Congressional Oversight: Opportunities to Address Risks, Reduce Costs,
and Improve Performance (Testimony, 02/17/2000, GAO/T-AIMD-00-96).

Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO discussed the budget and
oversight challenges facing the federal government, focusing on ways to:
(1) address activities at risk of fraud, waste, abuse, and
mismanagement; (2) improve the economy and efficiency of federal
operations; (3) reassess what the federal government does; and (4)
redefine the beneficiaries of federal government programs.

GAO noted that: (1) in selecting priorities for oversight, major
attention should be given to addressing the vulnerability of many
critical federal programs and operations to the risk of fraud, waste,
abuse, and mismanagement; (2) over the years, GAO's work has shown that
central functions and programs critical to personal and national
security, ranging from Medicare to weapons acquisitions, have been
hampered by daunting financial and program management problems; (3)
these problems result in persistent exposure of these activities to
waste and abuse; (4) these weaknesses have real consequences with large
stakes that are important and visible to many Americans; (5) some of the
problems involve the waste or improper use of scarce federal resources;
(6) federal funds are diverted from their intended uses or
beneficiaries, revenues owed are not effectively identified or
collected, or excessive inventories and procurement costs drive federal
costs higher than they need to be for some areas; (7) high-risk areas
and improper payment problems reflect deeply rooted weaknesses in
federal financial and program management, as well as more fundamental
tensions associated with conflicting statutory goals and complex program
delivery systems and mechanisms; (8) the government's financial systems
are all too often unable to perform the most rudimentary bookkeeping for
federal entities, many of which are engaged in financial transactions
whose magnitude, complexity, and risk exceeds those of large private
companies; (9) weaknesses in underlying financial systems make agencies
vulnerable by undermining their ability to safeguard assets, account for
appropriated resources, or measure the costs of their activities; (10)
effective congressional oversight can improve performance accountability
and financial integrity of existing programs by addressing the delivery
strategies and structures used to implement federal programs; (11)
addressing high-risk activities and pursuing opportunities to improve
economy and efficiencies in government operations can yield significant
improvements and cost savings and, hence, should be important targets
for congressional oversight; (12) Congress originally defines the
intended audience for any program or service based on a certain
perception of eligibility and need; and (13) to better reflect changing
conditions and target limited resources, these definitions should be
periodically reviewed and revised.

--------------------------- Indexing Terms -----------------------------

 REPORTNUM:  T-AIMD-00-96
     TITLE:  Congressional Oversight: Opportunities to Address Risks,
	     Reduce Costs, and Improve Performance
      DATE:  02/17/2000
   SUBJECT:  Financial management
	     Balanced budgets
	     Congressional oversight
	     Cost control
	     Productivity in government
	     Performance measures
	     Accountability
	     Internal controls
	     Federal aid programs
	     Eligibility criteria
IDENTIFIER:  Medicare Program
	     Social Security Program
	     Earned Income Tax Credit
	     Community Development Block Grant
	     FEMA Public Assistance Program
	     FEMA National Flood Insurance Program
	     Medicare Fee-for-Service Program
	     Medicare Choice Program
	     HHS Operation Restore Trust

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   * For Release on Delivery
     Expected at
   * 10 a.m.

Thursday,

February 17, 2000

GAO/T-AIMD-00-96

congressional oversight

Opportunities to Address Risks, Reduce Costs, and Improve Performance

        Statement of David M. Walker

Comptroller General of the United States

Testimony

Before the Committee on the Budget, House of Representatives

United States General Accounting Office

GAO

I appreciate the opportunity to be here this morning to discuss our views on
targets of opportunities that you and other members of the Congress can
consider when addressing the budget and oversight challenges before you. The
Committee is to be commended for holding these hearings and emphasizing
that-surplus or no surplus-poor performance, waste, and inefficiency cannot
be ignored. No matter how large the projected surpluses may be, they do not
absolve the government of its responsibility to make prudent use of taxpayer
dollars. Rather, the surplus provides an opportunity to rise out of the 1-,
3-, or 5-year budget horizons of recent deficit debates and to focus on how
to restore the public's trust and confidence in their government.

After a decade of deficit reduction, we know there are pent-up demands for
using projected surpluses. However, if careful scrutiny is given only to new
spending or tax proposals, policymakers will have missed a critical window
to address known performance problems in government. Left unresolved, these
problems can expose federal programs and operations to unnecessary risk,
excessive costs, and chronic performance shortfalls. Resolving some of these
problems offers the potential to save billions of dollars and dramatically
improve the delivery of services to the American public. For instance, nine
federal agencies estimated improper payments of $19.1 billion for fiscal
year 1998 and we continue to highlight 26 major areas as being highly
vulnerable to fraud, waste, abuse, and mismanagement.

These persistent problems suggest that we cannot afford to be any less
vigilant in our attention to programs at high risk of fraud, waste, abuse,
and mismanagement in a time of surplus. In fact, it is our obligation to
safeguard benefits for those that deserve them by preventing the diversion
of scarce federal resources for inappropriate, unauthorized, or illegal
purposes. The activities that GAO has identified as high-risk areas warrant
vigilant and persistent oversight and attention by executive agencies and
the Congress alike. Significant opportunities exist to reduce waste and
improve the economy and efficiency of federal activities in other areas as
well, as I will discuss in my statement today.

Mr. Chairman, we also have an obligation to modernize government to more
effectively address the needs of a changing society. As we enter a new
century, we have been reminded about how much things change. Yet many of our
programs-their goals, organizations, and processes-were designed long ago.
Given this context, it shouldn't be insulting or threatening to any federal
program or activity to question its relevance or "fit" in today's world. In
fact, it is wholly appropriate and prudent to do so.

Examining the legacy of existing activities and programs can yield important
benefits. First, we can provide for much needed flexibility to address
looming cost pressures and emerging needs by weeding out wasteful and
inefficient programs that have proven to be outdated and no longer relevant
to our changing society. As the baby boom retires, enhancing budgetary
flexibility will be even more critical as the projected growth of Social
Security and health care outlays threaten to crowd out other priorities.
Second, we can update and modernize those activities that remain relevant by
improving their targeting and efficiency through such actions as redesigning
formulas, enhancing cost sharing by beneficiaries, consolidating facilities
and programs, and streamlining and reengineering operations and activities.

All of our work reaffirms that with billions of dollars at risk and
notwithstanding our current budget surplus environment, the Congress and
federal agencies need to devote sustained attention to oversight and
reexamination of existing programs and activities to improve the performance
of government and reduce the potential for fraud, waste, abuse, and
mismanagement. Let me hasten to add that federal agencies have taken the
high-risk areas seriously and are making progress in addressing them, and
the Congress has also acted to provide oversight and needed legislative
changes. However, more needs to be done by executive agencies and the
Congress to accelerate progress. Many of these problems are deeply rooted
and complex. Although plans have been conceived to address many of these
issues, the more difficult implementation task of successfully translating
those plans into day-to-day management reality lies ahead for many of these
areas. Vigilant congressional oversight will be absolutely critical to
promoting and sustaining a high level focus on these problems and support
for appropriate actions to address them.

Mr. Chairman, I don't need to tell you that sorting through existing
programs is a serious, if often unglamorous, task that is nonetheless vital.
This task is made particularly difficult because existing programs and
commitments are "in the base" in budgetary terms and can have an advantage
over new initiatives and demands.

In my testimony today I draw on the full breadth of GAO work to highlight
numerous examples of significant performance problems in federal agencies
and programs, each drawn from the key findings and issues developed in our
audits and evaluations. To facilitate our discussion, the examples are
organized around the following four broad themes:

   * Attack activities at risk of fraud, waste, abuse, and mismanagement:
     focus on minimizing risks and costs associated with the delivery of
     major federal programs and activities.
   * Improve the economy and efficiency of federal operations: capture
     opportunities to reduce costs through restructuring and streamlining
     federal activities.
   * Reassess what the federal government does: reconsider whether to
     terminate or revise outdated programs or services provided.
   * Redefine the beneficiaries of federal government programs: reconsider
     who is eligible for, pays for, and/or benefits from a particular
     program to maximize federal investments.

Attacking Activities at Risk of Fraud, Waste, Abuse, and Mismanagement

These weaknesses have real consequences with large stakes that are important
and visible to many Americans. Some of the problems involve the waste or
improper use of scarce federal resources: federal funds are diverted from
their intended uses or beneficiaries, revenues owed are not effectively
identified or collected, or excessive inventories and procurement costs
drive federal costs higher than they need to be for some areas. Other
problems compromise the ability of the federal government to deliver
critically needed services: systemic information management weaknesses
undermine the nation's ability to modernize our technology for tax
processing, airline safety, and weather forecasting; and systemic
procurement problems hamper the development of weapons systems and the
cleanup of hazardous wastes at DOE sites. Perhaps of greatest importance is
the impact of these problems on our ability to safeguard critical assets and
operations from theft and misuse, whether it is critical national security
information or private tax return information.

Areas at High Risk and Programs Vulnerable to Improper Payments

Table 1: 1999 High-Risk Areas and The Year Designated a
 Reducing Inordinate Program Management Risks
 Medicare                                                        1990
 Supplemental Security Income                                    1997
 Internal Revenue Service (IRS) Tax Filing Fraud                 1995
 Department of Defense (DOD) Infrastructure Management           1997
 Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Programs      1994
 Student Financial Aid Programs                                  1990
 Farm Loan Programs                                              1990
 Asset Forfeiture Programs                                       1990
 The 2000 Census                                                 1997

 Managing Large Procurement Operations More Efficiently
 DOD Inventory Management                                        1990
 DOD Weapon Systems Acquisition                                  1990
 DOD Contract Management                                         1992
 Department of Energy Contract Management                        1990
 Superfund Contract Management                                   1990
 National Aeronautical and Space Administration Contract
 Management                                                      1990

 Ensuring Major Technology Investments Improve Services
 Air Traffic Control Modernization                               1995
 Tax Systems Modernization                                       1995
 National Weather Service Modernization                          1995
 DOD Systems Development and Modernization Efforts               1995

 Providing Basic Financial Accountability
 DOD Financial Management                                        1995
 Forest Service Financial Management                             1999

 Federal Aviation Administration Financial Management            1999
 IRS Financial Management                                        1995
 IRS Receivables                                                 1990

 Resolving Serious Information Security Weaknesses               1997

a Note: Our most recent update to the high-risk list in January 1999 also
included "Addressing the Urgent Year 2000 Computing Challenge." Given the
progress that has been made on this issue, we have not included it in this
summary table. See Year 2000 Computing Challenge: Leadership and
Partnerships Result in Limited Rollover Disruptions (GAO/T-AIMD-00-70, Jan.
27, 2000).

