florida was a big step forward.
    It saved time, saved labor, reduced errors, and provided real
    time access to information. It allowed participating agencies
    to maintain the control and security that they wanted over
    their own data.
        This is another point I want to emphasize because it
    demonstrates that significant gains can be made without
    compromising privacy, which I know is a critical concern of
    everyone in this room.
        Most importantly, it supports better decision making
    because it provides much needed real time up to date data and
    data exchange capability on a vulnerable child or vulnerable
    family.
        My experience in Florida also confirms that improved data
    sharing can lead to lower improper payments.
        In Florida, we determined eligibility for TANF, SNAP,
    Medicaid and Refugee payments through an integrated automated
    process.
        While five years ago we had one of the worst food stamp
    error rates in the country, in the last three years of my
    tenure there, we achieved the lowest error rate in the SNAP
    program for three consecutive years, an unprecedented
    achievement. By 2010, the error rate was under one percent.
        The point I am making is that an appropriate use of
    technology in terms of sharing our data elements can really
    lead to an overall improvement of the system.
        Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
        [The prepared statement of Mr. Sheldon follows:]

    [GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

        Chairman DAVIS. Thank you very much, Mr. Secretary. I would
    like to move on to questions now.
        What we are talking about today is not about new data but
    about using existing data more efficiently and effectively.
        Secretary Sheldon, nearly every one of your programs
    provides a congressional or annual report, most of which come
    to this Committee.
        I have two here, which I will not enter into the record out
    of mercy for the transcriptionist, but we have some examples I
    would like to show you.
        We have pages up on the screen right now, quite detailed
    information, such as how many beneficiaries there are and how
    dollars are being spent.
        However, beyond those broad facts, the data is not usable
    in helping to improve how the programs perform. Variance
    metrics, understanding the quality of work, the ability to
    drill down inside of those.
        For example, what I would like to share with you and
    members on the Subcommittee from these pages is a recent Child
    Welfare Annual Report on States' Planned and Actual
    Expenditures, which was requested by Congress.
        I see that many of the same forms are used throughout, but
    one thing is how overall the data lacks consistency.
        The pages also appear to be PDF copies of the original
    forms submitted in paper form by states, making many of them
    illegible, frankly.
        What does your agency do with this information, and do you
    think this sort of report is useful for your staff,
    congressional staff, or outside experts?
        I want to qualify my remark. I am not doing this to put you
    on the spot so much, but as we have discussed, we have this
    common problem we are trying to work around, and I would like
    to hear your thoughts on steps to fix this.
        Mr. SHELDON. I appreciate this. The report is based on
    congressional direction of how we should be sharing this
    information. I do think this data is important not only to us
    but I think it is important to the field.
        Clearly, as you have identified, these PDF files are not
    very user friendly.
        Bryan Samuels, who is our Commissioner for the
    Administration for Children, Youth and Family, actually
    identified this difficulty about a year ago, and began working
    with the staff to try to get a more uniform system of reporting
    from the states.
        In addition to that, it is my view that at some point,
    assuming resources are available, we need to be moving from
    hardcopy reporting that can only be shared in a PDF format to a
    much more user friendly, state friendly, and services friendly
    reporting system.
        It is something that has been identified, and I appreciate
    you bringing it to my personal attention, but I would report
    that Commissioner Samuels has identified this and is attempting
    to work on it.
        Chairman DAVIS. I believe the purpose of the report is to
    understand state variations in planned and actual expenditures
    on child welfare so policymakers can know what works better to
    protect children. That is an important goal.
        How do you expect this and other reports will change with
    the enactment of our data standards provision that was signed
    into law?
        Mr. SHELDON. I think the data standardization exchanges are
    an excellent opportunity to begin addressing some of these
    issues. As I indicated in my prepared comments, a lot of
    progress has been made, but there is still a lot more that
    needs to be done, and I think this is a good example.
        With respect to NIEM, we have established an
    interoperability project management team headed by Joe Bodmer,
    who is behind me. I am very optimistic about the direction they
    are taking and the impact it could have on these kinds of
    reports.
        Chairman DAVIS. Thank you, Mr. Secretary. Ms. Roy, NIEM is
    not a standard but a way of setting parameters for data
    exchange so information can flow more freely.
        I recognize this pushes beyond NIEM, but can you tell us
    more about the burden on the agencies and departments,
    especially small local governments, to transition to the
    structures developed by NIEM, both in the short and long term?
        Feel free to use examples outside of human services, if
    that would be helpful in answering the question.
        Ms. ROY. Thank you for asking that question, Chairman. We
    believe we hold true in the NIEM program. One basic
    foundational tenet is that we provide technologies, tools and
    support to reduce the burden for our state and local adopters
    to make sure the technology we employ is consumable given the
    reduced budgets and restraints they have at the state and local
    level.
        As an example, in this PDF, it would be as simple as
    putting XML behind it embedded within this PDF that would make
    this a useful document. That would provide a very low burden to
    employing this type of solution.
        The Recovery Act included recipient reporting from the
    state and locals in the form of an Excel spreadsheet, and in
    the back of that Excel spreadsheet, XML data that could be used
    to exchange information and to add up and total up the dollars
    there.
        I don't believe that everything that we do is a high cost
    IT implementation within the state and locals. We have really
    reduced that burden by providing tools and ways for them to use
    XML in a manner that is at a reduced cost and a quicker time
    for implementation.
        Chairman DAVIS. Very good. Thank you very much. With that,
    I would like to yield to Mr. Doggett, the Ranking Member of the
    Subcommittee, for five minutes.
        Mr. DOGGETT. Ms. Roy, NIEM as it currently exists, I know,
    has been instrumental in facilitating the exchange of data.
    What are some examples, additional examples, of how it is
    currently being used in the Federal Government?
        Ms. ROY. NIEM has realized a significant increase in
    adoption in the Federal Government. In the Department of
    Homeland Security, where my day job is, I can provide some
    examples.
        NIEM is being applied in the Disaster Assistance
    Improvement Program from FEMA to harmonize the 60 forms that
    one could apply for in a disaster situation.
        Amazingly enough, 80 percent of the data on those 60 forms
    is the same, and yet, we make our citizens fill out those forms
    again and again.
        The FEMA Disaster Assistance Program is aimed at
    harmonizing that and allowing citizens to fill out most of that
    information once and pass that information to the agencies to
    ensure that those forms are pre-populated. To me, that's good
    Government.
        The Citizenship and Immigration Services in the Department
    of Homeland Security has applied the use of NIEM in the E-
    verification and self check programs, allowing faster citizen
    services in a critical service that we provide.
        Outside of the Department of Homeland Security, the
    Department of Justice has a strong program around index and law
    enforcement information sharing.
        True banner best practice child from the beginning of the
    NIEM program.
        There are really great cases at the state level based on
    some at the Federal level. In Colorado, New York City, and
    Massachusetts, NIEM is being applied in child and family
    services. The really great part about NIEM is that people can
    use it. It is free to use. I never have to know about it.
        I often do not know about it until I hear the good news
    such as the New York Times article around New York City's HHS-
    Connect successes. They were able to provide streamlined
    citizen services to their citizens.
        As an example, an 18-year-old mother of a one-year-old son
    who arrived in the city's homeless intake center.
        She had been removed from her own mother's house by ACF in
    September because of neglect. By typing her name into this new
    interface, the case worker was able to within minutes find her
    birth certificate, her baptism certificate, and her mother's
    driver's license to help her document her identity and housing
    history, which homeless services requires.
        That took about 45 minutes out of a six-hour intake process
    because of the work New York City's HHS-Connect has done to
    bring together their information using the NIEM standard.
    Again, we did not know they were doing it. We had no
    anticipation that NIEM would be used in human services when we
    started the program.
        These are all great sorts of use cases around community
    adoption and the community involvement in the use of a program
    originally started for law enforcement and homeland security
    information.
        Mr. DOGGETT. Thanks so much to both of you for your
    leadership. We have a vote under way. I will hold the rest of
    mine. Thank you.
        Chairman DAVIS. I thank the gentleman. I apologize to our
    guests and to our witnesses that a vote intruded upon the
    proceedings right now. We will be back in 20 minutes.
        I would ask Ms. Roy and Secretary Sheldon if you would
    please consider remaining. I believe some of our members do
    have some questions for you before we move on to our second
    panel of witnesses.
        Appreciate you being here today very much, and very excited
    about the progress we have made over the last year and a half
    working together.
        With that, the Subcommittee stands in recess for 20
    minutes.
        [Recess.]
        Chairman DAVIS. The hearing is back in session. We will
    continue with our questioning of our first panel. I would like
    to recognize Dr. Boustany from Louisiana for five minutes.
        Mr. BOUSTANY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. This is a very
    important hearing, and I know you have had a long interest in
    this interagency cooperation and how we can use data to drive
    this.
        Ms. Roy, you have been involved in all this, trying to push
    this from the inside. Why is it so hard to reach consensus on
    standardization? Please describe some of the difficulties you
    have encountered going forward with all this.
        Ms. ROY. Thank you, Congressman, for asking me that. If it
    were easy, I believe it would not be so hard, such a big push
    to get people to adopt.
        Most of the objections we get are related to education and
    the time to adopt something new. A lot of misperceptions; it is
    hard to use or hard to adopt another standard.
        We believe when we have a cogent conversation around the
    re-use potential, those conversations get easier to have.
    Sometimes we have the objections of not invented here, it is
    not my XML standard, as an example, so it is hard for me to
    sort of diverge and listen openly to a better way of doing
    business.
        For the most part, it has been about outreach and making
    sure we have enough outreach activities out there to apply what
    we think are the good aspects of a program like NIEM out there
    to 3,000 counties, 50 states. As an example, in Homeland
    Security, 18,000 police departments. It is a pretty big
    country, a lot of people to get to.
        Mr. BOUSTANY. Magnitude of order.
        Secretary Sheldon, do you want to comment on that?
        Mr. SHELDON. Yes. I saw this at the state level, where the
    agency that I ran, mental health, substance abuse, TANF, child
    welfare, domestic violence, and everyone is comfortable with
    their little silo; they are safe in it.
        I think as I indicated in my testimony, we know how to do
    the technology, quite frankly, but it is the culture of sharing
    that has to happen.
        I have been meeting with several state commissioners. I
    think there is a growing realization at the state level, as
    there are declining resources, that there is a benefit to data
    exchange standardization.
        I met, for instance, with the Secretary of the Department
    in Virginia just last week. They are doing some extremely
    innovative things in Virginia, and I think other states are
    too, but Virginia may very well be one of those states that
    could be an example to other states.
        What they are attempting to do is not just add
    standardization but a growing sharing of information across
    lines, and ultimately, I think this is going to be where we are
    headed when we get to the point where we are not just dealing
    with the human services domain, but we are also dealing with
    the health domain, as well as with the education domain. Those
    three are so intricately linked.
        Mr. BOUSTANY. Right. It is interesting. There is an irony I
    have experienced in my time in Congress. Late in 2005, I went
    to Iraq. On the way back, I stopped in Landstuhl. I was talking
    to the chief medical officer at the hospital in Landstuhl where
    our wounded warriors were evacuated.
        What was interesting was the fact that we had good data for
    battlefield to Landstuhl, but when our guys left the Department
    of Defense and went over to the Veterans Administration, which
    consisted of a whole different database, there was a lack of
    communication and lost information, and a lot of frustration on
    the part of our veterans.
        I returned in 2008 to see what changes were made, and
    basically, nothing had changed.
        The irony is here we are, an Administration driven to
    implement health information technology to improve quality and
    collaboration, integration of health, and yet our own
    departments cannot seem to get it together.
        I share Chairman Davis' intense interest in this issue
    because as he said in his opening statement, with our budgetary
    constraints and all the other things we are dealing with, this
    should be a no-brainer, albeit a very difficult task, given the
    magnitude and cultural issues.
        That is why I asked the question, to try to drill down a
