[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 145 (1999), Part 19]
[House]
[Page 27708]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]



               DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION CANNOT BE AUDITED

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Washington (Mr. Metcalf) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. METCALF. Mr. Speaker, today the Department of Education cannot 
produce the required paperwork to allow their financial books to be 
audited by the General Accounting Office, the GAO. It is the only 
department that has not been audited for fiscal year 1998.
  The Federal Department of Education is responsible for distributing 
$120 billion a year in education spending. Unfortunately, it does not 
know where all that money is going. It is unacceptable that the 
Department of Education cannot account for how billions of dollars 
intended for institutes are being spent.
  Yet, rather than looking at these issues, the Department has claimed 
that, as a result of a less than 1 percent reduction in their budget, 
they will have to cut funding for education programs because they say 
there is no waste in their agency.
  I am convinced that we can find savings and solutions in the 
Department of Education and make sure that taxpayer dollars are used as 
they were intended, to help kids learn, not on bureaucratic mix-up or 
faulty computer systems. But until the Department of Education is 
willing to work to find out how they spend all our money, we cannot be 
sure how much waste is occurring or how much we can more effectively 
spend taxpayer dollars.
  How does anyone explain how a Federal department is unauditable? The 
only worst case I have ever heard about than this one is in 1995, 1996 
the IRS could not account for about $4 billion. They just could not 
account for it. They just lost it or misplaced it, I guess.
  The Republican Congress wants to take a different approach to 
education, flexibility in return for strong accountability, the 
opportunity for parents, teachers, and schools to spend money the way 
they choose in return for proving that students are learning.
  We have asked the GAO to look at some of the Department's accounting 
practices to make sure that every dollar that should be going to the 
classroom students is actually getting there to the local districts and 
classrooms.
  I hope that the President and Secretary Riley will work with us to 
make sure that every Federal education dollar is spent wisely and is 
used to help children learn, not spent on red tape or bureaucratic 
mistakes.
  The first step in making sure that the Department of Education's 
books are auditable is that we know where the money is going. I hope 
Secretary Riley will do everything he can to make sure this happens as 
soon as possible.

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