The high-risk areas shown in table 1 as well as other improper payments
reflect serious and continuing problems with financial, information, and
program management across many federal functions and agencies. Collectively,
these areas affect almost all of the government's annual
$1.7 trillion in revenue and span critical government programs and
operations from benefit programs to large lending operations, major military
and civilian agency contracting, and defense infrastructure. Lasting
solutions to these problems offer the potential to save billions of dollars,
dramatically improve services to the public, and strengthen confidence in
the accountability and performance of the national government.

In these areas, more needs to be done to achieve real and sustained
improvements. GAO has made many recommendations to address and correct these
problems. However, these problems will take time to fully resolve because
they reflect deep-rooted, difficult problems in very large programs and
organizations. Real improvements in performance and management will require
persistent and sustained attention, and some areas may in fact need targeted
and well-chosen investments in systems and human capital in order to achieve
recurring savings.

I will now turn to a discussion of selected areas, which illustrate the
problems facing us, and the need for increased and sustained congressional
oversight and management attention.

Medicare

With annual payments of about $200 billion, Medicare is one of the fastest
growing major social programs in the federal budget and is projected to
almost double its size in the next 10 years alone. With responsibility for
financing health care delivered by hundreds of thousands of providers on
behalf of tens of millions of beneficiaries, Medicare is inherently
vulnerable to fraud, waste, and abuse. The program has proven to be a
perpetually attractive target for exploitation, requiring constant vigilance
and increasingly sophisticated approaches to protect the system from
wrongdoing and abuse.

The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has begun to identify
improper payments in its financial statements for the $176 billion Medicare
Fee-for-Service program. Spotlighting the program's payment of claims has
led to a number of actions to help prevent improper payments. Between fiscal
years 1996 and 1998, the estimated total of payments made in error in this
program dropped from $23.2 billion to $12.6 billion. The reductions in
erroneous payments were attributable largely to better claims documentation
by providers rather than a reduction in improper billing practices. The HHS
Inspector General's methodology was not designed to identify or measure the
full extent of fraud and abuse in the Medicare program or to detect all
fraudulent schemes such as kickbacks or false claims for services not
provided.

Problems with abuse partly stem from the program's oversight structure. The
Health Care Financing Administration (HCFA) delegates the review of claims
to its contractors, yet its oversight of these contractors does not provide
assurance that claims are paid appropriately. HCFA's contractors have
allowed Medicare to pay claims that should have been paid by other insurers
and have engaged in other prohibited practices such as falsifying claims and
reports to HCFA.
 Medicare Contractor Problems

 In 1998, a major Medicare contractor settled a claim for $140 million and
 pled guilty to eight felony counts because it was alleged to have

    * allowed Medicare claims payments that should have been paid by
      private insurance,
    * destroyed Medicare claims that should have been submitted by another
      contractor,
    * periodically disconnected the required toll-free phone lines used for
      beneficiary inquiries,
    * automatically paid claims under $50, without checking whether
      services were uncovered or unnecessary,
    * rushed claims through its processing system, shutting off computer
      edits designed to screen claims, and
    * deleted, instead of suspending for review, claims with incorrect
      claim numbers

HCFA has taken steps to address management problems, but they remain
hampered by financial management and information systems weaknesses.
Moreover, the agency is limited by statute from increasing competition among
contractors to enhance performance. For instance, the agency cannot choose
nonhealth insurance companies to process outpatient physician and other
practitioners' claims and is constrained to using contractors nominated by
providers to process inpatient hospital and other institutional provider
claims.

Medicare has also proven to be vulnerable to fraud by career criminal and
organized crime groups posing as health care providers. These groups created
sham medical clinics or other entities or used the names of legitimate
providers to bill for services not provided or not medically necessary.
 Medicare Fraud: "Rent-a-Patient" Scheme

 In two South Florida cases, recruiters organized thousands of
 beneficiaries from, among other places, retirement communities and drove
 them to area clinics for rote examinations and unnecessary testing and
 treatment. Recruiters received a fee that they shared with each
 beneficiary. Beneficiaries understood that they should go elsewhere if
 they needed a "real doctor." Several licensed physicians participated in
 the scheme, in which they signed medical records for services they neither
 performed nor supervised. The clinics then billed Medicare and Medicaid or
 private insurance for services either not necessary or not performed. In
 one of the two cases, the clinics filed over $120 million in fraudulent
 Medicare claims and $1.5 million in fraudulent Medicaid claims.

Besides managing the fee-for-service program, HCFA has been grappling with
the challenge of implementing the new managed care program-Medicare+Choice.
Although the new program is premised on providing expanded choice to
consumers, HCFA cannot ensure that the information provided to beneficiaries
is timely, accurate, complete, or comparable or that beneficiaries receive
the benefits to which they are entitled. For instance, one plan provided a
drug benefit substantially less generous than what the plan had originally
agreed to furnish, denying about 130,000 Medicare beneficiaries part of the
benefit that Medicare paid for under the contract.

Strengthening business practices, controls, and oversight can mitigate
program risks. Numerous initiatives are underway that promise to make
progress. For instance, the HHS Inspector General and other federal and
state agencies have banded together to fight fraud in five states in an
effort called Operation Restore Trust. After the first year of operation,
the effort yielded more than $40 million in recoveries of payments for
claims that were not allowed under Medicare rules, as well as convictions
for fraud, imposition of civil monetary penalties, and the exclusion of
providers from the program. Over the long term, techniques developed by
Operation Restore Trust will be applied in all 50 states. Moreover, 1996
legislation provided HCFA with increased funding for program safeguard
activities, such as pre- and post-review of medical claims and fraud
investigation units. These activities historically return more than $10 in
savings for each dollar spent. Clearly more needs to be done, but HCFA's use
of financial statements and performance targets shows how appropriate
management attention can help in measuring the extent and addressing the
causes of improper payments.

Related program design problems further complicate Medicare service delivery
and make costs more difficult to control. The following are two
illustrations.

   * Medicare payments for medical equipment and supplies may not reflect
     market prices when providers' costs for some procedures, equipment, and
     supplies have declined over time due to competition and increased
     efficiency. For example, Medicare payments for such items as walkers,
     catheters, and glucose test strips are based on supplier charges
     allowed in 1986 and 1987; prices for these items have dropped
     significantly since that time. The agency also does not have an
     effective system to know the specific products it is paying for. HCFA
     requires suppliers to identify on Medicare claims HCFA billing
     codes-most of which cover a broad range of products of various types,
     qualities, and market prices-rather than the specific items billed. For
     example, one Medicare billing code is used for more than 200 different
     urological catheters, even though some of these catheters sell at a
     fraction of the price of others billed under the same code. We have
     recommended that HCFA require suppliers to identify specific items by
     including universal product numbers on claims forms.
   * Efforts to control Medicare home health care spending need to be
     designed such that payment levels are adequate and that appropriate
     benefits are being provided. Between 1990 and 1997, Medicare spending
     for home health care rose at an annual rate of 25.2 percent, making it
     one of Medicare's fastest growing benefits. By 1997, home health care
     consumed about $1 of every $11 of Medicare outlays, or about
     $17.8 billion. To begin to control spending, the Balanced Budget Act of
     1997 mandated a prospective payment system (PPS), which will be
     implemented on October 1, 2000. The PPS will pay a fixed,
     pre-determined rate for each 60-day episode of care. The rate will be
     varied by a case-mix adjustment method that aims to adequately pay for
     patients with high services needs, yet not overpay for others with
     lower needs. Designing this mechanism requires detailed information,
     some of which is not yet available, about services and beneficiary
     characteristics. Currently, there are large unexplained variations in
     patients' needs and services provided. Until necessary information on
     home health standards is available and the large variations in home
     health use are better understood, placing limits on the profits that
     agencies can earn under the new PPS will prevent Medicare from paying
     excessively for services delivered to beneficiaries. If the PPS rate is
     set too high relative to the actual cost of providing services, a
     profit limit would prevent a windfall from occurring for some home
     health agencies.

Supplemental Security Income

Supplemental Security Income (SSI) is the largest cash assistance program
for the poor. In 1998, about 6.5 million SSI recipients received more than
$29 billion in benefits. Concern about the SSI program's vulnerability to
fraud, waste, abuse, and mismanagement has increased congressional interest
in ensuring that the SSI program focuses on individuals who have limited
resources with which to meet their needs and that, to the extent possible,
individuals rely on their own resources before turning to the SSI program
for support.

Since its inception in 1974, the SSI program has been fraught with problems.
These enduring management challenges-including program abuses and
mismanagement, increasing SSI overpayments, and an inability to recover
outstanding debt-continue. In fiscal year 1998 current and former recipients
owed the Social Security Administration (SSA) more than $3.3
billion-including over $1 billion in newly detected overpayments for that
year. Prior experience suggests that SSA is likely to recover about 15
percent of all outstanding overpayments. As we reported in prior work, SSI
represents less than 8 percent of SSA's program expenditures but 37 percent
of the calls to the fraud hotline and 24 percent of fraud convictions.
 SSI Fraud and Abuse Problems

    * SSA has estimated that overpayments to recipients in nursing homes
      may exceed $100 million per year.
    * In 1998, we reported that about $648 million in SSI overpayments
      occurred because clients did not disclose their earnings or financial
      account information.
    * In 1996 SSI erroneously paid $5 million to 3,000 current and former
      prisoners in 13 county and local jails because the incarceration was
      not reported to SSA.
    * Between 1990 and 1994, about 3,500 SSI recipients admitted
      transferring ownership of resources such as cars, cash, houses, and
      land valued at an estimated $74 million in order to qualify for
      benefits.
    * Medical providers suspected of defrauding health insurance companies,
      Medicare, or Medicaid furnished a portion of the supporting medical
      evidence for 6 percent of 208,000 SSI disabled recipients in six
      states that we examined.

SSA has taken steps to improve the financial integrity of the SSI system.
For instance, to identify illegal use of benefits by prisoners, incentive
payments have been provided to correctional institutions for information on
inmate benefits. In December 1999, the Foster Care Independence Act of 1999
was enacted and now provides SSA with several additional tools to improve
program performance and integrity. These tools include the authority to
obtain applicant income and resource information from financial
institutions, access state databases for essential eligibility information,
impose a period of ineligibility for applicants who transfer assets in order
to qualify for SSI benefits, and use credit bureaus, private collection
agencies, interest levies, and other means to recover delinquent debt. The
act's provisions respond to many of our prior recommendations.