    little further into what specific problems you are encountering
    going forward on all this.
        If you could continue to work with us on these things and
    help us understand where the road blocks are, what specifically
    is occurring. We can pass legislation, but actual
    implementation and getting this right is a whole different
    story.
        With that, Mr. Chairman, I would yield back. Thank you.
        Chairman DAVIS. I appreciate your comments. The Chair
    recognizes Mr. Reed for five minutes.
        Mr. REED. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you to our
    witnesses for testifying today.
        Ms. Roy, I am going to direct a lot of my conversation to
    you, as I do not think we have ever had a member of the
    Homeland Security team come here and testify before on human
    resources issues and others.
        I really want to delve into the concerns that NIEM
    potentially is out there for purposes of intelligence
    gathering.
        Can you dispel for me any of the issues that people are
    expressing, that this is confidential information data that
    could potentially be exploited, or concerns about privacy and
    issues like that?
        Ms. ROY. Congressman Reed, those are very good questions.
    Thank you very much for asking them.
        NIEM is just a format for data as it moves. It does not
    imply that you are moving it anywhere. It does provide a common
    vocabulary for someone who wants to send data to someone who
    wants to receive it or more appropriately, network effect of
    multiple people who want to receive it in a way they can
    understand it.
        Early, when the HHS started to see the value of NIEM and
    have the conversations, I have read some sort of blogs out
    there that the CIA would get your health records, sort of had
    to chuckle on that one.
        NIEM does not move the data. NIEM provides the format for
    which the data moves.
        In combination with NIEM are the implementations within a
    Federal, state, local or private sector agency who put in place
    security, privacy, and other aspects of the IT system that
    protects the data.
        NIEM is not the data itself. It is just the format for
    which we agree upon sharing the data.
        The format had applicability across more than intelligence
    domains. It is the homeland security, the emergency management,
    the justice, education, transportation.
        There are a lot of domains where Donna Roy is Donna Roy,
    and the description of Donna Roy as a person, I have a name,
    date of birth, sex, all of those things are consistently the
    same across multiple domains across our Government, that is
    where NIEM provides a significant amount of value.
        Mr. REED. Excellent. Mr. Sheldon, do you have anything to
    offer from HHS' point of view?
        Mr. SHELDON. I think the agencies are still going to be
    able to control their confidentiality requirements.
        When we moved in this direction in Florida, we had what we
    called three joint application design sessions.
        The first two sessions were with programs and addressed
    what kind of information should be put up, what would be
    useful, and what would be useful across agency lines.
        Then in our third session, we brought in the general
    counsels of those agencies to address privacy issues.
        Many of the ideas that were brought up during the
    programmatic piece of those design sessions were included in
    our ultimate application.
        There were a few that did not make it because of
    confidentiality concerns, and then we developed memorandums of
    understanding between all the agencies who were participating.
        There was a memorandum of understanding between the sender
    agency and the receiver agency.
        I think as we move forward, we are going to have to do that
    kind of collaboration in order to break down some of these
    walls.
        I also think there is a lot of misconception about
    confidentiality requirements and what is confidential. For
    instance, if I have a child who is in the child welfare system,
    and that child is in care, it would be very helpful to the
    state child welfare agency to know how that child is doing in
    school.
        Yet, that information, under the current FERPA statutes, is
    not shareable.
        I think with respect to data sharing you need a process
    where access is limited to those who have a need to know.
    Obviously, when you deal with a child in the child welfare
    system, the extent to which you can interface with what is
    happening with that child in the education system, is better
    for the child.
        Those are the kinds of things I think on an ongoing basis
    we are going to have to work through.
        I am very confident from a technology standpoint we can do
    this. I do think we have to break down a lot of misconceptions
    that exist.
        Mr. REED. I would agree with that sentiment, the
    misconception about the ulterior motives potentially that are
    out there floating in the blogosphere and everywhere else.
        I appreciate that and I look forward to working with you to
    accomplish that.
        Mr. SHELDON. If I might, Mr. Chairman.
        Mr. REED. Please.
        Mr. SHELDON. We had a taskforce in Florida after the
    Virginia Tech killings, and what we found is that the folks in
    the colleges and mental health arena were not communicating
    with the people who had a need to know if in fact there were
    some dangers.
        That is the kind of ongoing dialogue, I think, institutions
    are going to have to have in order to not just make sure that
    we are covering fraud and abuse but we are also protecting
    individuals at the same time.
        Mr. REED. I appreciate that. My time has expired. Mr.
    Chairman, I yield back.
        Chairman DAVIS. I thank the gentleman. The Chair recognizes
    the gentleman from North Dakota, Mr. Berg.
        Mr. BERG. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you for being
    here. I apologize for the disruption with the voting. It is one
    of those days probably more typical than not.
        As you know, this Committee has been working a lot on data
    standardization and the programs within our jurisdiction, child
    welfare, TANF, and the Unemployment Insurance.
        As you heard Ranking Member Doggett and others, we co-
    sponsored a bill to do the same thing in child enforcement, and
    really on a global basis.
        My question for Ms. Roy is on the bigger picture, as you
    look around all the things that Government is involved with,
    are there other agencies and programs that are looking at
    standardization and doing some things that kind of pop out as
    other examples?
        Ms. ROY. We are in the business of being an available-to-
    use public service. I wish I knew all the good news around the
    communities and the agencies that were adopting NIEM.
        Again, as I stated, I find out when I hear it in the press
    or someone bragging about a good news story.
        That being said, we are seeing a lot of positive movement
    in the human services arena in Colorado, New York City, in
    Massachusetts. There is an exponential growth factor every time
    one of those states shares its best practices.
        It is a little bit of a wild card with this community
    driven program, but they foster conversations with a state near
    them or with someone else that is interested.
        We will see this network impact of a community that is
    very, very involved.
        At the Federal level, as I mentioned, we have almost all of
    the Federal agencies doing something with NIEM. In particular,
    new domains, and around education, around transportation, are
    encouraging, because they have an impact on this cross
    community information exchange.
        A child is a child. He goes to school. The child might be
    part of a welfare program and might get school lunch programs.
        NIEM was built to actually sustain that cross business
    transactional support for data exchange.
        Mr. BERG. Thank you. Just one quick follow up. How do we
    encourage agencies to move in this direction? Is there
    something we can do?
        If you said there was one thing that could be done by
    Congress to encourage that, what would it be? Other than more
    money.
        Ms. ROY. We appreciate support in getting the word out,
    that NIEM is a tool for your constituents to use for better IT
    connections, for better sharing.
        We appreciate increased outreach on this. We are getting
    great support from the Federal CIO Council for the Federal
    agencies. Every time we see a Federal agency adopt, we see a
    ripple effect in the state and local agencies that also
    exchange information with the Feds.
        I would say continued outreach and understanding that this
    is a valuable program that can help significantly increase
    mission performance.
        Mr. BERG. Thank you. I will yield back.
        Chairman DAVIS. I thank the gentleman. I would like to
    welcome now a distinguished member and long-serving member of
    the Ways and Means Committee, the Chairman of the Subcommittee
    on Health, the gentleman from California, Mr. Herger. Thank you
    for joining us today.
        Mr. HERGER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate an
    opportunity to sit on the panel.
        Mr. Sheldon, today there has been a lot of discussion about
    the positive of information sharing, but I want to bring it
    back to an issue that is easily overlooked and potentially more
    important.
        I want to discuss the safeguards that should be in place to
    ensure that the personal data of program beneficiaries is kept
    secret.
        As you may have heard from recent news reports,
    California's Department of Child Support Services lost
    computerized storage devices that were being transported as
    part of a disaster recovery task last month.
        These devices held the personal data of 800,000 parents,
    guardians, and children, compromising their names, addresses,
    driver license numbers, Social Security numbers, health
    insurance, and employer information.
        The news reports of the incident are extremely troubling.
    We do not have much information other than the devices went
    missing somewhere between Colorado and California.
        I want to make sure this security lapse is taken seriously
    by the Government agencies involved as by the families whose
    personal information has been lost.
        I would like to know what safeguards states operating child
    support enforcement and other Federal programs are required to
    have in place to protect personal data.
        Has HHS looked into the incident in California, and if so,
    did California's Department of Child Services violate any of
    the safeguards that should have been in place?
        Mr. SHELDON. Congressman, I could not agree with you more.
    Our child support enforcement efforts nationally have had a 15
    year unblemished record in terms of protecting data.
        We do take what happened in California extremely seriously.
    We immediately reached out to California when it came to our
    attention to determine, number one, the nature of the loss,
    what information was lost, and the level of data exposure.
        We are still working with them. I have asked that we go
    back and look at our safeguarding protocols we are requiring of
    states. I have been assured there are a lot of protocols in
    place in terms of making sure that states comply with
    confidentiality.
        I want to make sure we are doing everything we can in this
    area. We will continue to work with California.
        The information that we have gotten back to date indicates,
    I think, there were five canisters lost. One of those has been
    regained. We requested that the state immediately identify the
    individuals, notify those individuals of the potential breach,
    and that is ongoing as we speak, I believe.
        Mr. HERGER. Mr. Sheldon, could you tell me, what does your
    agency plan to do going forward to prevent this type of lapse
    from happening again?
        Mr. SHELDON. Well, the first thing that we are doing is we
    are working to make sure that states are meeting the current
    safeguard requirements that we have in place.
        We currently are doing routine monitoring of states. We
    will increase that monitoring on an ongoing basis.
        I think quite frankly we also are identifying through a lot
    of those routine efforts if there is any unauthorized use of
    information.
        We are employing technical assistance teams to work with
    states in this arena.
        I share your concern because I think this was a serious
    breach, and we are trying to double our efforts in working with
    states and holding them accountable.
        Mr. HERGER. Mr. Sheldon, I appreciate your taking this
    seriously. Again, it is difficult to comprehend how something
    like this could happen.
        Mr. SHELDON. This was, as I understand it, an emergency
    disaster exercise. To have this happen on that kind of exercise
    is in itself problematic. The purpose of those exercises is
    just the opposite.
        I would point out the state did have back-up information,
    so there was no loss on the part of the state. Exposing
    confidential information of individual citizens, however, I do
    think, is cause for serious alarm.
        Mr. HERGER. Well, again, I appreciate that. It is very
    important, as you can understand, number one, to understand how
    this could happen in basically a mock up trial. Imagine what
    would happen if there was an actual emergency.
        I think you can understand how it is very important that we
    check and double check and make sure this does not happen
    again.
        Again, I thank you very much.
        Mr. SHELDON. Mr. Chairman, what I would like to do is get
    back with you as we proceed so you know exactly what steps we
    are taking as it relates to this particular breach.
        Mr. HERGER. I would appreciate you doing that. Thank you
    very much. Mr. Chairman, thank you.
        Chairman DAVIS. I thank the gentleman. I want to thank both
    of our witnesses, Ms. Roy and Secretary Sheldon from the
    Administration, in helping us understand the issue further.
        If members have additional questions, they will submit them
    to you in writing, and we would appreciate it if you would also
    give us a copy of that so we can submit it into the official
    record.
        I want to thank you again. We look forward to continuing to
    work with you on improving data standardization to reduce costs
    and improve performance in the Government.
        With that, this concludes the first panel of the hearing. I
    would appreciate it if the second panel would come forward.
    Thank you very much.
        Now we will go ahead and begin the second panel. I
    appreciate our witnesses being here today.
        We will hear from Mr. Robert Doar, Commissioner, Human
    Resources Administration for New York City.
        Ginger Zielinskie, Executive Director of Benefits Data
    Trust.
        Mr. Darryl McDonald, Executive Vice President of Teradata
    Corporation.
        Campbell Pryde, President and Chief Executive Officer of
    XBRL US.
        Appreciate you taking time out of your schedules to join us
    here in Washington.
        Mr. Doar, would you please proceed with your testimony?

