Federal Management: Addressing Management Problems at the Department of
Commerce (Testimony, 05/14/97, GAO/T-GGD/AIMD-97-115).

GAO discussed: (1) major challenges facing the Department of Commerce in
managing its diverse set of missions; and (2) how legislative reforms,
in particular the Government Performance and Results Act (GPRA), enacted
in recent years can be used to address these challenges.

GAO noted that: (1) the missions and functions of Commerce are among the
most diverse of the cabinet departments; (2) because of the diversity of
its functions, Commerce historically has not been managed on the basis
of a unifying mission and shared goals; (3) Congress has taken steps to
change fundamentally the way federal agencies go about carrying out
their missions; (4) GPRA is intended to address basic management
problems and deficiencies that have been typical throughout the federal
government, and notably characteristic of Commerce; (5) in anticipation
of GPRA's requirement that it submit a strategic plan to Congress no
later than September 30, 1997, Commerce has been working to define its
mission and has drafted a strategic plan; (6) Commerce faces a challenge
in defining its mission and outcomes to be achieved in that it does not
have exclusive federal responsibility for any of its strategic themes;
(7) GAO's work in many important program areas has suggested that the
executive branch and Congress have not fully coordinated related
programs, and that overlap and fragmentation are widespread; (8) the
Commerce draft plan, though it devotes most of its attention to defining
the contributions of each of its bureaus to the three strategic themes,
has little to say about the relationships of Commerce's programs to
those of other agencies; (9) isolating the federal contribution to the
achievement of an intended result has been exceedingly difficult; (10)
another focus of GPRA is to encourage agencies to rethink their current
strategies for achieving their goals; (11) Commerce must contend with
three significant obstacles, antiquated financial management information
systems, weak performance measures, and the conversion of its
information systems to meet year 2000 requirements; (12) GAO's
assessment of GPRA implementation efforts across the government to date
has shown that to effectively implement the act, agencies face a number
of policy challenges that will not be quickly resolved; (13) consistent
congressional interest on the status of an agency's GPRA efforts,
performance measures, and use of performance information to make
decisions, will send an unmistakable message to agencies that Congress
expects GPRA to be thoroughly implemented; (14) the dispersion of
oversight responsibility for Commerce among 18 different congressional
committees presents a challenge for Commerce as well as Congress in gai*

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

 REPORTNUM:  T-GGD/AIMD-97-115
     TITLE:  Federal Management: Addressing Management Problems at the 
             Department of Commerce
      DATE:  05/14/97
   SUBJECT:  Agency missions
             Congressional/executive relations
             Strategic planning
             Systems conversions
             Congressional oversight
             Interagency relations
             Management information systems
             Financial management systems
IDENTIFIER:  NIST Advanced Technology Program
             Dept. of Commerce Administrative Management System
             Dept. of Commerce Year 2000 Program
             
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Cover
================================================================ COVER


Before the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation
United States Senate

For Release on Delivery
Expected at
9:30 a.m.  EDT
Wednesday
May 14, 1997

FEDERAL MANAGEMENT
- ADDRESSING MANAGEMENT PROBLEMS
AT THE
DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE

Statement of L.  Nye Stevens, Director
Federal Management and Workforce Issues
General Government Division

GAO/T-GGD/AIMD-97-115

GAO/GGD-97-115T


(410139)


Abbreviations
=============================================================== ABBREV

  NOAA - National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
  NIST - National Institute of Standards and Technology
  IG - Inspector General
  CFO - Chief Financial Officer
  OMB - Office of Management and Budget
  GPRA - Government Performance and Results Act
  GMRA - Government Management Reform Act
  EDA - Economic Development Administration
  ATP - Advanced Technology Program
  CAMS - Commerce Administrative Management System

FEDERAL MANAGEMENT:  ADDRESSING
MANAGEMENT PROBLEMS AT THE
DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE
==================================================== Chapter STATEMENT

Mr.  Chairman and Members of the Committee: 

We are pleased to be here today to discuss major challenges facing
the Department of Commerce in managing its diverse set of missions,
and how legislative reforms enacted in recent years can be used to
address these challenges. 


   MAJOR MANAGEMENT CHALLENGES
   CONFRONT THE DEPARTMENT OF
   COMMERCE
-------------------------------------------------- Chapter STATEMENT:1

The missions and functions of Commerce are among the most diverse of
the cabinet departments in the federal government.  Formed as a
department in 1913, the Department of Commerce initially had nine
major components that ranged from the Steamboat Inspections Service
and the Bureau of Lighthouses to the Bureau of the Census and the
Bureau of Foreign and Domestic Commerce.  Of the nine original
components, three remain in Commerce--the Coast and Geodetic Survey,
which is now part of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration (NOAA); the Bureau of Standards, which is now the
National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST); and the Bureau
of the Census. 