To a large extent, many of the problems facing the SSI program are the
result of more than 20 years of inattention to payment controls. Although
many of the changes enacted by the Congress or implemented internally by SSA
should result in improvements, additional changes will be necessary to
reduce the vulnerability of the program to waste, fraud, abuse, and
mismanagement. Much of the problem has its source in an organizational
culture that treats the SSI welfare program much the same way as its "earned
benefit" programs, disability insurance and old age and survivors insurance.
As a result, program staff have focused more on quickly processing claims
than on controlling program expenditures and verifying eligibility. For
instance, the agency's work credit measurement system rewards cases
processed, not verification of eligibility and attention to fraud and abuse.
Continued congressional oversight and top management commitment will be
necessary to ensure that the agency diligently implements the new tools
provided for in the Foster Care Independence Act of 1999. The agency has
been proven reluctant to use some tools provided by the Congress in the
past; for example, they received authority to do tax refund offsets in 1984
to recover overpayments but just started using it in 1998.

SSA should also continue to work with the Congress in addressing other
vulnerable areas not directly addressed in the legislation. For example, SSA
should move forward in developing options for addressing complex SSI living
arrangement and in-kind support and maintenance policies, which our prior
work has found to be a major source of SSI overpayments. Consistent with our
recent report recommendation, SSA should also intensify its efforts to
identify and track suspicious medical providers and other middlemen who
abuse the SSI program. This information could help SSA identify claims that
should receive increased scrutiny and better target its investigations of
current beneficiaries to determine if they should be removed from the
program.

Other Improper Payments

Mr. Chairman, many other federal programs in addition to Medicare and SSI
are vulnerable to improper payments. I would like to highlight for you today
a recent report we issued which addresses a number of specific programmatic
weaknesses brought to light in our high-risk series and in agency financial
statement audits. We noted that fiscal year 1998 financial statement reports
from nine agencies reported estimated improper payments of $19.1
billion-including $14.9 billion in improperly paid expenses and an
additional $4.2 billion of receivables that these agencies expect to
collect. These estimates related to 17 federal programs that expended $870
billion. The programs and related improper payment estimates include the
following.

   * Medicare Fee-for-Service ($12.6 billion),
   * Supplemental Security Income ($1.6 billion),
   * Food Stamps ($1.4 billion),
   * Old Age and Survivors Insurance ($1.2 billion),
   * Disability Insurance ($941 million),
   * Housing subsidies ($857 million), and
   * Veterans Benefits, Unemployment Insurance, and others ($514 million).

GAO and agency inspectors general have identified many instances of fraud
and internal control deficiencies which can lead to improper payments among
these and other programs. Improper payments can arise from erroneous
payments to beneficiaries as well as fraudulent or abusive practices by
providers of services.

 Improper Payment Problems

 HUD assisted housing - A minister conspired with a real estate agent to
 defraud federal housing officials. The minister made false statements in
 applying for a $5.4 million HUD-insured mortgage for Bethel Village, a
 failed project of a religious affiliation to build an assisted living
 retirement development. The false statements included a letter, with the
 forged signature of the affiliation general secretary, that was sent to
 federal housing officials guaranteeing $750,000 in conventional funding
 for the project in order to obtain FHA mortgage insurance for the loan.
 (Source: Department of Housing and Urban Development, Office of Inspector
 General Semiannual Report to the Congress, Apr. 1, 1999-Sept. 30, 1999)

 Food Stamps - 147 out of 230 statistically selected Food Stamp
 participants whose social security numbers appeared in more than one state
 received food stamp benefits in more than one state simultaneously. This
 resulted in food stamp overissuances of $43,000 for this group. In another
 case, from 1993 through 1998, a Cleveland, Ohio, grocer organized the
 illegal redemption of $8.6 million in food stamps for himself and other
 Cleveland area grocers. (Source: U.S. Department of Agriculture, Office of
 Inspector General Semiannual Report to the Congress, Apr. 1, 1999-Sept.
 30, 1999)

 Veterans benefits - The spouse of a veteran, who had been collecting
 disability benefits for injuries sustained during his military service,
 failed to report her husband's death in 1983. VA benefits continued to be
 sent in the husband's name for more than 15 years. The widow converted
 more than $243,000 of her deceased husband's benefit payments for her own
 use. VA computer records discovered this case eventually. (Source:
 Department of Veterans Affairs, Office of the Inspector General,
 Semiannual Report to the Congress, Apr. 1, 1999-Sept. 30, 1999)

 Social security benefits - A husband and wife embezzled Social Security
 benefits intended for the wife's deceased parents whose deaths were not
 reported to the Social Security Administration. Benefits of $100,357
 continued to be paid into the deceased couple's bank account. After their
 deaths, the daughter and her husband assumed the identities of the
 deceased parents and continued to access the funds for their own uses.
 (Source: Social Security Administration, Office of the Inspector General,
 Report to the Congress Oct. 1, 1998-Sept. 30, 1999, as incorporated in the
 Social Security Accountability Report for Fiscal Year 1999)

While financial statement disclosures draw attention to the need to address
this problem, the amount of improper payments is greater than that disclosed
thus far in agency financial statements. Audit reports from GAO and agency
inspectors general have identified other agencies that have made improper
payments but did not include estimates in their financial statements. For
the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) program, in fiscal year 1998 when IRS
examined a subset of returns with suspected EITC errors, it found that over
two-thirds were invalid. This subset was not generalizable to all EITC
claimants and IRS' financial statements did not contain any estimate of EITC
error rates for the universe of returns claiming the credit.

In some cases, information is insufficient to provide systematic estimates
of improper payments for other important programs. For instance, HHS has not
estimated improper payments for the Medicaid program, which had $108 billion
in federal outlays for fiscal year 1999. However, in recent work, we have
concluded that the size and structure of this program makes it inherently
vulnerable to exploitation. As a third-party payer, Medicaid reimburses for
services provided by others and cannot, as a practical matter, police each
claim for reimbursement. The program relies on providers, some of whom have
incentives to exploit third-party payers like Medicaid, and program
administrators, who are sometimes reluctant to impose controls perceived as
burdensome for fear of discouraging provider participation. Common Medicaid
fraud and abuse schemes fall into three broad groups: improper billing
practices, misrepresentations of professional qualifications, and improper
business practices such as kickbacks, self-referrals, or collusion.
 Medicaid Fraud and Abuse Problems

 Billing Fraud - A psychiatrist operated a "psychotherapy mill" where
 parents were enticed to enroll their children in "free" enrichment
 programs such as after-school tutoring, field trips, and supervised
 recreation in exchange for their children's Medicaid numbers. The
 psychiatrist then billed Medicaid for services not provided. In concert
 with another doctor, Medicaid was fraudulently charged $421,000. The
 defendants pled guilty, paid fines and restitution, and received
 probation. (Source: Georgia State Health Care Fraud Control Unit)

 Misrepresentation - A woman who never attended, graduated, or received a
 degree from a nursing school, presented a false nursing license to several
 nursing homes that employed her for at least 5 years. Her substandard care
 prompted an investigation, which led to her conviction of felony Medicaid
 fraud and other charges. She was sentenced to probation and either
 restitution or community service. (Source: Ohio Attorney General's Health
 Care Fraud Section)

 Business practices fraud - Claims submitted by two businessmen netted $10
 million in excess Medicaid payments related to phony contracts with
 nursing homes to a shell company. They were both imprisoned and fined, and
 the pair agreed to restitution of $6 million to the state Medicaid
 program. (Source: Georgia State Health Care Fraud Control Unit)

Illicit diversion of Medicaid covered prescription drugs has proven to be a
chronic problem. Such diversion can involve pharmacists who routinely add
drugs to legitimate prescriptions and keep the extra for sale to others;
individuals who provide recipients with abusable drugs in exchange for
subsequent illicit use of their Medicaid recipient numbers; and clinics that
provide inappropriate prescriptions to Medicaid recipients who trade them
for cash or merchandise or have them filled and then sell the drugs
themselves on the street. The Congress could encourage HHS to increase its
efforts as a partner with states to ensure that states' efforts to prevent
and detect fraud in the Medicaid program are as effective as possible.
 Medicaid Prescription Drug Fraud Problems

 A criminal ring that included a doctor and others bilked the New Jersey
 Medicaid program out of hundreds of thousands of dollars. One scheme
 involved (1) doctors who wrote bogus prescriptions to Medicaid recipients
 in exchange for cash payments, (2) other recipients who served as the drug
 "buyers," purchasing drugs using their own or false Medicaid cards and
 then selling them back to the ring, and (3) "runners" who brought the
 pills to a stash house for "packagers" who boxed the pills for resale to
 pharmacists in New York and New Jersey. The pharmacists would then use the
 repackaged pills to restock inventory. Sales of the drugs in New York
 yielded the ring $30,000 or more in cash on a single trip. This case was
 the first health care fraud case prosecuted under New Jersey's
 racketeering statute-one of a number of steps the state has taken to
 prevent fraud against Medicaid, Medicare, and private insurance.

With billions of dollars at risk, agencies need to continually and closely
safeguard resources entrusted to them and assign a high priority to reducing
improper payments. The incidence of improper payments can be reduced by
strengthening business practices and developing targets or goals for
mitigating the problem. A first step for some agencies involves the
development of reliable estimates and reporting of the nature and extent of
improper payments. Without this fundamental knowledge, agencies cannot be
fully informed about their magnitude or trends, nor can they systematically
pinpoint or target mitigation strategies. We noted in this report that it
was through the discipline of annual audited financial statements and the
development of performance goals-key components of the management reforms
prompted by the Chief Financial Officers Act and the Government Performance
and Results Act-that some agencies are taking steps to mitigate the risk of
improper payments.

HUD Programs

In 1994, we designated HUD programs as a high-risk area because our work,
and that of others, such as the HUD Inspector General, had identified four
serious, longstanding, departmentwide management problems that, taken
together, placed the integrity and accountability of HUD's programs at high
risk. These deficiencies included weak internal controls, an ineffective
organizational structure, an insufficient mix of staff with the proper
skills, and inadequate information and financial management systems. We
concluded that, while HUD had efforts underway to address the numerous and
severe problems impacting program management, billions of dollars across
most of the agency's programs were at risk.

Since 1995, we have reported that HUD has taken a number of actions to
address its management deficiencies and has made credible progress towards
improving its management. For example, the department improved its financial
reporting to the extent that its Inspector General was able to provide
qualified opinions on its financial statements for fiscal years 1996 and
1997 and an unqualified opinion for fiscal year 1998. In 1999, we noted that
HUD's Secretary and leadership team have given top priority to addressing
the department's management deficiencies. A major contributor to HUD's
progress was the June 1997 2020 Management Reform Plan, which called for
reducing the number of programs, retraining staff, reorganizing the field
offices, consolidating processes and functions into specialized centers, and
modernizing and integrating information and financial management systems.
However, in 1999 we also noted that internal control weaknesses-such as
inadequate monitoring of contractors, developers, and other agents
implementing HUD programs-and problems with information and financial
management systems-such as inaccurate and untimely data-persisted. And, we
reported it was too soon to tell whether HUD's reforms to address
organizational and staff problems would resolve the major deficiencies that
others and we had identified.