        STATEMENT OF ROBERT DOAR, COMMISSIONER, HUMAN RESOURCES
                     ADMINISTRATION, NEW YORK CITY

        Mr. DOAR. Thank you and good morning, Chairman Davis,
    Ranking Member Doggett, and Members of the Committee.
        I am Robert Doar, head of New York City's largest social
    service agency, HRA.
        Due to the structure set up in New York State, I help to
    manage over $39 billion in resources in an array of programs,
    including TANF, SNAP, Medicaid, and child support enforcement.
        Mayor Michael Bloomberg has made it a top priority to break
    down silos between city agencies, so that we can improve the
    quality of services to the millions of participants in our
    programs, and to properly administer and protect city, state
    and Federal tax dollars.
        He drew from his work in the private sector and saw we
    needed a better computer system to manage eight health and
    human service agencies with 80 different case management
    systems serving more than three million recipients and
    reporting to different state and Federal oversight agencies.
        In 2008, we embarked upon HHS-Connect to basically create a
    system to share information across multiple services, multiple
    agencies, so we could better serve our citizens and clients.
        A key was the strong leadership provided by the Deputy
    Mayor for Health and Human Services, Linda Gibbs, and the
    emphasis placed on this program on all commissioners in human
    services and city government.
        Presently, there are two major functions of HHS-Connect
    that are underway. Client access to information about benefits
    and services and worker access to better data and realistic
    view of the client.
        ACCESS NYC is the client portal. It is a screening tool to
    self screen for more than 30 city, state and Federal human
    services benefit programs.
        Applicants can also apply on line for SNAP, school meals,
    and senior citizens and disabled rental increase exemption
    programs.
        Recently, Medicaid renewals were added to the site, and
    since we began, 100,000 SNAP applications have been submitted
    on line.
        To better assist clients on the worker side, we created
    Worker Connect, to share information among agency workers. It
    is a secure read only web based application that allows select
    city workers to access a limited set of information from
    multiple data sources through one point of entry.
        The basic technical elements are a common client index and
    a document manager. The common client index is the initial
    process to link the client's identity within any of the
    participating agencies.
        The identifier is used to data mine details such as benefit
    information, case composition, and employment history, and
    display them to workers.
        The document management is simple but has been very useful
    across agencies, an electronic repository of documents
    submitted by HRA clients when they apply for our benefit
    programs.
        On the program side, the key benefit of HHS-Connect is how
    the information can be used. In our child welfare agency, they
    regularly use Worker Connect. Child welfare workers use it to
    quickly identify and locate children and guardians they have
    difficult finding but are known to other city agencies.
        Often times, the reports child welfare workers receive from
    a central registry are missing critical identifying
    information, especially when they are called in by anonymous
    sources.
        Worker Connect has alerted staff to the identity of
    household members and the existence of another parent or other
    children who may be at risk.
        It has also been useful to our homeless agencies' intake
    facilities, where families showing up at the facility often do
    not have easy access to much of their documentation.
        My agency also uses Worker Connect as an additional tool to
    identify fraud, abuse, and improper payments within public
    assistance programs.
        We use it for eligibility verification, to quickly and
    accurately identify inconsistencies, particularly unreported
    income, between information provided to us on applications and
    that which has been submitted to other agencies.
        In the future, we hope to use it to help identify patterns
    of potential fraud and abuse within the public assistance
    programs we administer.
        I need to be clear that information sharing was not
    undertaken lightly. There is an over arching requirement that
    access to information is only granted in compliance with all
    applicable laws and regulations.
        We strictly adhere to Federal, state and local laws
    governing the protection and use of confidential records
    maintained by our social services agencies.
        I believe there is definitely a role for the Federal
    Government to help in this area so that every other state or
    city trying to identify what data can be shared is not
    overwhelmed with legal analysis and forced to recreate the
    wheel time and again.
        I also believe that we need to be careful to recognize that
    the sharing of data is not synonymous with the sharing of
    eligibility rules.
        Although we strive to make sure that low income individuals
    and families have appropriate access to benefits for which they
    are eligible, we need to be mindful of unintended consequences.
        Every program has different standards for how to consider
    resources and income and ultimately determine eligibility, and
    many of these differences are appropriate given the different
    goals of the programs. Therefore, discussions as to what extent
    programs that share common data or clients should share the
    same eligibility standards needs to be approached
    strategically.
        I thank the Committee and the Chairman for all of your work
    on addressing this important issue, and for moving this
    important agenda forward.
        Thank you.
        [The prepared statement of Mr. Doar follows:]

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        Chairman DAVIS. Thank you, Mr. Doar.
        Ms. Zielinskie, you are recognized for five minutes.