To this day, Commerce remains essentially a holding company for many
disparate programs.  Its 14 major components cover a wide range of
responsibilities that include natural resources and the environment,
advancement of commerce, regional development, scientific research,
and statistical information collection.  In previous testimony before
the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee on June 7, 1995, we
identified several other departments and agencies that share these
same responsibilities.\1 For example, Commerce shares its
responsibilities for

  natural resources and the environment with the Departments of
     Agriculture, Defense, the Interior, State, and Transportation;
     the Environmental Protection Agency, and other independent
     agencies;

  community and regional development with the Departments of
     Agriculture, Housing and Urban Development, and the Interior;
     the Small Business Administration; and the Federal Emergency
     Management Agency;

  collection of statistical information with 9 other "principal"
     statistical agencies and 60 more agencies that spend at least
     $500,000 on statistical activities. 

Because of the diversity of its functions, Commerce historically has
not been managed on the basis of a unifying mission and shared goals. 
Strategic management of the department has been based in its bureaus. 
Its key administrative functions are decentralized. 

We recently worked with the Commerce Office of the Inspector General
(IG) to provide the committee with a joint analysis of the major
management problems facing the department.  The IG took the lead in
identifying specific program areas most in need of reform to improve
efficiency and effectiveness, while we took the lead in describing
steps taken to implement the Government Performance and Results Act
and the Chief Financial Officers (CFO) Act, and to adjust the
Department's information systems to the year 2000. 

As an example of one such management problem, Congress, the Office of
Management and Budget (OMB), GAO, the IG, and others have repeatedly
urged NOAA to explore alternatives to an agency-designed,-owned,
and-operated fleet for acquiring marine data.  In a 1996 program
evaluation report of NOAA's 1995 fleet operations and modernization
plan, the IG recommended that NOAA terminate its fleet modernization
plan efforts; cease investing in its ships; begin immediately to
decommission, sell, or transfer them; and contract for the required
ship services from the private sector, academia, and other government
ship operators who can provide more cost-effective and modern
platforms.  Yet NOAA continues to plan investments of millions of
dollars in its aging in-house fleet, rather than using those funds
for more cost-effective alternatives. 

Another example is the decennial census.  With the year 2000 fast
approaching, the Census Bureau's ability to complete an accurate
decennial census on time and at a reasonable cost is in question. 
Major design plans remain incomplete, and the Bureau's increased
dependence on technology, automated systems, and statistical methods
creates a more interdependent environment requiring a new level of
rigor and planning not readily apparent at the Bureau.  The Commerce
Department has failed to convince Congress that it can equitably and
efficiently manage a census design that is in part dependent on
statistical sampling.  As a result of these problems, this year we
added the census to GAO's governmentwide list of high-risk programs
where it joined the National Weather Service's modernization, which
has been on the list since 1995. 


--------------------
\1 See Government Restructuring:  Identifying Potential Duplication
in Federal Missions and Approaches (GAO/T-AIMD-95-161, June 7, 1995)


   THE RESULTS ACT REQUIRES A
   FUNDAMENTAL CHANGE IN FEDERAL
   MANAGEMENT
-------------------------------------------------- Chapter STATEMENT:2

In the past few years Congress has taken steps to fundamentally
change the way federal agencies go about carrying out their missions. 
A key step taken by Congress was the passage of the Government
Performance and Results Act in 1993.  The Act, which is also referred
to as "GPRA" or the "Results Act," is the centerpiece of a statutory
framework requiring agencies to clarify their missions, set strategic
goals, and measure performance toward those goals with reliable,
auditable information that Congress can use to hold them accountable
for results, rather than merely activities or processes.  This
framework also includes the CFO Act and important information
technology reform legislation, including the Paperwork Reduction Act
of 1995 and the Clinger-Cohen Act.  The CFO Act, as amended by the
Government Management Reform Act (GMRA), spelled out an ambitious and
long overdue agenda to address the lack of timely, reliable, useful,
and consistent financial information in the federal government.  The
information technology reform legislation is directed at more
effective management and use of information technology to better
support agencies' missions and improve program performance. 