Since then, we have undertaken a number of assignments to examine HUD's
efforts to improve its programs. For example, we have reported that HUD is
likely to spend millions of dollars, miss milestones, and still not meet its
objective of developing and fully deploying an integrated financial
management system because it had not yet finalized detailed project plans or
cost and schedule estimates for this effort. Also, both our office and HUD's
Office of the Inspector General have reported weaknesses in HUD's oversight
of its single-family inventory, which are properties acquired by HUD when
borrowers default on single-family mortgages insured by HUD. In 1998, we
reported that HUD did not have adequate systems in place to oversee
contractors who were responsible for managing its inventory of properties.
Our physical inspection of selected properties identified serious problems
including vandalism, maintenance problems, and safety hazards that may have
decreased marketability, increased HUD's holding costs and, in some cases,
threatened the health and safety of neighbors and potential buyers.

HUD's inventory of properties grew from about 39,000 in 1998 to about 50,000
properties in 1999. In 1999, HUD implemented a new approach to managing its
acquired properties, under which contractors assumed full responsibility for
the inventory. HUD awarded contracts to these contractors totaling $927
million over 5 years and divided the country into 16 contract areas. One
contractor, InTown Management Group, received 7 of the 16 contracts covering
28 states and comprising about 11,000 homes-in other words, almost 40
percent of the total workload.

Because InTown failed to adequately maintain properties or make them
available for sale, HUD was forced to terminate all seven of InTown's
contracts before the end of 1999. InTown filed for bankruptcy, while owing
money to many of its subcontractors and these subcontractors now have filed
liens against properties that InTown was responsible for managing and
marketing. According to an official in HUD's Single-Family Housing Office,
HUD has decided to pay off some of the liens. HUD also has awarded contracts
to dispose of properties in 22 of the 28 states InTown had responsibility
for. According to the Single-Family Housing Official, HUD issued a request
for bids to obtain contractors for the remaining six states and expects to
award these contracts by April 2000. We are presently reviewing the status
of the contracts and HUD's inventory of acquired properties. We will report
the results of our work this spring.

DOD Management

Six of our 26 high-risk areas relate to longstanding DOD management
problems. The department's size, the complexity of its mission, and the
far-flung breadth and scope of its operations present major management
challenges in a number of areas.

Despite recent steps to improve financial management, DOD continues to face
serious weaknesses. These weaknesses undermine DOD's ability to manage an
estimated $280 billion budget and $1 trillion in assets. No major part of
DOD is able to pass the test of an independent financial statement audit.
These continuing financial management problems have real consequences for
program management and resource allocation. For instance, DOD's records do
not consistently reflect the number or location of its inventories and
weapons systems. Auditors reported that DOD's records for F-4 engines and
service craft were unreliable and that on-hand inventory quantities differed
by 23 percent from inventory records at selected locations. These problems
increase the risk that inventory managers may request funds for items that
may already be on hand.

DOD cannot properly account for billions of dollars of basic transactions,
leaving the agency vulnerable to the misuse of appropriated funds. DOD has
not been able to reconcile its records with Treasury's records-with a $9.6
billion difference at the end of fiscal year 1998. Auditors reported that
the Air Force Depot Management Activity-a component of one of the
department's working capital funds-may have obligated $1.1 billion more than
it had available as of September 30, 1998. Also at the end of fiscal year
1998, $4.3 billion in expired budget authority was cancelled, another
possible consequence of this inability to track obligations and
expenditures.

Financial management weaknesses are reflected in DOD's procurement process
where the agency spends more than $100 billion a year contracting for goods
and services. DOD continues to overpay contractors, although the full extent
of overpayments is not known. However, we do know that from fiscal year 1994
through 1998, defense contractors returned about $4.6 billion in
overpayments, an average of about $920 million a year. According to the
Defense Finance and Accounting Services' Columbus Center, contractors
returned about $670 million in fiscal year 1999.
 DOD Contracting Problems

 In a July 1999, study at 13 contractor locations, we found that these
 contractors took about a year, on average, before refunding overpayments
 of $56.2 million. Four of the 13 contractors were retaining overpayments
 totaling about $1.1 million, which they subsequently refunded due to our
 work. Under current law, however, there is no requirement for contractors
 who have been overpaid to notify the government of overpayments or return
 overpayments prior to the government issuing a written demand for their
 return. In response to recommendations we made, DOD said it would amend
 the regulations and contract payment clauses to add a requirement that
 contractors notify the contracting officer when overpayments are
 discovered.

We have identified DOD's management of inventories (spare and repair parts,
clothing, medical supplies, and other items to support the operating forces)
as a high-risk area because levels of inventory were too high and management
systems and procedures were ineffective. Ensuring the accuracy of inventory
requirements, providing adequate visibility over operating materials and
supplies, and reducing the vulnerability of in-transit inventory to waste,
fraud and abuse remain areas of concern. The Congress has enacted
legislation that requires DOD to implement best commercial practices in its
acquisition and distribution of inventory items, and the Secretary of
Defense has identified reengineered business practices as a key component of
the Defense Reform Initiative. While these actions hold promise for the
future, our recent work indicates that general areas of concern still exist.
 DOD Inventory Problems

 In November 1999, we reported that the Air Force did not always cancel
 purchases that exceeded current operating requirements. The Air Force
 canceled contracts for $5.5 million of the $162.4 million excess inventory
 that we reviewed-including such things as thermal insulation tiles for the
 B-2 aircraft and turbine nozzles for the F-110 engine-but it could have
 canceled more. For example, a requirement for a rotor blade used on the
 T-33 engine protected over 4 years of supply, thus preventing an
 additional 13,192 blades from being considered for cancellation.

Lastly, DOD's weapons systems acquisitions exhibit pervasive problems that
lead to wasteful and ineffective systems. The agency spends over
$80 billion annually to research, develop, and acquire weapon systems.
Although DOD has many acquisition reform initiatives in process, key weapon
system problems persist arising from (1) questionable requirements and
solutions that are not the most cost-effective;
(2) unrealistic cost, schedule, and performance estimates; (3) questionable
program affordability; and (4) the use of high-risk acquisition strategies.
Weapon systems acquisitions remains a high-risk area, as indicated by some
of the following examples from our work in the last year.
 DOD Weapons Acquisitions Problems

 The Navy and Air Force plan to acquire 4,200 of the antiarmor Joint
 Standoff Weapon-a medium-range aircraft-delivered missile for attacking
 tanks and other armored vehicles-even though it is not effective against
 moving targets. The Air Force and Navy are implementing acquisition reform
 measures in the development of the Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missile
 that may not achieve their full cost and schedule benefits because of the
 services' historical practice of moving to the next stage of development
 prematurely.

 The Army's Comanche Helicopter development program is being restructured
 for the fifth time in 10 years, due to uncertain and changing requirements
 and unattainable cost and schedule estimates. This latest restructured
 development plan still contains significant risks of further cost
 overruns, schedule delays, and degraded performance.

 The Army procured 6,550 High Mobility Trailers that are not useable or
 suitable because it awarded a multiyear production contract without first
 demonstrating that the design would meet its requirements.

 Although the number of armored targets (e.g., tanks) in current Defense
 plans is 80 percent less than in 1990, the military services plan to spend
 $17 billion to acquire more new and improved antiarmor weapons. This would
 be in addition to the billions spent since the end of the Cold War to
 maintain and improve their large inventory of 40 different types of
 weapons for attacking tanks and other armored vehicles.

These are common examples that are the predictable consequences of the
acquisition environment. The competition for funding when a program is
launched encourages aspiring DOD program managers to include performance
features that rely on immature technologies. In this environment, risks in
the form of ambitious technology advancements and tight cost and schedule
estimates are accepted as necessary for a successful program start. Problems
or indications that the estimates are decaying do not help sustain programs
in later years, and thus admission of them is implicitly discouraged. There
are few rewards for discovering and recognizing potential problems early in
program development. Acquisition reforms underway by DOD have the potential
for improving weapon system outcomes and DOD's leadership is genuinely
committed to making a difference in the status quo. However, lasting
improvements in program outcomes will not come until the incentives that
drive the process are changed. Such changes will have to come in the form of
the decisions made on individual programs.

Student Financial Aid

The Department of Education is responsible for collecting more than $150
billion in outstanding student loans. Its data systems track about 93
million student loans and 15 million grants. In fiscal year 1998 more than
8.5 million students received more than $48 billion in federal student
financial aid through programs administered by the department.

By their very nature these programs are vulnerable to waste, fraud, abuse,
and mismanagement. Not only do they target a high-risk population, but also
the programs have been designed to operate separately with different rules,
processes, and data systems. Further adding to the vulnerability of these
programs is the number of participants-not just millions of students and
thousands of schools, but also thousands of lenders, guaranty agencies,
third-party servicers, and contractors. The federal government bears most of
the risk when students default on loans. Moreover, mismanagement by the
Department of Education exacerbated the potential for abuses-weak
gatekeeping allowed proprietary trade schools with poor educational programs
and high student default rates to remain in the program.

 Student Loan Problems

 The Education Office of Inspector General reported that, between July 1,
 1994, and December 31, 1996, 708 borrowers had loans totaling $3.89
 million discharged because guaranty agencies received a notice of their
 death. These borrowers were reported to have subsequently earned wages.
 For example, in 1997, 367 of these borrowers earned reported wages up to
 $30,000, 191 borrowers between $30,000 and $50,000, and 150 borrowers more
 than $50,000.

 One borrower had student loans of $8,517 forgiven because the guaranty
 agency determined, based on certification by the borrower's doctor, that
 he was totally and permanently disabled for work or school. There was no
 requirement for the agency to verify the borrower's disability or
 employment status with the state's employment agency. However, about 6
 months later, the borrower received the first of four additional student
 loans totaling $9565.