     STATEMENT OF GINGER ZIELINSKIE, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, BENEFITS
                               DATA TRUST

        Ms. ZIELINSKIE. Congressman Davis, Congressman Doggett,
    Members of the Subcommittee, thank you so much for the
    opportunity to testify today and for your ongoing work in
    regards to the Standard Data Act.
        I would like to start today by sharing a quote with you
    from one of our clients, a 58 year old unemployment insurance
    exhaustee who was eligible for more than $200 a month in SNAP
    benefits.
        ``I was so shocked when I received your call. In the past
    three weeks, I have gone through three failed job interviews
    and I felt like a failure. This benefit amount is equivalent to
    my monthly mortgage payment. I am so glad you did not let me
    drop through the cracks.''
        Benefits Data Trust is a national not for profit
    organization committed to transforming how people in need
    access public benefits.
        We have successfully completed over 280,000 benefit
    applications on behalf of low income Americans through the use
    of data sharing strategies to target outreach and streamline
    the application process.
        Maximizing private sector targeting outreach strategies,
    Benefits Data Trust has been able to utilize more than 20
    different targeted Federal and state government agency data
    sources to conduct national, statewide and regionally-based
    outreach.
        We all know that data driven strategies can and should
    combat fraud and create efficiencies in the verification
    process.
        I would like to share with you today five key points on how
    and why, right now, without prohibitive investments in
    technology, data sharing can and should be used to increase
    access to public benefits for the people who need it most.
        First, data sharing strategies can create vast
    opportunities to conduct targeted, cost effective outreach.
        Federal and state agencies can share enrollment data
    internally, across departments, and with business and not for
    profits to generate targeted outreach lists of millions of
    individuals who are highly likely eligible and not enrolled in
    benefit programs.
        For example, in 2010, working with the Pennsylvania
    Department of Labor and Industry and Department of Public
    Welfare, BDT identified 80,000 unemployment insurance
    exhaustees commonly known as ``99er's,'' who were likely
    eligible and not enrolled in SNAP.
        The three entities developed comprehensive data share
    agreements and a process to generate an automated monthly file
    of new exhaustees eligible for this outreach.
        The targeted outreach achieved initial response rates of 25
    percent. In comparison, standard direct marketing delivers
    response rates of closer to one percent.
        Results show that many individuals we help are not familiar
    with the safety net system at all, and have never needed help
    before.
        Nationally, in the last year, more than 5.5 million people
    have exhausted their unemployment insurance benefits. This
    illustrates the tremendous opportunity and responsibility we
    have to help folks grappling with the recent economic
    recession.
        Second, data sharing strategies can streamline the
    applications process and create express lane eligibility
    opportunities.
        In Philadelphia, Benefits Data Trust receives an automated
    monthly data file of individuals 60 and older who were recently
    enrolled or were re-certified for Medicaid and not enrolled in
    SNAP.
        Since income, residency and Social Security number or non-
    citizenship status were just verified by the same department,
    an individual does not need to provide proof of these elements
    on their SNAP application.
        Therefore, eligible individuals are able to apply for SNAP
    in one phone call without having to provide any additional
    documentation. This dramatically streamlines the application
    process for the applicant and the verification process for the
    administering agency, reducing the cost of outreach,
    application assistance, and eligibility determination.
        New enrollment or recertification in Medicaid, TANF, heat
    assistance, or the earned income tax credit approval, is an
    opportune moment to help people access other benefits they need
    and create express lane eligibility opportunities.
        Third, increasing access to public benefit programs for
    people who are eligible, especially seniors, helps individuals,
    strengthens our local economies, and reduces long term national
    health care costs.
        Fourth, data driven strategies can cut outreach and
    application assistance costs by more than 70 percent.
        Fifth, there are several actions that the Federal
    Government can take to make it easier for Government, business
    and not for profits to utilize data sharing strategies.
        The Federal Government can take a proactive approach by
    setting guidance around standard data share and data security
    provisions. This will immediately provide Government agencies,
    business and not for profits clarity on how to share and
    protect data.
        Continuing to fund technical upgrades and integrations of
    state systems as well as projects that utilize data driven
    approaches to outreach and enrollment will continue to enhance
    improvements in this area.
        I would like to end with one last quote from an 82 year old
    woman whom we were able to apply for both food stamps and the
    low income subsidy.
        ``I do not even know how you found me. My husband died of
    Alzheimer's and we both worked all of our lives. His treatment
    ate up all of our money. Thank you so much.''
        [The prepared statement of Ms. Zielinskie follows:]

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        Chairman DAVIS. Thank you very much, Ms. Zielinskie.
        Mr. McDonald, you are recognized for five minutes.

        STATEMENT OF DARRYL MCDONALD, EXECUTIVE VICE PRESIDENT,
                          TERADATA CORPORATION

        Mr. MCDONALD. Good morning, Chairman Davis and
    distinguished Members of the Subcommittee, and thank you for
    the opportunity to testify here today.
        I am Darryl McDonald representing Teradata Corporation. For
    30 years, Teradata has redefined the lead of database
    technology and the use of advanced analytics.
        Among the nearly 1,400 Teradata customers, companies such
    as eBay, Wal-Mart, Wells Fargo, Caterpillar, and AT&T, have
    learned how to recognize data as their most valuable asset by
    transforming that data into useful information.
        These same approaches can be applied to the Government.
        My testimony today will focus on how applying advanced
    analytic solutions to massive data sets or big analytics helps
    Federal agencies meet complex, large scale mission demands
    despite unprecedented budget cuts and infrastructure.
        It is important to remember that big analytics are not
    futuristic or incomprehensible. In fact, one of the best known
    example is from Major League Baseball, the 2002 Oakland A's.
        As described in the book ``Moneyball: The Art of Winning An
    Unfair Game,'' and the subsequent movie and feature film, the
    A's used data analytics to more effectively compete against
    other teams using less money.
        A lesser known example is from one of our state government
    customers found in Michigan. Since 1996, the State of Michigan
    has been creating their enterprise data warehouse which
    supports reduced health care costs and a 25 percent reduction
    in administrative costs.
        The Michigan enterprise data warehouse has also aided the
    state in many ways, including doubling the recoveries for
    Medicaid fraud, moving from last to first in child immunization
    rates, and identifying more than $70 million in fraudulent
    child care.
        Imagine the benefits achieved by Michigan at the scale of
    Federal Government.
        Giving Federal decision makers the ability to utilize all
    the data on hand to find underlining insights is essential for
    effective risk management, cost containment, and mission
    success.
        Rather than making weak decisions with data sampling, big
    analytics utilized all the available data to enable fact based
    decisions. Big data analytics cuts analysis time from weeks or
    months to near real time and enables continuous improvements to
    meet changing technology, regulatory and mission needs.
        As one of the world's largest creators and consumers of
    data, the Federal Government will see its long term future of
    success or failure linked to how well it addresses big data.
        Teradata has numerous and varied success stories of helping
    clients integrate and understand and leverage big data at the
    Federal and state levels, within and outside the U.S.
        For example, the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Risk
    Management Agency has successfully applied data and analytics
    within the Federal Crop Insurance Program, by bringing together
    disparate data to identify and combat fraudulent claims, the
    agencies have saved the American taxpayers approximately $838
    million in improper pay outs from 2001 to 2011, with cost
    avoidance estimated at $1.5 billion.
        Another example is the U.S. Transportation Command. The
    Legacy information systems used by Transportation Command
    limited the visibility to historic and current shipment and
    arrival detail.
        Today, data from 33 different systems is integrated to
    improve decisions with near real time visibility across the
    Department of Defense.
        A final example is the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid
    Services and the CMS Data Dashboards. Completed within five
    weeks, the initial Dashboard was launched early because among
    other reasons, the historical claim data was housed in a single
    system.
        With many organizations seeing tremendous benefit, a
    logical next question is how do we motivate more Government
    agencies to adopt big analytics?
        In that respect, Mr. Chairman, the timing of this hearing
    could not be better. Teradata strongly supports H.R. 3339 and
    respectfully requests Congress to pass this legislation.
        Not only would this legislation improve cost effective
    delivery of essential services to millions of Americans, but it
    would also create a stepping stone for other Government
    agencies to understand and acquire the benefits of big
    analytics.
        Consider the lessons from Moneyball. If analytics can
    change a hundred year sport like baseball, think of the
    possibilities for Government.
        Once again, Mr. Chairman, thank you for your continued
    leadership on this issue, and Teradata stands ready to support
    you and your colleagues.
        Thank you.
        [The prepared statement of Mr. McDonald follows:]

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        Chairman DAVIS. Thank you very much, Mr. McDonald.
        Mr. Pryde?