In crafting the Results Act, Congress recognized that congressional
and executive branch decisionmaking had been severely handicapped by
the absence in many agencies of the basic underpinnings of well
managed organizations.  The Results Act is intended to address basic
management problems and deficiencies that have been typical
throughout the federal government, and notably characteristic of the
Department of Commerce.  For example: 

  Because they have accumulated diverse responsibilities in a
     piecemeal fashion over many years, some agencies, including
     Commerce, have operated with unclear missions, which hampers
     their effectiveness.  The Results Act requires agencies to
     define their missions and strategic goals, and to do so in
     consultation with Congress. 

  Many agencies lack coherent strategies for achieving their missions
     and goals.  In a time of budget constraints, the Results Act is
     intended to force agencies to rethink how they manage their
     programs, and compare alternative strategies for achieving their
     goals most efficiently and effectively.  In some program areas,
     responsibilities are fragmented among several agencies, which
     wastes scarce funds, confuses and frustrates customers, and
     limits the overall effectiveness of federal efforts to solve
     national problems.  Effective implementation of the Results Act
     will require agencies to address the fragmentation of program
     areas, and to coordinate their strategic planning efforts with
     other agencies.  Overlap of missions and functions is a critical
     problem for the Department of Commerce in that it shares
     responsibility for major budget functions with 14 other
     departments and agencies. 

  Many agencies lack adequate information on program results and
     costs.  Agencies often measure performance based on their
     activities or the resources they expend, rather than on the
     results of their programs.  Thus, agencies do not know, and
     cannot inform Congress, how well their programs are actually
     achieving their purpose.  The Results Act requires agencies to
     develop results-oriented performance measures and to report
     regularly to Congress on whether results- oriented goals have
     been met.  The Results Act aims to provide systematic
     information on the performance of government programs and to
     directly link such information with the annual budget process. 
     Thus, the other two elements of the statutory framework--the CFO
     and Clinger-Cohen Acts--are critical to its success.  Without
     accurate and reliable financial information undergirding
     budgetary estimates decisionmakers will lack a clear
     understanding of long-term unfunded commitments as well as of
     the full costs of current government programs.  Without
     information technology to better support agencies' missions and
     processes, agencies will not be able to effectively control
     costs and provide better services.  Commerce, for example, is
     plagued with poor financial and information systems. 


   THE RESULTS ACT AS A TOOL FOR
   ADDRESSING COMMERCE'S
   MANAGEMENT PROBLEMS
-------------------------------------------------- Chapter STATEMENT:3

In anticipation of the Results Act's requirement that it submit a
strategic plan to Congress no later than September 30, 1997,
Commerce, like all other departments, has been working to define its
mission and has drafted a strategic plan.  Its third draft is dated
April 1997 and is being circulated to certain committees as it does
the consultations required by the act.  The draft plan articulates
Commerce's mission:  "To promote job creation, economic growth,
sustainable development, and improved living standards for all
Americans, by working in partnership with business, universities,
communities, and workers" through three strategic themes (or goals): 
(1) build for the future and promote U.S.  competitiveness in the
global marketplace, by strengthening and safeguarding the nation's
economic infrastructure; (2) keep America competitive with
cutting-edge science and technology and an unrivaled information
base; and (3) provide effective management and stewardship of our
nation's resources and assets to ensure sustainable economic
opportunities. 

Commerce faces a challenge in defining its mission and outcomes to be
achieved in that it does not have exclusive federal responsibility
for any of its strategic themes.  A focus on results as envisioned by
the Results Act, implies that federal programs contributing to the
same or similar results will be closely coordinated to ensure that
goals are consistent and program efforts are mutually reinforcing. 
However, our work in many important program areas has suggested that
the executive branch and Congress have not fully coordinated related
programs, and that overlap and fragmentation are widespread.  The
Commerce draft plan, though it devotes most of its attention to
defining the contributions of each of its bureaus to the three
strategic themes, has little to say about the relationships of
Commerce's programs to those of other agencies. 

Because Commerce shares responsibility with other agencies for making
progress on its strategic themes, it must recognize that its efforts
are but one factor among many that may influence whether, and the
degree to which, these program efforts collectively achieve intended
results.  Isolating the federal contribution to the achievement of an
intended result has been exceedingly difficult.  Economic development
programs are a case in point.  According to the Catalogue of Federal
Domestic Assistance there are 342 federal assistance programs related
to economic development.  In a 1996 review of economic development
programs, we reported\2 that one study of the effectiveness of the
Economic Development Administration's (EDA) economic development
program found that income in the counties that received EDA funding
grew significantly faster than income in the counties that received
no aid.  However, when EDA's programs and factors unrelated to EDA
were considered simultaneously, the study found that EDA's program
had a very small effect on income growth rates during the period that
the aid was received and had no significant effect in the years after
the aid ceased.  The study found that only a small part of the
difference in the growth rates between the two groups of counties
could be attributed to EDA's programs. 