 Between 1996 and 1999, an individual allegedly submitted 37 applications
 falsely claiming enrollment at four schools in Mexico, while he was on
 federal supervised release. (He had previously been convicted of
 defrauding the education program of $160,000 by falsely claiming
 attendance at a foreign medical school.) The 37 applications, which he
 allegedly submitted to four guaranty agencies, resulted in the
 disbursement of $319,680. (Source: U.S. Department of Education, Office of
 Inspector General Semiannual Report to the Congress, No. 39, Apr. 1,
 1999-Sept. 30, 1999)

 Proprietary school owners mailed forged documents to loan servicing
 agencies in an effort to fraudulently reduce their school's student loan
 default rate to remain in the Federal Family Education Loan (FFEL)
 Program. The owners pleaded guilty to mail fraud, student financial aid
 fraud, money laundering and obstruction of justice. The 3-year scheme
 defrauded the Department of Education out of $846,000 while the school
 avoided its eligibility from being terminated. (Source: U.S. Department of
 Education, Office of Inspector General Semiannual Report to Congress, No.
 38, Oct. 1, 1998-Mar. 31, 1999)

Progress has been made. The department has made strides to improve its
management of the program and has worked to effectively screen out schools
with bad default records. Prior to the 1998 Higher Education Act amendments,
students underreporting their income in applying for student aid had a
better chance of never being caught. Over 300 students receiving Pell grants
underreported their adjusted gross income by over $100,000 each.
Fortunately, the 1998 amendments directed Education and IRS to cooperate in
verifying student income, but the effectiveness of this provision will be
largely dependent on how well the two agencies work together. The default
rate has declined from a high of 22.4 percent in fiscal year 1990 to 8.8
percent in fiscal year 1997. Nonetheless, in fiscal year 1997 the federal
government paid out $3.3 billion in defaulted loans.

The Department of Education lacks the financial information necessary to
effectively budget for and manage its student aid programs and needs to work
on improving the accuracy and completeness of its grant payments system. In
addition, its lack of an integrated information management system means
officials often lack accurate, complete, and timely data to manage and
oversee aid programs.

Superfund Management

GAO continues to have three concerns with agencies' management of the
Superfund hazardous waste cleanup program. First, some agencies do not have
a strategy for allocating resources according to risk. Since the Department
of Energy (DOE) does not require facilities to compete for cleanup dollars,
it may fund cleanups addressing a lower risk at one facility while a higher
risk site at another facility goes unfunded. Another agency, the Bureau of
Land Management (BLM), does not have a complete inventory of sites or a
cleanup strategy in place and as a result potential hazards may expose the
public to needless risks. For instance, BLM was not aware of one hazardous
site until a child wandered onto the abandoned manufacturing site, came into
contact with a contaminated rock, and fell ill.

Second, although the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has succeeded in
getting responsible parties to pay for 70 percent of Superfund long-term
cleanups, it has been less successful in recovering its full costs from
parties when it conducts the cleanup. Figure 1 shows the problem.

Figure 1: EPA Could Lose the Chance to Recover Billions It Has Spent on
Superfund (Dollars in billions)

At the end of fiscal year 1998, EPA had agreements to recover only $2.4
billion, about 22 percent, of about $11 billion it had spent on the
Superfund program. EPA's method for calculating indirect costs caused it to
lose the chance to recover $1.9 billion of the $11 billion in settlement
agreements already reached. This problem could lose the agency up to an
additional $1.3 billion in recoveries in cases under negotiation. EPA has
updated the methodology for calculating and recovering indirect costs but
has yet to implement it. The agency estimates that, with this new
methodology, it could recover nearly half of the indirect costs that it
currently excludes from settlements under negotiation.

Finally, EPA also needs to improve its contract management. The agency does
not always negotiate the best contract price for the government. Although
EPA is now using more independent estimating methodologies to help it
negotiate contract prices than in the past, some of its regional staff still
lacked the necessary cost estimating experience and training to help them
negotiate best prices. In addition, EPA has more contract capacity in place
than work available for the contractors. For example, EPA was reluctant to
close out one contractor with high program support costs due to excess staff
and facilities, even though it did not have sufficient cleanup work for the
contractor. EPA has not effectively limited contractors' costs for program
support, such as rent and managers' salaries. In April 1999, we reported
that such costs ranged from 16 to 76 percent of total cleanup costs for new
contracts, exceeding EPA's target of 11 percent. The agency is beginning to
take additional steps to address this problem.

Reducing and Resolving Risk in Federal Programs

Table 2: Audit Opinions for the 24 CFO Agencies' Fiscal Year 1998 Financial
Statements
Qualified audit opinions:Disclaimers:Other:
 Opinons                    Agencies
                            ?Department of Housing and
                            Urban Development

                            ?Department of the
                            Interior

                            ?Department of Labor

                            ?Department of State

                            ?Environmental Protection
                            Agency

                            ?Federal Emergency
 Unqualified audit          Management Agency
 opinions:
                            ?General Services
 The financial statements   Administration
 are reliable in all
 material respects.         ?National Aeronautics and
                            Space Administration

                            ?National Science
                            Foundation

                            ?Nuclear Regulatory
                            Commission

                            ?Small Business
                            Administration

                            ?Social Security
                            Administration

 Except for some item(s),
 which are mentioned in the
 auditor's report, the
 financial statements are
 reliable in all material
 respects.

 ?Department of Energy

 ?Department of the
 Treasury

 ?Department of Veterans
 Affairs

 The auditor does not know
 if the financial
 statements are reliable in
 all material respects.

 ?Department of Defense

 ?Department of Education

 ?Department of Justice     ?Department of Health and
                            Human Services
 ?Department of
 Transportation

 ?U.S. Agency for
 International Development
 ?Department of Commerce                               ?Department of
 received an unqualified                               Agriculture
 opinion on its balance
 sheet and a disclaimer on
 its other financial
 statements.

 ?Office of Personnel
 Management's Retirement
 Program, Life Insurance
 Program, and Health
 Benefits Insurance Program
 received unqualified
 opinions; the Revolving
 Funds and the Salaries and
 Expenses Accounts received
 disclaimers.

Source: Individual agency reports on results of audits of fiscal year 1998
financial statements, as of October 1999.

While audited financial statements are essential to identify serious
financial management problems and to ensure, and provide an annual public
scorecard on, accountability, an unqualified audit opinion is not an end in
itself. The CFO Act is focused on providing accurate, timely, and relevant
financial information needed for management decisionmaking and
accountability, on a systematic basis, throughout the year. Efforts to
obtain reliable year-end data that are not backed up by fundamental
improvements in underlying financial management systems and operations that
ensure the routine production of accurate, timely, and relevant data to
support ongoing program management and accountability will not achieve the
intended results of the CFO Act over the long-term.

For example, after several years of concerted effort by IRS and GAO, for
fiscal year 1997 we were able to conclude for the first time that IRS'
custodial financial statements, covering over $1.6 trillion in tax revenue,
were reliable. Prior to fiscal year 1997, weaknesses in IRS' internal
controls and financial management systems prevented it from producing
reliable year-end financial information. Our conclusion that the fiscal year
1997 statements were reliable was accomplished only after extensive use of
ad hoc programming by IRS to extract data from its systems, followed by
numerous adjustments to these data totaling tens of billions of dollars to
produce final financial statements.

Serious and chronic financial management problems will continue to make
agencies' programs and activities vulnerable to risk, waste, and
mismanagement. Accordingly, we have added financial management at selected
agencies to our high-risk list in recent years. Financial management at DOD
and IRS were both added in 1995. The U.S. Forest Service and the Federal
Aviation Administration (FAA) were added in 1999. These agencies face
substantial challenges in producing reliable financial statements and
reports due to serious deficiencies in financial systems and cost
accounting. Although these agencies are making progress in addressing their
financial management weaknesses, much remains to be done before full
accountability can be achieved. Full accountability includes not only
obtaining a clean audit opinion but also addressing internal control
weaknesses which hamper their ability to keep track of their assets,
liabilities, revenues, and expenses on an ongoing basis. For example, both
Forest Service and FAA need to implement systems that are capable of
properly recording, tracking, and depreciating property and equipment from
acquisition to disposition.

Pervasive deficiencies in oversight, monitoring, and information systems by
federal agencies and by their agents in state and local governments and in
the private sector also contribute to high-risk problems. In such areas as
HUD's assisted housing programs and Education's student loans, local
providers had primarily based eligibility on applicants' self-reported
income, with little independent verification. These weaknesses in verifying
the eligibility of beneficiaries have contributed to improper payments and
are reinforced by fragmented organizational responsibilities and persistent
human capital deficiencies. Organizational fragmentation, for instance,
inhibits the systems integration necessary to prevent the needless duplicate
entry of data in DOD's payment process that increases the probability of
errors. Persistent staff skills mismatches have undermined HUD's capacity to
effectively mitigate losses from foreclosures on its properties, manage
troubled assets and prevent losses due to impending defaults on insured
mortgages.

Resolving federal management deficiencies is particularly important due to
the complex delivery systems used in most federal programs. The federal
government often relies on a network of third parties-state and local
governments, nonprofit agencies and businesses-to implement federal goals.
Third parties bring substantial advantages to the implementation of federal
initiatives by engaging local interests and resources. However, "third party
government" poses challenges as well, since federal programs rely on the
integrity, skill, and support of independent agents with their own goals and
constituencies. Transferring the responsibility for the delivery of services
to third parties does not relieve federal officials from being accountable
for their performance. Many of our high-risk and improper payment areas are
vulnerable due to the known challenges of federal agency oversight of third
parties that play a critical role in program implementation, including
insurance contractors for Medicare; facilities management contractors at
DOE; banks and state guaranty agencies for student loans; public housing
authorities, mortgage lenders and contractors for HUD's housing programs; or
states for food stamps and Medicaid.

Federal executive agencies are critical actors, but they operate within a
broader statutory environment that can also play a role in promoting or
mitigating risk. The design and incentives associated with federal programs
can often lay the groundwork for subsequent program vulnerability and
delivery problems, while improvements can protect programs. For instance,
the farm loan program reduced its delinquencies from 41 to 28 percent of its
outstanding loan principal in 1997, due partly to earlier legislative
changes prohibiting delinquent borrowers from obtaining further loans.
However, recent legislation easing these reforms, along with deterioration
in the farm economy, threaten to reverse this trend. In another area, high
student loan default rates were brought down when legislation provided for
risk sharing by participating lending institutions and greater agency
control over the certification of schools for participation in the program.
Conflicting statutory goals can also complicate program administration; for
example, programs emphasizing speed of service-such as mandates placed on
IRS to process tax refunds within 45 days, or the urgency for the Federal
Emergency Management Administration to provide disaster relief quickly-can
confound the efforts of program administrators to reduce improper payments.

Mr. Chairman, the deep-seated nature of many of these problems does not mean
they are immutable. In fact, we have noted substantial improvements in many
of these areas. The point I want to make is that change is possible, but
only with concerted and sustained attention of both executive agencies and
often the Congress itself. Persistent improvements in information, systems,
human capital, and program design are typically essential for progress to be
made. Congressional oversight in particular is critical to stimulate and
support the initiatives of agencies to address these problems.