      STATEMENT OF CAMPBELL PRYDE, PRESIDENT AND CHIEF EXECUTIVE
                            OFFICER, XBRL US

        Mr. PRYDE. Chairman Davis, Ranking Member Doggett, and
    Members of the Subcommittee, thank you for inviting me here to
    discuss the use of standards to improve Government reporting.
        I am Campbell Pryde, President and CEO of XBRL U.S., a non-
    profit organization established to support the implementation
    of standardized business reporting by Government and business
    through marketplace collaboration.
        I applaud you and the other Members of Congress who are
    striving to make Government more effective and efficient by
    using data standards.
        I will briefly discuss one such standard, the Extensible
    Business Reporting Language or XBRL.
        XBRL is a data standard that is used to communicate
    financial and performance related data by both business and
    Government.
        The objective of XBRL is to enable compatibility and
    comparison of the data that is being standardized.
        Shipping containers are an useful analogy to demonstrate
    the importance of data compatibility. The standard shipping
    container revolutionized the way that products were transported
    from the manufacturer to the consumer. It increased the speed
    of delivering products to market and reduced perishable waste.
    It reduced transfer costs between ships, trucks and rail.
        No longer did it separate products, have to be manually
    loaded onto trucks, reset onto ships, and off loaded onto
    trains.
        This also drastically reduced loss through theft.
        It ultimately changed the design of ships and trains to
    accommodate the new shipping containers allowing both ships and
    trains to carry far more cargo.
        Finally, it reduced storage costs because cargo is moved
    more quickly and it can be stacked at storage facilities.
        All of these gains were the result of developing a global
    standard for shipping containers. The manufacturers, the
    shipping companies and the transportation companies realized
    that they could drastically reduce handling costs with a simple
    standardized solution that was compatible between trucks,
    trains and ships.
        Today's management of financial reporting data in
    Government resembles the transport industry before the
    introduction of the shipping container.
        The implementation of data standards such as XBRL can
    improve the speed, reduce the transfer costs between systems,
    allow more data to be moved and reduce storage costs by
    allowing storage in one format.
        In addition to compatibility, data standards also
    facilitate the comparison of data. By standardizing financial
    and performance data, it can be quickly compared. This allows
    data to be easily aggregated and disaggregated, giving the
    users the ability to disaggregate or drill down into
    information, providing improved transparency and the ability to
    compare, for example, the relative performance of recipients of
    Federal funds.
        It is important, however, that everyone uses the same
    standard. Standards, just like electrical plugs, are
    standardized within countries, but unlike the shipping
    container, the electrical plug standard is not global. This
    lack of standardization requires the need for adapters and
    transformers to use the same product across countries.
        The use of different data standards across agencies will
    result in the same problem.
        Some recent legislation has suggested the use of XML as a
    reporting standard. XML is a flexible data standard that like
    electrical plugs can use different formats to deliver
    electricity, or in this case, information.
        Allowing agencies to use their own variants of XML to
    communicate financial reporting data will result in data
    compatibility issues between agencies and will minimize the
    ability of taxpayers or policy makers to efficiently analyze
    such information.
        XBRL is a specific data standard and ensures that reported
    financial information is compatible and comparable across all
    agencies.
        Moreover, XBRL eliminates the need for adapters or
    transformers to transfer the comparable financial data between
    users.
        Standards like XBRL will ensure that financial and
    performance information can be transported in a cost effective
    and timely way from creation through to analysis.
        This will enable you as policy makers to monitor and track
    Government spending as well as use up to date financial
    information to make appropriate future allocation decisions.
        It will also allow the Federal, state and local agencies
    and other recipients of Federal funds to analyze how those
    funds are used.
        Most importantly, using data standards like XBRL to
    communicate this information will reduce costs, increase speed,
    increase transparency, and increase the effectiveness of
    taxpayer dollars spent.
        XBRL U.S. has vast experience and expertise in XBRL
    development through our work with the SEC and the FDIC. We are
    ready and available to help Congress and those in the Federal
    and interested state agencies in this important initiative.
        Thank you again for having us here today, and I look
    forward to answering your questions.
        [The prepared statement of Mr. Pryde follows:]

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        Chairman DAVIS. Thank you very much, Mr. Pryde. I
    appreciate all of your testimony. We appreciate your
    perspectives on this important topic.
        Before we move to questions, I would also like to insert a
    letter from the Kentucky Society of CPAs into the record,
    without objection, so ordered.
        [The information follows: The Honorable Geoff Davis]