The experience of the U.S. Customs Service (Customs) in overcoming its
vulnerability to high risk is instructive. In 1991, we added Customs to our
high-risk list due to major weaknesses in its management and organizational
structure that diminished its ability to detect trade violations on imported
cargo; collect applicable duties, taxes, and fees; control financial
resources; and report on financial operations. Since then, Customs has made
considerable progress in addressing its financial management weaknesses,
receiving unqualified audit opinions for the past three fiscal years.
Coupled with a major reorganization, Customs has also made major
improvements in focusing on enforcement efforts and measuring noncompliance
with trade laws, preventing or detecting any duplicate or excessive refunds,
and collecting delinquent receivables. Sustained management commitment was
essential for progress. It will be important for such management commitment
and congfressional oversight to continue in order to prevent these
weaknesses from recurring. We will continue to monitor Customs' efforts.

Improving the Economy and Efficiency of Federal Activities

The following examples from our work provide illustrations of programs and
activities that could be considered for reform to address costly and
inefficient delivery approaches, fragmented and duplicative organizational
facilities and locations, or outmoded management structures.

   * DOD's efforts at streamlining, consolidating, and possibly privatizing
     infrastructure activities should continue to be encouraged. For fiscal
     year 1998, DOD estimated that about $147 billion, or 58 percent of its
     budget, was spent for infrastructure requirements. Recognizing that it
     must make better use of its scarce resources, DOD announced the Defense
     Reform Initiative (DRI) in November 1997. Through this program, DOD
     hoped to create a revolution in business affairs that would streamline
     and substantially improve the economy and efficiency of its business
     operations. A major thrust of the DRI was to reduce unneeded
     infrastructure, primarily through a number of initiatives designed to
     reduce the cost of DOD's operations and support activities. Included in
     these initiatives were (1) demolishing and disposing 80 million square
     feet of excess space at military facilities, (2) reducing the number of
     Defense Information System Agency major data processing centers from 16
     to 6, (3) reducing the number of Defense Finance and Accounting Service
     operating locations from 19 to 11, (4) closing unneeded research,
     development, and test facilities, and (5) avoiding hundreds of millions
     of dollars in future capital expenditures by privatizing utility
     systems (electric, natural gas, water, and sewer) at military bases.
     The results of DOD's efforts in reducing infrastructure are mixed, but
     continued progress on this initiative can help DOD save significant
     amounts of operations and support money.
   * The Department of State maintains a physical presence-embassies,
     consulates, and other offices in the capital and other cities-in over
     160 countries. About 18,000 direct-hire employees-over 6,400 from State
     and the rest from at least 27 other federal agencies-and over 35,000
     locally hired and contract staff work overseas at a total of more than
     250 diplomatic posts. It costs over $200,000 annually to station an
     American overseas, which is about two times as much as for
     Washington-based staff. In November 1999, the Overseas Presence
     Advisory Panel, established by the Secretary of State to review how the
     United States carries out its overseas activities, concluded that there
     is no process in place to "rightsize" posts as missions change.
     Although the panel did not specify the amount of savings that could be
     achieved through streamlining posts, it expressed the belief that the
     savings would be substantial and recommended the formation of an
     interagency committee to review and restructure every overseas post.
     State has not said how it will respond to the panel's recommendations.
     Security and diplomacy requirements are directly linked to the size of
     the overseas workforce, and the Congress should be involved in any
     significant restructuring.
   * Since 1982, many panels, commissions, and task forces, and several GAO
     studies have addressed how DOE could achieve operational efficiencies
     in its research and development facilities. Recommendations have
     included focusing unclear missions, aligning laboratory activities with
     DOE goals, consolidating facilities, and replacing cumbersome,
     inefficient management structures. In particular, with the end of the
     Cold War, DOE may no longer need to maintain three nuclear weapons
     laboratories. For example, Los Alamos officials have estimated that
     consolidating the nuclear weapons functions of the Lawrence Livermore
     facility into the Los Alamos Laboratory could save about $200 million
     in annual operating costs. A DOE-chartered task force-the 1995 Task
     Force on Alternative Futures for the Department of Energy National
     Laboratories-reported that DOE's entire laboratory system could be
     reduced productively by eliminating obsolete and redundant missions and
     support infrastructure. Moreover, substantial portions of the
     laboratory budgets are being spent on infrastructure.
   * Duplication and overlap in federal land management could be reduced and
     operations streamlined through a collaborative federal land management
     strategy. The four major federal land management agencies-the National
     Park Service, the Fish and Wildlife Service, and BLM within the
     Department of Interior, and the Forest Service within the U.S.
     Department of Agriculture (USDA)-have grown increasingly similar over
     time, while federal land management missions have become more complex.
     Budgetary constraints and better understanding of natural ecosystems,
     whose boundaries are often not consistent with existing jurisdictional
     and administrative boundaries of the separate agencies, demand that the
     agencies find ways to refocus, combine, or eliminate certain functions,
     systems, programs, activities, and field locations. To improve the
     efficiency and effectiveness of federal land management, the Congress
     might consider either reorganizing the current organizational
     structures or streamlining these structures by integrating and
     coordinating current functions and programs.
   * The federal system to ensure the safety and quality of the nation's
     food is inefficient and outdated. The current food safety system
     suffers from overlapping and duplicative inspections, poor
     coordination, and inefficient allocation of resources. For example
     within USDA, the Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) is
     responsible for the safety of meat, poultry, and some eggs and egg
     products, while the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is responsible
     for the safety of most other foods. FSIS, FDA, and 10 other federal
     agencies administer over 35 different laws that oversee food safety.
     Given this environment, the Congress could consider consolidating
     federal food safety agencies and activities under a single food safety
     inspection agency with a uniform set of food safety laws.
   * The USDA Farm Service Agency (FSA) should continue to consolidate its
     county office field structure by closing more of its small county
     offices. In response to the Agriculture Reorganization Act, FSA has
     closed over 370 county offices and reduced its county office staff by
     about 28 percent. However, FSA still has nearly 2,400 county offices,
     including 673 small county offices that have three or fewer permanent
     full-time employees. These smaller offices generally cannot take
     advantage of certain economies of scale. For example, USDA's workload
     data indicate that small county offices spend about 46 percent of their
     time on such fixed administrative activities as obtaining and managing
     office space and processing paperwork related to payroll. In
     comparison, larger county offices spend only 32 percent of their time
     on these administrative activities.
   * USDA's Rural Utilities Service (RUS) finances the construction,
     improvement, and repair of electrical, telecommunications, and water
     and waste disposal systems through direct loans and repayment
     guarantees on loans made by other lenders. Given demographic changes,
     the operating environment of today's utilities industry, and weaknesses
     in RUS loan management operations, the Congress could reconsider the
     role of RUS in the development of the utility infrastructure for the
     nation's rural areas. We have identified various steps RUS could take
     to increase the effectiveness and reduce the costs of its loan
     programs. From a financial standpoint, RUS has successfully operated
     the telecommunications loan program, but the agency has had, and
     continues to have, significant financial problems with the electricity
     loan program. For example, during fiscal years 1992 through July 31,
     1997, RUS wrote off the debt of four electricity loan borrowers
     totaling more than $1.5 billion. Since then, the agency has written off
     $0.3 billion and is in the process of writing off an additional $3.0
     billion, and it is probable that the agency will continue to incur
     losses in the future.
   * Closing, consolidating or privatizing Coast Guard training and
     operating facilities could provide significant budgetary savings. In
     fiscal year 1996, we reported that the Coast Guard could save $6
     million by closing or consolidating over 20 small boat stations. Also
     in 1996, we recommended that the Coast Guard consider other
     alternatives-such as privatization-to operate its vessel traffic
     service centers, which cost about $20 million in fiscal year 1999 to
     operate. In fiscal year 1995, we recommended that the Coast Guard close
     one of its large training centers in Petaluma, California, at a savings
     of $9 million annually. The Coast Guard has faced, however, significant
     opposition to closing facilities.
   * The Commissioned Corps of the Public Health Service (PHS) was
     established in the late 1800s to provide medical care to sick and
     injured merchant seamen. As a result of temporary service with the
     armed forces during World Wars I and II, members of the Corps were
     authorized to assume military ranks and receive military-like
     compensation. Today, Corps officers continue to receive virtually the
     same pay and benefits as military officers, including retirement
     eligibility (at any age) after 20 years. However the functions of the
     Corps have become essentially civilian in nature, and, in fact, some
     civilian PHS employees carry out the same functions as Corps members.
     Further, the Corps has not been incorporated into the armed forces
     since 1952. Based on 1994 costs, when all of the components of
     personnel costs-including basic pay and salaries; special pay,
     allowances, and bonuses; retirement; health care; life insurance; and
     Corps members' tax advantages-were considered, PHS personnel costs
     could have been reduced by converting the Commissioned Corps to
     civilian status.
   * The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) owns 4,700 buildings and 18,000
     acres of land, which it uses to operate 181 major health care delivery
     locations. VA spends about $1 out of every $4 of its $18.4 billion
     budget to operate, maintain, and improve its delivery locations-in
     effect, the cost of its asset ownership. VA's delivery locations
     operate in 106 health care markets, and in 40 of these markets multiple
     VA facilities compete with each other to serve veterans-for example, 4
     major VA facilities are located in the Chicago market. However, all VA
     delivery locations project a declining veteran population base, and
     two-thirds expect declines greater than 33 percent in the next 20
     years. Without major restructuring over the next several years,
     billions of dollars will be used to operate hundreds of unneeded VA
     buildings. For example, a VA study projected annual savings ranging
     from $132 million to $189 million by consolidating medical and
     administrative services at its major delivery locations in the Chicago
     area. VA needs to develop and implement realignment plans for all of
     its health care markets, and the Congress could consider a variety of
     options, such as greater reliance on community-based, integrated
     networks of VA and non-VA providers, to meet the health care needs of
     veterans in the most cost-effective manner.

Reassessing What the Federal Government Does

   * Has a program succeeded, or persistently failed in accomplishing its
     intended objective(s)?
   * Have underlying conditions that prompted federal intervention changed
     such that original objectives are no longer valid?
   * Have cost estimates risen significantly above those associated with the
     original objective(s), or have benefits fallen substantially below
     original expectations?

The following examples are illustrative of programs and activities that
could be considered for reform, reduction, or termination because of
fundamental changes affecting original objectives and purposes.

   * DOD plans to develop and procure several aircraft, including the
     F/A-18E/F, the F-22, and the multi-service Joint Strike Fighter, to
     replace various types of tactical fighter and ground attack aircraft.
     As the nation proceeds to the next century with the prospect of a flat
     defense budget, DOD's plan to modernize its tactical aircraft fleet
     will be a significant issue confronting the Congress. DOD's planned
     investment in these aircraft, estimated by the Congressional Budget
     Office to exceed $350 billion, is likely to be significantly greater
     than probable future budgets. Moreover, questions have been raised
     about the need for, and cost-benefit of, all these systems given likely
     threats. The traditional practices of approving all requested programs
     and then reducing procurement quantities within each program lowers
     acquisition costs but exacerbates the problem of aging equipment and
     associated operating and support costs. The Congress and DOD will need
     to carefully consider tactical aircraft investment options to ensure
     balance among bona fide national security needs based on realistic
     threat assessments, the desires of individual services, and what can be
     afforded given likely future budgets.
   * The Army plans to invest over $13 billion dollars to develop and
     procure the Crusader self-propelled howitzer and its resupply vehicle
     to be used by the Army's rapidly deployable and forward-deployed
     forces. The Crusader program has experienced a number of problems that
     have delayed its development by 12 to 18 months, and a number of
     technical uncertainties remain. The Army has recently proposed changes
     to the Crusader artillery system to make it more affordable and
     relevant to future war plans. The new program reduces the planned
     procurement quantity, changes the armor, and cuts the system's weight
     to about 90 tons. Such changes, however, will likely reduce some of the
     Crusader's originally planned capabilities. Given the Crusader
     program's high acquisition costs and uncertain capabilities and
     requirements, other less costly alternatives-such as upgrading the
     Army's current Paladin system or procuring the German PzH 2000
     self-propelled howitzer-could be investigated.
   * The Army National Guard's combat structure, with 42 combat brigades,
     exceeds projected requirements for two major regional conflicts,
     according to war planners and DOD and Army studies. Although the
     National Guard has state missions in addition to its federal role, a
     1995 RAND study of the use of Guard forces for state missions concluded
     that, even in a peak year, such missions would not require a large
     portion of the Guard and should not be used a basis for sizing the
     Guard's force. However, DOD has not yet addressed critical issues
     regarding the Guard's combat structure or eliminating any excess
     forces. As a result, the combat structure is left in place but has no
     valid war-fighting mission. Although the Army National Guard agreed to
     reduce its forces by 17,000 through fiscal year 2000, it did not agree
     to reduce overall force structure.
   * The need for the Selective Service System could be reassessed. No one
     has been drafted in the United States since 1973 and the advent of an
     all-volunteer force. Since 1980, males between the ages of 18 and 26
     have continued registering with the Selective Service System for a
     potential draft in the event a national emergency occurs. However, it
     would require congressional action to actually draft men into the
     military, and a return to a military draft seems unlikely, even under
     the current recruiting difficulties the military services are facing.
     One reason for this is that the recruiting shortfalls represent only a
     minute percentage of the over 13 million males of draft age and it
     would be very difficult to ensure a fair and equitable draft to cover
     such shortfalls. The likelihood of the United States engaging in a
     manpower-intensive conflict in the future is very remote, so
     alternative approaches to a draft could be devised to fill personnel
     needs. It has been estimated that it would take a little more than one
     year and funding equal to about one year's appropriation to bring the
     Selective Service System back from a "deep standby" status.
   * The Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences (USUHS) is a
     medical school operated by DOD. Those who propose closing the
     university assert that DOD's need for physicians could be met at a
     lower cost using physicians educated at civilian medical schools under
     the DOD scholarship program. USUHS is a more costly source of military
     physicians on a per graduate basis when DOD's and total federal costs
     are considered. With DOD education and retention costs of about $3.3
     million over the course of a physician's career, the cost of a USUHS
     graduate is more than 2 times greater than the $1.5 million cost for a
     DOD scholarship program graduate.
   * The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) has estimated
     that the annual cost to operate the International Space Station (ISS)
     will average $1.3 billion, or $13 billion over a 10-year mission life.
     However, this estimate does not include risks associated with
     international partner commitments or other funding requirements, such
     as (1) costs associated with necessary upgrades due to component
     obsolescence, (2) end-of-mission costs to either extend or decommission
     the ISS, and (3) a variety of support costs (space shuttle flights,
     personnel, space communications, etc.) that are currently shown in
     other portions of NASA's budget. Although assembly of the ISS is well
     under way, congressional oversight is vital to ensure that NASA's other
     priorities are not sacrificed in the agency's annual budget request to
     primarily fund ISS operations.
   * DOE has lacked an investment strategy to assure that supercomputer
     acquisitions are fully justified and represent the best use of funds
     among competing priorities. From fiscal years 1994 through 1997, DOE
     spent about $300 million to purchase 35 supercomputers and about $526
     million to operate them. Since fiscal year 1998, DOE has spent an
     estimated $257 million to acquire additional supercomputers, most
     associated with the Strategic Computing Initiative. However, DOE used
     only about 59 percent of its available supercomputer capacity in fiscal
     year 1997 and was missing opportunities to share supercomputer
     resources. The largest supercomputers-those justified as needed to run
     very large programs across hundreds or even thousands of
     processors-were seriously underutilized. Less than 5 percent of the
     jobs run on those supercomputers used more than one-half of the
     supercomputers' available processors.
   * The USDA Market Access Program (MAP) subsidizes the promotion of U.S.
     agricultural products in overseas markets. Despite changes made to the
     program between 1993 and 1998, its results remain uncertain. For
     example, our work has noted several unresolved questions, including
     whether subsidized promotions generate positive net economic returns,
     increase exports that would not have occurred without the program, and
     supplement rather than supplant private sector spending. Moreover, MAP
     promotions can have significant spin-off effects. For example, a 1996
     study of U.S. apple exports to the United Kingdom and Singapore found
     that U.S. market share and export value increased in the United
     Kingdom, but that foreign competitors mainly benefited from MAP
     promotions in Singapore; Chilean and French apple producers experienced
     increases in export shares 3 to 10 times greater than U.S. producers.
     The Congress could reassess MAP and consider terminating or
     significantly reducing the program.
   * The Coast Guard needs to develop a realistic estimate of needs based on
     the capabilities of its current fleet of ships and aircraft for its
     Deepwater Project, the largest acquisition project in the agency's
     history. The initial justification did not accurately or fully depict
     the need to replace or modernize its fleet of deepwater ships and
     aircraft. The agency's initial estimate that the project may cost $9.8
     billion, or about $500 million annually over 20 years, would consume
     more than the agency now spends for all capital projects and leave
     little funding for other critical capital needs.
   * To improve Amtrak's financial performance and potentially reduce
     federal subsidies, the Congress must make fundamental choices between
     expectations for intercity passenger rail service and the federal
     financial assistance that can be provided. These decisions involve
     determining the appropriate scope of Amtrak's route network and
     restructuring it accordingly, which could impact the need for financial
     assistance. Like other intercity passenger rail systems outside the
     United States, Amtrak receives substantial government support. Since
     1971, the federal government has provided over $23 billion in operating
     and capital assistance. Ridership in many areas is light: in 13 states,
     fewer than 100 passengers, on average, boarded an Amtrak train on a
     given day in 1997. A number of Amtrak's routes lost large sums of money
     in 1997; of the 40 Amtrak routes, 13 routes each lost over $30 million
     and 14 each lost more than $100 for every passenger. Overall in 1999,
     Amtrak lost $907 million. In 1994, at the request of the administration
     and later at the direction of the Congress, Amtrak pledged to eliminate
     the need for federal operating subsidies by the end of 2002. However,
     Amtrak has made relatively little progress in reducing its need for
     federal operating subsidies; in fact, it must make nearly 4 times the
     progress in the coming 3 years (through 2002) than it has made over the
     previous 5 years. If Amtrak continues to require federal operating
     subsidies after 2002, the Amtrak Reform and Accountability Act of 1997
     provides for the Congress to consider either restructuring or
     liquidating the railroad.
   * Cargo preference laws require that certain government-owned or
     -financed cargo shipped internationally be carried on U.S.-flagged
     vessels. The laws were intended to guarantee a minimum amount of
     business for the U.S.-flagged vessels that are crewed by U.S. mariners,
     generally built in U.S. shipyards, and are encouraged to be maintained
     and repaired in U.S. shipyards. The effect of cargo preference laws has
     been mixed. Although the laws appear to have had a substantial impact
     on the U.S. merchant marine industry by providing an incentive for
     vessels to remain in the U.S. fleet, cargo preference laws have
     increased the government's transportation costs because U.S.-flagged
     vessels often charge higher rates to transport cargo than
     foreign-flagged vessels. Cargo preference laws increased federal
     agencies' transportation costs by an estimated $578 million per year in
     fiscal years 1989 through 1993 over the cost of using foreign-flagged
     vessels.
   * The Medicare Incentive Payment program was developed to provide a bonus
     payment for Medicare services provided in areas identified as having a
     shortage of primary care physicians. About 60 percent of the payments,
     about $65 million, was made to specialists; two-thirds of those
     payments-and many of the substantial bonus payments, such as $69,000 to
     a dermatologist and $57,000 to a neurosurgeon-were made to specialists
     in urban areas, rather than to primary care physicians in medically
     underserved areas. The bonus payments do not appear to have a
     significant impact on physician recruitment and retention, and recent
     beneficiary survey information indicates that access problems arise for
     reasons other than the unavailability of physicians.
   * The Government Printing Office (GPO), which receives over $100 million
     in annual appropriations, effectively has a statutory monopoly over
     printing for the federal government. GPO's monopoly-like role in
     providing printing services perpetuates inefficiency because it permits
     GPO to be insulated from market forces and does not provide incentives
     to improve operations and processes that will ensure quality services
     at competitive prices. Federal agencies could be given the authority to
     make their own printing policies, requiring GPO to compete with private
     sector printing service providers. If GPO is unable to provide quality
     service at competitive prices, the need for retaining a government
     printing office could then be re-examined.