    [GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

        Chairman DAVIS. When we started this data standards effort,
    it was based on a question about what was going on in programs
    under the jurisdiction of the Committee.
        For me, from a personal perspective, to give you an idea,
    coming from the private sector, working with data integration
    in a retail business to business environment, early in the
    standardization with electronic data transfer, before the
    Internet fully stood up, and then saw the beginning of that
    coming in, I sat down with the Subcommittee and I asked a
    question as the new Chairman, how do I get a cost rule up?
        For those in the audience who might not be familiar with
    that, the idea of saying if I take what would be called a
    ``vendor master,'' similar to what the gentlewoman, Ms. Roy,
    from NIEM talked about with data matching across standards,
    trying to find out exactly if we had the means of understanding
    who was on all of what programs with one given record, similar
    to some of the initiatives Mr. Doar is taking.
        The answer was that we cannot do that. That literally was
    the genesis moment from years of discussion about data
    standardization to move forward and talk about this.
        I appreciate all of you being here. We knew there was a lot
    of program overlap within our programs that creates additional
    cost in overhead, takes away taxpayer dollars, and does not
    help beneficiaries.
        We also knew there were serious questions about program
    effectiveness that current data could not successfully answer,
    especially when there are multiple programs that are involved,
    and the data standardization effort that we put in place will
    eventually get us to the point of being able to address these
    questions and concerns, we believe.
        So far, we have made considerable progress with child
    welfare, with Temporary Assistance to Needy Families, with
    Unemployment Insurance, and hopefully soon, child support
    enforcement.
        However, if we are going to take a beneficiary-centered
    approach to better using data standards in the administration
    of public benefit programs, it needs to be the most complete
    view, and that probably means programs outside the jurisdiction
    of this Subcommittee, like food stamps, Medicaid, housing,
    Medicare and Social Security.
        Mr. Doar, I will start with you. As we look to expand this
    effort, from your experience, what human service programs
    should we seek to include in this effort?
        Mr. DOAR. Well, the one we struggle with the most is
    schools. Those may be beyond your jurisdiction.
        Chairman DAVIS. We would be glad to bring that under the
    jurisdiction.
        Mr. DOAR. The data concerning children in the New York City
    Public School system is very firm. They are not participating,
    and they feel constrained, that they cannot participate.
        I think data concerning enrollment and what is happening in
    schools would be good for us in social services and it would be
    good for them in education.
        That would be the area that we are most frustrated by at
    this point.
        Child support enforcement is great. We have food stamps. We
    have Medicaid. We have cash assistance. We have housing.
        The one that we struggle with is schools.
        Chairman DAVIS. I appreciate your perspective. My wife and
    I have volunteered with kids and families on the edge for over
    25 years.
        The one consistency, particularly now, is our oldest
    daughter is a school teacher dealing with at-risk children, and
    I am sure it is the same phenomenon in New York as in our small
    little part of the world, moving to multiple schools sometimes
    within a year, even within the schools, they cannot share
    information about the kids which creates a real educational
    challenge as well, not to mention the lack of connectivity.
        Ms. Zielinskie, your organization works primarily with
    seniors, correct?
        Ms. ZIELINSKIE. That is correct.
        Chairman DAVIS. What are the most common combinations of
    programs that seniors are usually eligible for but they may not
    receive?
        Ms. ZIELINSKIE. Sure. To help seniors reach and maintain
    economic security, we really need to look at housing, health
    care, and basic living costs.
        Obviously, housing is the biggest indicator of whether or
    not an individual will be able to reach and maintain economic
    security. That would also include heat assistance or LIHEAP.
        Second, we talk about health care. Obviously, if we take a
    look at poverty among seniors and actually include health care
    costs in that calculation, millions of seniors are in poverty
    and struggling to meet their health care costs.
        In addition, there is also the cost of food.
        Combining those programs as we take a look at helping low
    income seniors in America is critical.
        Chairman DAVIS. Mr. Doar or Ms. Zielinskie, either one, is
    there certain program data that you wish you had that could
    further streamline your organization's efforts?
        Ms. ZIELINSKIE. Yes.
        Mr. DOAR. In my case, the other area that is a constraint
    is the Social Security Administration. While a lot of what we
    have done with HHS-Connect was limited because some data we get
    is a result of previously established matches with the Social
    Security Administration, and to the extent that we got data
    from them through a match, there are very strong prohibitions
    against our ability to share what they gave us outside our
    area.
        That is a problem. That leads HHS-Connect to not be
    complete, so a worker could look and see if there is any
    information, but could not be sure that by it not being there
    on a particular case that it is not there somewhere, if we got
    it from SSA.
        That would be another area where this initiative could be
    even more successful if that kind of Federal guidance allowed
    us to go in that direction.
        Chairman DAVIS. Thank you. Ms. Zielinskie, briefly.
        Ms. ZIELINSKIE. Sure. That being said, I think the Medicare
    Improvement for Patients and Providers Act or commonly known as
    MIPPA, has made great strides in how Social Security and the
    Low Income Subsidy data has been able to be shared with the
    states.
        I think when you start talking about challenges relating to
    access points of which data is available, it gets down to
    talking with states and lawyers about what is able to be shared
    and how it can be used.
        It is not necessarily the data set so much it is an
    opportunity for access. Obviously, Medicaid is going to be the
    most telling in terms of if we are really talking about
    reaching the poorest individuals to receive support.
        It is more about guidance around how different agencies,
    business and community partners can share data while also
    protecting an individual's privacy rights.
        Chairman DAVIS. Great.
        Mr. DOAR. Mr. Chairman, can I just add also, when we put
    Medicaid data on HHS-Connect, we only put the fact that they
    are eligible or receiving, they are a Medicaid recipient.
        Claims data is also very strictly limited in our ability to
    share. In many contexts, particularly with very vulnerable
    people, people who are high users of Medicaid, knowing the
    extent to which they are taking advantage of Medicaid provider
    services and those services are being claimed on their behalf
    would be very helpful in both limiting costs and getting better
    care.
        Chairman DAVIS. I appreciate the perspective that both of
    you have shared. I would say we met early on with the Inspector
    General, the Social Security Administration, and I think in all
    of the agencies we met with, the leadership understands the
    importance of sharing.
        There may be some issues that have to be addressed
    statutorily that would legitimately protect privacy but allow
    enscripted data be shared with those who are receiving the
    service as well. That will be a continued discussion as this
    implementation moves forward.
        With that, I would like to recognize the gentleman from
    Washington State, the former Chairman of this Subcommittee, Mr.
    McDermott, for five minutes.
        Mr. MCDERMOTT. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I want to commend
    Mr. Davis. We are going to miss you because this issue of data
    is a huge problem.
        I go back to the days in the State of Washington when we
    tried to put welfare/mental health data on a database so that
    when a mental patient showed up in this clinic and then showed
    up in that hospital, then showed up across the state, we would
    have some way of someone knowing what had happened before. We
    ran into all kinds of problems.
        I also have spent a lot of time in trying to get data in
    the military medical system and the Veterans Administration
    medical system to talk to one another.
        You have a proprietary system in the military that does not
    talk to the publicly developed system in the VA.
        A guy gets blasted in Afghanistan and gets put out of the
    Army and into the VA, his medical records--if you go to the
    hospital in Seattle, the doctors are sitting there with two
    computers. One with the military system and one with the VA
    system. It is absolutely insane.
        This data thing, it would make better health care, it would
    make better all of our social systems, so I commend Mr. Davis
    for bringing this.
        What I am interested in, Ms. Zielinskie, is this. You are
    talking Pennsylvania. How wide across the country, does your
    organization work in other states doing this, or are there
    agencies in all the 50 states? How is it working to use this,
    what you are trying to do is looking for people eligible for
    benefits.
        Ms. ZIELINSKIE. Correct.
        Mr. MCDERMOTT. You are using whatever data system. Tell me
    what is going on in the rest of the country. You are our only
    window into the 50.
        Ms. ZIELINSKIE. Thank you. Thank you for the question.
        We have actually been able to conduct outreach nationally,
    and we have been able to conduct outreach in other states in
    addition to Pennsylvania and are exploring opportunities in
    some of our partner states.
        I think to your point, different states have different
    make-ups or the puzzle of how their data sits. The information
    that we seek to gain access to is not terribly deep.
        It is very possible to pull automated files once you start
    getting to the right data folks that are in the different state
    departments.
        It crosses agencies and the landscapes are different, so
    where food stamps sits and where Medicaid sits--how it is set
    up in New York City is not necessarily how it is set up in
    Pennsylvania or Virginia or New Mexico.
        Mr. MCDERMOTT. Let me ask a question, a specific question.
    It is an issue you brought up, which is one that has troubled
    me because of this Committee.
        You have the people who have had middle class experience,
    and they lose their job, and 99 weeks later, they come to the
    end of that and they have nothing.
        Ms. ZIELINSKIE. Yes.
        Mr. MCDERMOTT. They have no idea of the social service
    system, number one. Number two, they are too embarrassed to go
    over to the welfare office and see if they qualify or wherever
    you have to go on this food stamp stuff.
        How does it work for states trying to find those people or
    most states just saying if we do not hear about it, we do not
    need to worry about it? How are they dealing with the 99er's
    who are out there eating into their 401(k)'s to keep a house
    but are eligible for food stamps?
        Ms. ZIELINSKIE. I think there is a wide variety in what
    different states are doing. I do not have necessarily that
    information here, but would be more than happy to get back to
    you about other efforts.
        I know there are a lot of other national advocacy
    organizations engaged in talking about 99er's.
        To your point, about 45 percent of the folks that we help
    with the unemployment insurance exhaustee outreach project are
    over the age of 50. Exactly what you are saying--they are
    spending down their small nest egg. They never thought they
    were going to be in the situation that they have found
    themselves in. These are the individuals that are in great risk
    of foreclosure.
        How it all connects is very integrated. I almost pulled a
    quote of an individual who is an MBA, and for two years, he has
    been searching for a job. It was a challenge for him to
    overcome the stigma and pride and call us. Obviously he is a
    hard worker if he was able to get an MBA--and now all of a
    sudden he is in need. Overcoming that stigma is something that
    I think illustrates how important it is to not only think about
    data in terms of fraud and creating efficiencies, but also that
    it is absolutely critical to think about it in terms of how we
    can help folks that are teetering on falling into poverty.
        Mr. DOAR. I would just add the programs that we run in New
    York City are well known to the populous. There is lots of
    promotional activities that go on. Food stamps, USDA is running
    advertisements promoting food stamp benefits.
        The number of people who take advantage of these benefits
    are quite large now in the City, food stamps and Medicaid
    particularly.
        In the case that you talk about, people who exhausted
    unemployment insurance tend to turn to health insurance, public
    health insurance first, and perhaps food stamp benefits, and
    then last, TANF.
        The other thing is that in New York City, the Mayor
    continues to have an expectation that people who are struggling
    should work and personal responsibility matters.
        We have to be careful about the extent to which we are
    overly promoting the receipt of public assistance as a
    substitute for personal responsibility and employment.
        Mr. MCDERMOTT. Could I ask one more question?
        Chairman DAVIS. Briefly, yes.
        Mr. MCDERMOTT. Yesterday, we eliminated the Social Services
    Block Grant. How much of that comes to your Department and what
    is it used for?
        Mr. DOAR. Well, at HRA, the Adult Protective Services
    Program is a program that serves our most, most vulnerable
    populations. We have about 9,000 people who have been
    determined unable to care for themselves in any way.
        That is a program we are going to have to run, and people
    are going to have to serve, 75 percent of the funding for that
    program in HRA comes from the Federal Government.
        To the extent that we get less SSBG money for Adult
    Protective Services, the Mayor will have to make up the
    difference, and that is a fiscal burden on us, and it is not a
    population we can neglect, it is a particularly vulnerable
    population.
        I think from the Mayor's perspective, if he had a choice of
    Federal programs that are in need of reduction, that might not
    be the first one, particularly as it affects Adult Protective
    Services.
        Mr. MCDERMOTT. Thank you.
        Chairman DAVIS. The gentleman's time has expired. The Chair
    now recognizes Mr. Paulsen from Minnesota for five minutes.
        Mr. PAULSEN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. To the panel, there
    was recently an announcement for this year's Human Services IT
    Conference, it is called ISM, and the announcement listed
    sessions on the usual new service delivery models, emerging
    technologies, and general best practices.
        What caught my eye and drew a little bit of attention, I
    think, was the session description that said this ``The era of
    big data has arrived at ISM. State and Federal agencies are
    looking to advanced data analytic capabilities, improvement
    predictive modeling, to reveal patterns of behaviors and
    outcomes that were previously buried in mountains of data. ISM
    2012 Data Analytic Sessions show how big data can turn into big
    discoveries.''
        Mr. McDonald, how are big analytic efforts different than
    what our agencies are doing now, and do you agree this is what
    agencies should be doing in the future? Is this the direction
    to go?
        What is the difference between data and data analytics
    today versus 30 years ago?
        Mr. MCDONALD. Sure. The answer is yes. I think what is
    happening is the amount of data is doubling extremely fast,
    just from traditional organic data.
        With all the new digital data that is being created and
    leveraged across the different agencies, you can imagine the
    data that they are having to wrestle with is overwhelming.
        You really have to start looking at instituting business
    rules and analytics to help mine that data based upon the kinds
    of goals that you set and the outcomes you want to get, and
    more importantly, how do you push that out to the front line
    Government workers so they are able to make decisions more
    quickly on things that cross in front of them.
        I would say today people are overwhelmed with data and we
    have to use technology to take that overwhelming aspect out of
    it and try to give them the actions they should take based upon
    what is sitting in front of them, and again, whether it is
    private corporations or Government agencies, they are all
    struggling with this.
        I would say what has happened is the amount of data has
    changed over the past 30 years, but more importantly, the
    complexity of it has changed as well.
        As you talk about this unstructured to big data, it really
    is marrying up new data types with traditional data types which
    says you have to understand how to read and integrate both, but
    more importantly, take that confusion out of it, simplify it,
    and give people on the front lines the types of activities and
    actions they should take based upon what rules you set in place
    and the outcomes you want to get.
        Mr. PAULSEN. Let me ask this for the rest of the panel
    because we are going to find a lot of information obviously in
    these mountains of data that are out there.
        Ms. Zielinskie, I think in your testimony you mentioned
    that we are going to be able to connect individuals to
    benefits, they may not have been getting these benefits before,
    we are going to be able to tie that together.
        How about the converse? Will we be able to make strives
    down the road to make sure only, for instance, people that are
    eligible for programs like low income people that are able to
    get welfare benefits get those benefits, that programs that
    require work activity, can we ensure that actually happens?
        Can we tie the data in that fashion to make sure we are
    going to see some progressive results there?
        Ms. ZIELINSKIE. I think there is absolutely opportunity to
    be comprehensive in how we use data. We certainly do not want
    to have people who are not eligible for these programs
    receiving them.
        That being said, we want to make sure that people who are
    eligible are able to access them so they can get themselves out
    of poverty and to self sufficiency.
        Certainly there are accuracy components of using data. If
    we look at, for example, SNAP in Pennsylvania, there is a
    payment accuracy challenge of one-tenth of one percent. There
    is a fraud issue of one-tenth of one percent.
        I think that it is critical that when we are talking about
    data that we do not just talk about it in the frame of fraud.
    We also talk about it in terms of making sure we are helping
    the right people in a comprehensive way so they can get out of
    poverty.
        Mr. PAULSEN. Mr. Doar, in terms of waste, fraud and abuse?
        Mr. DOAR. Yes, we absolutely see the benefits of this kind
    of sharing of data to see the inconsistencies in income
    reporting and work status and household status that would allow
    us to be sure our programs are being expended correctly.
        The most exciting use of big data from our standpoint in
    the City is the potential use to identify households where
    there is a potential child welfare issue in the future.
        You could use data to find what are risk factors in advance
    of unfortunate circumstances happening.
        That is where I think right now we are trying to find what
    tells a child welfare protective services worker, what do they
    need to know that would lead them to say this is a more
    potentially at risk family than another family, so we can
    prevent tragedies from occurring.
        Mr. PAULSEN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back.
        Chairman DAVIS. I thank the gentleman. The Chair now
    recognizes Mr. Berg from North Dakota for five minutes.
        Mr. BERG. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I am not sure exactly
    where to start, but it keeps coming back to me that nothing
    measured gets managed, and I think out there, nothing that is
    measured, it will not get managed unless it is measured, but it
    will not get managed unless it is looked at.
        That is what I cringe at, just the mountain of information,
    a lot of really great information that would really help us as
    policy makers make decisions when we get to the point where we
    are going to make decisions.
        I am looking at kind of the big picture. My question really
    relates to standardization. Again, kind of boiling this down,
    we are going to look at a program and we make a big effort to
    really look at that program, but within our scope, there are so
    many other programs that affect that individual that is within
    that program, and yet we are just kind of looking at that
    program somewhat in isolation.
        We are looking at this international child support law and
    what it is doing. One of the things we are looking at there is
    tapping into the National Directory of New Hire's.
        We are kind of looking at that as a way to expedite a lot
    of information and hopefully lower the cost of a lot of these
    programs. That information will be right there.
        I think that is ultimately what we want to do, have some
    uniformity and make sure we are delivering those very
    efficiently and cost effectively.
        Maybe it is kind of a bigger question, but the question is
    how would standardization help us when we are reviewing and
    evaluating programs?
        Is it worth the effort to move towards standardization
    because that benefit is going to be there?
        It is kind of a question for each member of the panel.
        Mr. DOAR. It would absolutely help us. One of the theories
    of the post-welfare reform world was that we have a combination
    of programs that can serve as work supports. We want to know if
    people are working and taking advantage of SNAP, public health
    insurance, perhaps other forms of assistance.
        It is good to know how those programs work together for an
    individual client, and whether they work together, for how
    many.
        The analytical opportunities that we can see if we get
    greater standardization across programs so we can know who is a
    multiple program user and who is not and why not.
        I absolutely agree about the National New Hire's database.
    I come from the child support program. It is a tremendous
    resource and has greater potential than it is currently being
    used for.
        There is no question that standardization will allow us to
    see not just how these programs work by themselves, but how
    they work in concert with other programs and with employment,
    which is I think what we are all trying to do.
        Ms. ZIELINSKIE. Thank you for the question. The primary
    focus of our work has been on older Americans. There has been
    great work done with the Elder Index, which does exactly what
    you are talking about.
        I think absolutely standardization around what an
    individual needs to reach and maintain economic security is
    critical, as we explore how to support our older Americans.
        That being said, we also need to take into consideration
    that the cost of living in New York City, for example, is
    probably different than in North Dakota.
        Mr. BERG. Some parts of North Dakota get pretty expensive.
        Mr. ZIELINSKIE. The Elder Index does that. Wider
    Opportunities for Women and the National Council on Aging are
    also engaged in a lot of work around economic security for
    older Americans.
        I guess a caution as we look at standardization is that it
    is critical to also need to look at the environment in which
    those individuals are trying to thrive.
        Mr. MCDONALD. I would just add that I think the
    standardization has to be the starting point for trying to take
    this complexity out of the programs and agencies and the
    investment in that will reduce the amount of future investment
    that you have to deploy on programs for them to be able to
    share information and get value out of that information, both
    from a cost savings standpoint, but more importantly, how to
    reallocate it to the right programs and the right missions.
        I think it is just fundamentally the right place to start.
        Mr. PRYDE. I think one of the advantages is you do not get
    the data stuck in separate systems. If everyone is using a
    different system, there is no way these systems can talk to
    each other. If we have standards across an agency or among
    agencies, one system can talk to another seamlessly.
        I can request some information, that request can go down to
    all those systems and pull it on the fly, which is not the case
    where you have different computer screens to log into each
    different system.
        Mr. BERG. Thank you. I will yield back, Mr. Chairman.
        Chairman DAVIS. I thank the gentleman. The Chair now
    recognizes Dr. Boustany from Louisiana for five minutes.
        Mr. BOUSTANY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Under our
    Subcommittee's jurisdiction, we have two programs, SSI and
    Unemployment Insurance, that both have been deemed high-error
    programs by the Office of Management and Budget.
        In fact, in fiscal year 2011 alone, they combined to
    account for $18.3 billion in improper payments.
        Mr. McDonald, I read through your testimony and you had a
    lot of detail in there referencing the work that you all have
    done in Michigan with regard to fraudulent child support.
        I would like you to elaborate for the Committee a little
    more about that work and what steps could we take at the
    Federal level to implement some of your best practices?
        Mr. MCDONALD. Sure. I think what the State of Michigan
    decided to do was build a platform that integrated its
    information across all their different programs.
        They knew by doing so they would not only provide better
    customer satisfaction to those people that are using the
    programs, but they would link that information to find fraud
    and abuse, and then take that extra money and apply it back to
    those programs that were under funded.
        Think about the simplicity if I come and get a new driver's
    license but I have not been paying my child support, instantly,
    you are able to connect those two, and start trying to recoup
    those benefits, right?
        Just the simplicity of connecting different programs and
    agencies' information gives you that instant insight of first,
    being a better provider to those taxpayers, but secondarily,
    catching fraud at the moment it happens instead of having to
    wait a year later to determine if we have been over paying or
    under paying in certain areas.
        I think it is very common practice on the business side and
    I think it is now becoming an opportunity in the Government to
    start looking at that same benefit they can reap by
    consolidating the data, standardizing the data, and giving
    access and interoperability to the different agencies in a
    quick fashion, so they can catch things both proactively and
    defensively.
        Mr. BOUSTANY. Thank you. At a time when we know we have a
    number of duplicative programs with a lot of overlap and we are
    dealing with budgetary problems, looking at the effectiveness
    of these programs is critically important.
        It seems to me what you just described would also help us
    in our oversight role, sort of paring down, figuring out how to
    most efficiently use those resources.
        Mr. MCDONALD. I would agree. I think too often people ask
    about how much money do you need, and I think not enough is put
    into what will be the impact or return of that investment.
        In most cases, what we are seeing, especially like the
    State of Michigan, they spent a few million dollars, but they
    got $15 for every dollar they invested.
        Who would not like that formula for investing, to try to
    take costs out and return that money back, right?
        As you can see, understanding the impact, but also everyone
    now operates under a similar fashion. Whether you are Bank of
    America or CMS, in reality, projects are 12 month based, they
    are program based, you have to spend money and see that return
    in a quick fashion, but you have to have a view as to where am
    I going to be in three years, am I incrementally improving the
    overall process versus this program approach and a 12 month
    approach.
        Mr. BOUSTANY. Thank you. From the time the first set of
    data standards were included in the child welfare programs to
    the next iteration of TANF and Unemployment programs, the
    language went from suggesting a standard like XBRL to
    suggesting XML.
        Some of the concerns that were expressed was that XBRL was
    too expensive or too complicated to implement, and the feedback
    we received was that we should only recommend that the agencies
    implement XML.
        Mr. Pryde, could you respond to those criticisms for us? Is
    it too complicated or too expensive?
        Mr. PRYDE. It depends on what you are trying to do. XBRL is
    specifically designed for reporting financial and performance
    data. It is not designed for reporting information like
    biometric information or information on human resources cases.
    It is specifically done for financial reporting.
        To use XBRL for sharing information about a child's
    condition or operational issues, XBRL would not be appropriate
    in that case. It would be silly to do that.
        There are other standards that would be more appropriate in
    those cases.
        However, if you are going to report financial reporting