Redefine Who Benefits From Federal Government Programs

   * Many federal grant programs with formula-based distributions of funds
     to state and local governments are not well targeted to jurisdictions
     with high programmatic needs but comparatively low funding capacity. As
     a result, it is not uncommon that program recipients in areas with
     greater wealth and relatively lower needs enjoy a higher level of
     funding than that which is available in harder pressed areas. For
     example, under the Community Development Block Grant (CDBG), Greenwich,
     Connecticut received five times more funding per person in poverty in
     1995 than that provided to Camden, New Jersey, even though Greenwich,
     with per capita income six times greater than Camden, could more easily
     afford to fund its own community development needs. Better targeting of
     formula-based grant awards offers a strategy to bring down federal
     outlays by concentrating reductions in wealthier communities with
     comparatively fewer needs and greater capacity to absorb cuts, while
     holding harmless harder pressed areas that are most vulnerable. For
     programs such as Medicaid, Foster Care, and Adoption Assistance, which
     base reimbursements on the per capita income of the state, the minimum
     federal share could be reduced or the formula could be revised to
     better reflect relative need, geographic differences in the cost of
     services, and state tax bases. For other formula-based grant programs,
     such as Federal Aid Highways or the CDBG, the formula could be revised
     to reflect the differential fiscal capacities of states.
   * The level and scope of the risks of the U.S. Export-Import Bank's
     (Eximbank) programs could be reduced by placing a ceiling on the
     maximum subsidy rate allowed, reducing or eliminating program
     availability in high-risk markets, and offering less than 100-percent
     risk protection. The Eximbank was created to facilitate exports of U.S.
     goods and services and is to absorb risks that the private sector is
     unwilling or unable to assume. Higher-risk markets constitute a
     relatively small share of the Eximbank's total financing commitments
     yet absorb a relatively large share of its subsidy costs. These changes
     would have only a slight effect on the overall level of U.S. exports
     supported with Eximbank financing. However, these options raise several
     trade and foreign policy issues that decisionmakers would need to
     address before making any changes in the Eximbank's programs.
   * DOE and the private sector are involved in hundreds of cost-shared
     projects aimed at developing a broad spectrum of cost-effective,
     energy-efficiency technologies that protect the environment, support
     the nation's economic competitiveness, and promote the increased use of
     oil, gas, coal, nuclear, and renewable energy resources. Generally, DOE
     does not require repayment of its investment in technologies that are
     commercially successful. The potential for repayment can be
     significant. For example, we reported in 1996 that if only 50 percent
     of the funds planned for current projects were subject to repayment,
     and if about 15 percent of research and development funds result in
     commercialized technologies, then about $400 million could be repaid to
     the federal government.
   * Three federal power marketing administration's (PMAs)-Southeastern,
     Southwestern, and Western-receive annual appropriations to cover
     operating and maintenance expenses and, if applicable, the capital
     investment in transmission assets. The fourth PMA, Bonneville Power
     Administration, does not receive annual appropriations. Federal law
     requires the PMAs to repay their appropriations as well as the
     power-related appropriations expended by the operating agencies that
     generate the federal power. The PMAs are to set power rates at levels
     that will allow them to repay these costs. However for several reasons,
     the federal government currently is not recovering the full cost of its
     power-related activities from the beneficiaries of federal power. For
     example, the federal government's financing of power-related activities
     results in a net cost because the interest rates on outstanding
     appropriated debt are lower than the rates Treasury incurs in providing
     the financing. Second, as we reported previously, the PMAs' had not
     been recovering the full costs of certain pension and other benefits
     for federal employees involved in power-related activities. Currently,
     the PMAs are in varying stages of addressing this issue and DOE is
     considering changing departmental policy to ensure that these costs are
     recovered in the future. Third, the PMAs are able to sell power more
     cheaply than other providers because they market power generated almost
     exclusively at low-cost hydropower facilities, are not required to earn
     a profit, and do not fully recover the government's costs in their
     rates. For example, from 1990 through 1995, these three PMAs sold
     wholesale power to their preference customers at average rates from 40
     to 50 percent below the rates nonfederal utilities charged. If the PMAs
     were authorized to charge market rates for power, some preference
     customers, who now purchase power from the PMAs at rates that are less
     than those available from other sources, would see their rates
     increase. However, slightly more than two-thirds of these preference
     customers would experience small or no rate increases-increases of
     one-half cent per kilowatt hour or less-if the PMAs charged market
     rates. Directing the PMAs to more fully recover power-related costs and
     requiring them to sell their power at market rates would better ensure
     the full recovery of the appropriated and other debt-which totaled
     about $22 billion at the end of fiscal year 1997-that is recoverable
     through the PMAs' power sales, as well as lead to more efficient
     management of the taxpayers' assets.
   * Federal water programs to promote efficient use of finite water
     resources for the nation's agricultural and rural water systems have
     developed inconsistencies that may cause the programs to work at
     cross-purposes. In the area of irrigation the multiplicity of programs
     and approaches has allowed for inconsistencies and potentially
     counterproductive outcomes. For example, under the Reclamation Reform
     Act of 1982, as amended, some farmers have reorganized large farming
     operations into multiple, smaller landholdings to be eligible to
     receive additional federally subsidized water. Due to the vague
     definition of the term "farm," the 960-acre limit established by the
     act has not stopped the flow of subsidized water to large holdings and
     the federal government is not collecting revenues to which it is
     entitled. Also, the use of federally subsidized water to produce
     federally subsidized crops results in the government paying double
     subsidies. The Department of the Interior estimated irrigation
     subsidies used to produce subsidized crops in the 17 western states to
     be about $203 million in 1986; the Bureau of Reclamation placed the
     figure at $830 million.
   * The Mining Law of 1872 allows holders of economically minable claims on
     federal lands to obtain all rights and interests to both the land and
     the hardrock minerals by patenting the claims for $2.50 or $5.00 an
     acre-amounts that fall well short of today's market value for such
     lands. Furthermore, miners do not pay royalties to the government on
     hardrock minerals they extract from federal lands. For example, in 1990
     hardrock minerals worth at least $1.2 billion were extracted from
     federal lands, while known and economically recoverable reserves of
     hardrock minerals remaining on federal lands were estimated to be worth
     almost $65 billion. The Congress could consider revising the law to
     require the payment of fair market value for a patent and to impose
     royalty payments on hardrock minerals extracted from federal lands.
   * The Federal Emergency Management Agency's (FEMA) Public Assistance
     Program helps pay state and local governments' costs of repairing and
     replacing eligible public facilities and equipment damaged by
     disasters. In a May 1996 report, we presented a number of options
     identified by FEMA's regional program officials that, if implemented,
     could reduce program costs. Among the options discussed was eliminating
     eligibility for private nonprofit organizations, many of which operate
     revenue-generating facilities such as utilities and hospitals, and
     publicly owned recreational facilities, which generate a portion of
     their operational revenue through user fees or admissions charges. Many
     of these types of facilities could have alternate sources of income
     sufficient to meet disaster-related costs.
   * Repetitive flood loss is one of the major factors contributing to the
     financial difficulties facing the National Flood Insurance Program. The
     Congress and FEMA could consider eliminating flood insurance and
     emphasizing mitigation for certain repeatedly flooded properties,
     removing what some argue is now an incentive to locate in harm's way.
     Approximately 43,000 buildings currently insured under the National
     Flood Insurance Program have been flooded on more than one occasion.
     These repetitive losses account for about 36 percent of all program
     claims historically (currently about $200 million annually) even though
     repetitive-loss structures make up a very small portion of the total
     number of insured properties-at any one time between 1 to 2 percent.
     The cost to the program of these multiple-loss properties over the
     years has been about
     $2 billion.
   * We have reported in the past on this nation's practice of compensating
     veterans for medical conditions, such as diabetes, chronic obstructive
     pulmonary disease, arteriosclerotic heart disease, and multiple
     sclerosis, that were probably neither caused nor aggravated by military
     service. In 1996, the Congressional Budget Office reported that about
     230,000 veterans were receiving about $1.1 billion in disability
     compensation payments annually for diseases neither caused nor
     aggravated by military service. Other foreign countries we reviewed
     require that a disability be closely related to the performance of
     military duty to qualify for disability benefits; no such link is
     required in the United States. The Congress could reconsider whether
     diseases neither caused nor aggravated by military service should be
     compensated as service-connected disabilities.

Pursuing Effective Oversight: The Challenge Ahead

This is an opportune time to refocus congressional oversight. Not only are
we free of the dominating concerns of the recent past-the Cold War and
annual deficits-but we are about to begin to see the benefits of a
wide-ranging reform agenda in the executive branch prompted by a series of
laws-including the Government Performance and Results Act, the Chief
Financial Officers Act, and the Clinger-Cohen Act-enacted by the Congress.
The concerns of the Congress that led to the passage of those laws should
now be directed toward a careful reconsideration of how the Congress will
take advantage of and leverage the new information and perspectives coming
from the executive branch management reforms.

As agencies continue to make progress in implementing these financial and
performance management reforms, we can expect further opportunities for
congressional oversight to be revealed. The information they provide can
assist in identifying weaknesses and illustrating programs and functions
that are working well. Financial statements, for instance, are beginning to
report information on improper payments, which is already helping to better
target areas needing priority congressional and management attention. As
more reliable financial information is developed and disclosed, new
information will be forthcoming to inform resource allocation and oversight
in other areas as well. For instance, audited information on the extent of
federal liabilities for environmental cleanup should help us better
understand future cost pressures facing the budget and improve the cost
effectiveness and targeting of our cleanup efforts. Similarly, the
development of more reliable cost information should help us better manage
these costs and make more informed tradeoffs among competing programs and
strategies to address federal objectives.

The evolution of performance management should also assist oversight. The
forthcoming publication of agency performance reports, due in March of 2000,
comparing actual levels of performance against performance goals contained
in agency plans, should help pinpoint both performance shortfalls and
successes. These reports should also prompt inquiries to understand the
factors responsible for performance outcomes, permitting a more systematic
understanding of the role played by program design and management in
influencing program results. The performance reports will also help us
better understand strengths and weaknesses in agency performance information
and data. Continued improvement in agency data should facilitate a deeper
and broader assessment of the relative effectiveness of federal strategies
to achieve important goals.

In this context, I would note that the Administration has articulated an
agenda in its fiscal year 2001 budget to improve financial and performance
management across a wide range of federal activities. Specifically, they
have identified 24 priority management objectives dealing with many of the
problems discussed in this statement. For instance, the Administration has
included a goal addressing the improper payments problem and has promised to
provide guidance to agencies on such issues as verifying eligibility
criteria and estimating the extent of improper payment problems. Proposals
are also advanced to strengthen the management capacities of HCFA and
implement reforms at HUD, among other agencies. Continued top-level
management attention to these issues is vital to making progress, as is
congressional oversight of these initiatives.

Effective congressional oversight can be a means not only to identify where
programs and activities should be terminated, but also where carefully
selected investments by federal agencies in human capital, technology, and
financial and information management resources can yield important dividends
in the form of longer term cost savings and improvements in performance.
However, better information is needed to permit decisionmakers to sort
through claims and to distinguish the infinite variety of "wants" from those
investments that promise to effectively address critical "needs."
Unfortunately, recent experiences ranging from information technology
projects to major weapon systems illustrate that our return on such
investments has been disappointing. Poorly conceived projects based on
incomplete or inaccurate information and performance projections have led to
projects with huge cost overruns and limited performance improvements.
Although constructive change is occurring, our work demonstrates the need to
improve the basis for capital investments, in general, and information
technology investments, in particular.

I again commend you, Mr. Chairman, for holding these hearings and for
reminding us all of the importance of continued diligence regarding the
performance and management of government programs. Prudent stewardship of
our nation's resources-whether in time of deficit or surplus-is essential
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Sustained congressional and executive agency attention to improving
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reexamination of federal government priorities, programs, and activities is
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GAO take very seriously our responsibility to assist you in promoting and
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Contact and Acknowledgements

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