    information like how much is this agency spending, how much are
    we spending on this program, what period are we spending it,
    how much is wasted and what is the cost, et cetera, then XBRL
    is an appropriate standard to use.
        If you ask that question, let's use XBRL to standardize
    every single piece of data, yes, that would be correct, it
    would not be appropriate to do that.
        Mr. BOUSTANY. I thank you. Mr. Chairman, I yield back.
        Chairman DAVIS. I thank the gentleman. The Chair now
    recognizes Mr. Reed from New York for five minutes.
        Mr. REED. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you again to the
    witnesses on the second panel.
        Being from New York, I want to spend a little time with my
    fellow New Yorker here.
        If we could, I am very interested. I read your testimony,
    in particular, pages six and seven, talking about the lessons
    you learned as you implemented the programs in your agency in
    New York City.
        I want to kind of delve into a little bit more detail as to
    what you could offer us from your experience in implementing
    that, in particular, and also the interaction you referenced,
    the problem with Social Security numbers, the Social Security
    Administration.
        Obviously, they are such a large agency with tons of data
    that needs to be part of this conversation, in my opinion.
        I am very interested in your point of view on what lessons
    you learned that we can learn here in Washington, D.C.
        Mr. DOAR. Well, one of the lessons we learned is that the
    direction from the top had to be emphatic, that the lawyers had
    to do everything they possibly could and be as imaginative and
    as persistent in trying to make legal and appropriate, not
    inappropriate, arguments for allowing the sharing of data.
        Bureaucracies, as I think the previous panel mentioned, are
    inherently narrow and afraid, and afraid of doing something
    that someone may say in rare circumstances it was wrong or not
    consistent with policy.
        That was a very important lesson. We really pushed our
    lawyers to really think creatively and set up the process where
    those agencies that received data had to sign a form with the
    commissioners committed to enforcing confidentiality and
    security rules on employees that violated them, and to report
    back to the giving agency so that we were consistent.
        We had an advantage in New York State, social services is
    governed by sort of an umbrella agency, and that is mine, so I
    could delegate to sister agencies the role of being social
    services and in a social services' purpose.
        One lesson is to get the lawyers and the mayors, chief
    executives' position be very strongly felt that this was
    something we were going to try hard to do.
        Social Security Administration data is data we use now in
    certain programs. We use it based on established agreements
    with SSA that have taken a long time to be established, that
    have allowed us to get data.
        Their prohibitions against sharing of that data are very
    firm. One of the things our lawyers had to do was not allow
    that data from that source to be used in the way that we wanted
    to, and that is a problem that we think we would like to work
    on nationally.
        Also, there are HIPAA requirements involving the sharing of
    Medicaid or health data, which we basically agree with. This is
    private data. This is something that should not be shared
    inappropriately.
        Claims data as opposed to just being on Medicaid, but
    actually just how much is being expended on the client in
    Medicaid and where is strictly prohibited, so we do not share
    that, and that is a problem, which we think we could make
    greater work with this if we had that available to our sister
    agencies and to ourselves in a way that it could be used.
        Finally, we would constantly come up to situations--I am on
    a taskforce that looks at the gap between African American
    children and white children in schools.
        We know that exists. Education wants us to work with them
    on that, and we want to work with them on that, but we do not
    share any data.
        We do not know about the use of public assistance within
    schools by children and they do not know it either. In both
    cases, I think it would be useful.
        Those are the frustrations that have occurred. It required
    real work. It required somebody holding the bureaucratic narrow
    individual agencies accountable, and it ran into some barriers
    we just could not get through with regard to sharing data.
        Mr. REED. I appreciate that. Mr. McDonald, from your
    experience in the private sector, if we leave SSA out of this
    conversation and do not really focus on that, do you see a
    problem, how that could impact the development of
    standardization across the agencies?
        It is such a large agency and such a large amount of data.
    I just want to know from your perspective, would that work in
    the private sector?
        Mr. MCDONALD. I think in the private sector, they have come
    to realize the importance of standardization across
    corporations. I think through the evolution of how they have
    gone through mergers, acquisitions and growth, they have all
    had to realize that unless we standardize on whether it is
    financial data, product data, or customer data, how will they
    be able to roll these companies and report on that.
        I think no matter the size, there are enterprises bigger
    than many of the agencies that have done that.
        Is it doable? Yes. Is it required? Yes. I think it is a
    matter of putting the energy and the standards behind it that
    says let's adopt this.
        I think what you will see is once you start, five years
    from now you will say why did we not do that ten years ago.
        It is just a matter of making that first step and getting
    everyone committed to this is what we have to do to get to
    where we want to be, so let's stop talking about it.
        Mr. REED. I appreciate that. With that, my time is expired.
    I yield back.
        Chairman DAVIS. I thank the gentleman from New York. I just
    have to tell you the little huddle that was going on over here
    in the early part of Mr. Reed's question, your testimony has
    inspired two of our subcommittee members to come up with
    another piece of legislation to compliment what we are doing
    for data sharing on the health care side, our two doctors on
    the Subcommittee.
        As we wrap up, I would like to ask one final question. It
    is open to all to comment. I would like to start first with Mr.
    Pryde, then with Mr. McDonald, on this issue of analytics and
    standards.
        I am going to preface this by saying coming into Government
    from a world dealing with implementations, focusing on internal
    rate of return, and the idea that I can make an investment and
    know, particularly for those of you who have all dealt with
    what you might call a return on information, a dollar spent on
    information improvement can usually return itself 15, 20 or 50
    times what was spent in improvements of efficiency, throughput,
    the agility to respond to unique customer needs because of that
    access to information.
        Unfortunately, the Congressional Budget Office is trapped
    in another era and focuses on static rather than dynamic
    scoring, which is our issue to address in looking at the value
    of this.
        Speaking of value, I would appreciate it if Mr. Pryde could
    talk a little bit about the importance of standards. I am very
    familiar with XBRL, not from a programming standpoint, but one
    of the very first pieces of legislation that I introduced, the
    Transparency and Financial Reporting Act back in 2005, was
    directly built around the idea of using things like XBRL and
    XML to harmonize processes, bring best practices to the SEC and
    other related organizations, with financial services
    accountability.
        Also, frankly, to offset some of the huge compliance costs
    imposed with Legacy systems and Sarbanes-Oxley.
        I was wondering if you could comment on the value that
    comes in terms of pay back by the implementation of these kinds
    of common standards, and then the analytics that would come
    from some real world examples.
        I am quite open to the private sector since the Government
    is generally a lagging indicator of what is happening out in
    the country.
        Mr. PRYDE. Sure. We recently issued a white paper covering
    how much Government reporting that is required by companies. We
    can make that available to the Committee.
        It kind of backs up what Ms. Roy was saying, where 80
    percent of the information was repeated information that they
    were reporting to different agencies, so you get a massive
    amount of duplication in data because no one is sharing the
    data, there is no way of sharing it. You get significant
    efficiencies through that.
        In addition, there was an implementation that was carried
    out by the FDIC five years ago to collect call report data.
    This information was called call report data, because they had
    to go around and call everyone when they submitted the data
    incorrectly.
        With XBRL, they could check the data on submission, that
    reduced all the manual costs that were involved in checking on
    the data and getting it correct.
        A lot of this stuff, once you standardize it, you have
    created a platform for automation. Everything can be automated.
        For example, every SEC filing that is filed with the SEC we
    analyze. We run 12,000 checks on it. We find out so much
    information about these companies which was impossible to do
    before in an automated way.
        We have this information go back to companies, go back to
    the auditors. You end up in an era where you create layers of
    things that you could never dream of doing before, which can
    save massive amounts of costs and can completely make redundant
    very time-consuming and manual processes that you had in the
    past.
        Mr. MCDONALD. I would just add that if you think about it,
    without the standards, even if you got everyone to agree that
    they wanted to track return on investment or the IRR for
    programs or whatever the right metrics are, without the
    standardization, it is still going to be tough to measure the
    effectiveness and how they are calculating it. They are all
    using different methods.
        We have a couple of customers that have gone on record, the
    State of Michigan, and they have advertised that they save over
    $1 million a day. That does not mean they are not spending the
    money back on the programs, but think about the effectiveness
    of a state saving $1 million a day and reinvesting that back
    into their programs.
        It is through this investment and the technology to put it
    all together, set standards, and be able to share this
    information.
        If I save $1 million in one department, I give it to
    another department, and they are effectively better utilizing
    that cash and that investment.
        They in effect are making, like you said, 15/25 percent
    back on that investment.
        We have had other customers like AT&T who say with our
    analytic platform, we saved $1 billion over a ten year period.
    You ask them, were these big things. They said no, it is little
    things.
        It was hundreds of thousands of little things that the
    front line workers were able to see and solve or fix in a quick
    manner that allowed AT&T to use those advance analytics, which
    get deployed across the way, it is operationalized in all of
    their operations, to save them $1 billion.
        Again, that possibility is capable here for the Federal
    Government as well.
        Ms. ZIELINSKIE. Using standardized data can have many
    positive impacts. It can help people who need services in a
    most comprehensive fashion; it can help reduce costs by being
    able to determine eligibility cost-effectively; and it can help
    in administering services as efficiently as possible, and
    evaluating programs in terms of true value.
        I look forward to working with all of you to figure out how
    we can prove this and really have a paradigm shift, so talking
    about data and how we deliver services and embracing the power
    of the data that the Government has is not innovation but
    rather the norm in terms of how we do business.
        Chairman DAVIS. Thank you. Just as a case in point, since I
    am married to a Bronx girl, Mr. Doar will get to have the last
    word.
        Mr. DOAR. Thank you very much. I am from Brooklyn but we
    love the Bronx.
        When the Deputy Mayor started the project with the Mayor's
    endorsement, we had an ROI all the way through it. When we were
    talking to our partners in the technology industries, we were
    very clear that we are going to make an investment here with
    your firm or this operation, but we want to see it returned
    more so to the taxpayers and to our outcomes.
        The key benefit was time and energy. We are reducing costs
    of staff by sharing information. We believe that is happening.
        You should also know that part of the return on investment
    that the City sees is the extent to which Federal claiming
    sources are maximized.
        There is a part of this that involves making sure that
    everybody who should be getting Medicaid or should be getting
    food stamps does, and that will lead to greater cost across the
    Federal Government.
        Chairman DAVIS. Thank you very much. I appreciate all of
    you taking the time to come in and share from various parts of
    the country.
        It has been very helpful. I believe this may not be an
    issue that brings in crowds of people and emotional activists
    on either end of the spectrum, but I am admonished to the old
    baseball rule that baseball is a pretty easy game, it is just
    throwing and catching and hitting, and in business, it is these
    basic building blocks that will make the difference in the long
    run.
        I believe that what we are all discussing here today is at
    the foundation of transforming our Government in the 21st
    Century to be something that all Americans can be proud of.
        If members have additional questions, they are going to
    submit them to you directly. What I would request is that you
    submit your answers back to the Committee as well so we can get
    them into the record so all have access to that.
        With that, thank you again. Thank you to our guests and
    Committee members, and with that, we stand adjourned.
        [Whereupon, at 12:26 p.m., the Subcommittee was adjourned.]
                       Member Submissions For The Record
                           The Honorable Geoff Davis

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                          Questions For The Record

                     The Honorable Geoff Davis to Mr. Pryde

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                 The Honorable Geoff Davis to Mr. Sheldon

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                         Submissions for the Record

                                Steven D. Harris

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