Another focus of the Results Act is to encourage agencies to rethink
their current strategies for achieving their goals.  The process has
already shown positive results.  One case study highlighted in our
Executive Guide \3 is the Coast Guard's Office of Marine Safety,
Security and Environmental Protection, which is under this
Committee's jurisdiction.  The agency's mission is to protect the
public, the environment, and U.S.  economic interests through the
prevention and mitigation of marine incidents.  Traditionally, the
Coast Guard based its marine safety efforts on inspections and
certifications of vessels.  It measured its performance by counting
outputs, such as the number of inspections and changes in inspection
results.  But the data on marine casualties indicated that accidents
were often caused not by deficiencies in the vessels or other
factors, but by human error.  For example, towing industry data for
1982 through 1991 showed that 18 percent of reported casualties were
caused by equipment or material failures, 20 percent by environmental
and other factors, and 62 percent by human factors. 

Putting this information to use, the Coast Guard changed the focus of
its marine safety program from outputs to outcomes in its first
business plan, dated January 1994.  The Coast Guard shifted its
resources and realigned its processes away from inspections and
toward joint efforts with the industry to build the knowledge and
skills of entry-level crew members through training.  The joint
effort resulted in a significant reduction in the reported towing
industry fatality rate:  from 91 per 100,000 industry employees in
1990 to 27 per 100,000 in 1995. 

The Results Act's processes should, in time, stimulate Commerce and
its stakeholders to ask similar basic questions about its own
programs.  For example, how cost-effective is NOAA's $23 million
fishing vessel buyout program compared with other programs by EDA,
Labor, and Agriculture that are aimed more broadly at meeting the
needs of the Northeast fishing community?  If one-third of maritime
accidents could be avoided by the use of electronic charts, what is
the appropriate priority for efforts to promote their use as opposed
to building double hulled vessels to better withstand grounding and
collision?  NIST's Advanced Technology Program (ATP) provides
cost-shared awards to industry to develop high-risk technologies with
significant commercial or economic potential:  is it more or less
cost-effective than the 11 other major federal initiatives that
support industrial research and development in such areas as energy,
semiconductors, rail and automobile transportation, a national
information infrastructure, or small business innovation? 


--------------------
\2 Economic Development:  Limited Information Exists on the Impact of
Assistance Provided by Three Agencies (GAO/RCED-96-103, April 3,
1996)

\3 Executive Guide:  Effectively Implementing the Government
Performance and Results Act (GAO/GGD-96-118, June 1996)


   RELIABLE INFORMATION IS
   ESSENTIAL
-------------------------------------------------- Chapter STATEMENT:4

Good financial, management, and program information are key to the
successful implementation of the Results Act.  Without it,
accountability for performance toward results-oriented goals cannot
be assured.  The Commerce Department must contend with three
significant obstacles--antiquated financial management information
systems, weak performance measures, and the conversion of its
information systems to meet year 2000 requirements. 

Commerce currently uses eight separate different primary financial
systems.  Commerce officials have acknowledged that their financial
systems are in disrepair, and the systems have been identified as
high risk.  As a result, the Department's auditors were unable to
render an opinion on the most recent financial statements because of
material deficiencies in accounting policies, practices, internal
controls, data, and automated systems.  A major step the department
is taking to address these problems is the development of the
Commerce Administrative Management System (CAMS).  CAMS, which is
undergoing limited pilot testing, will eventually replace and or
integrate existing financial and administrative management systems in
the department.  However, CAMS has experienced implementation delays. 

This past year the Department's financial statements for fiscal year
1996 were subjected to audit.  The resulting audit report noted
several weaknesses in performance measures.  For example, many
measures were not directly relevant to the activities of bureaus and
did not consistently provide a clear picture of the outcomes of
activities.  Often they did not include benchmarks to allow the
reader to compare statistics and evaluate the results achieved by the
bureaus.  An example of the performance measurement problems that the
department is confronting as it implements the Results Act is
measuring the outcomes from the ATP in NIST.  In reviewing NIST's
evaluation of ATP in 1995, we reported that short-term results were
overstated or lacked adequate support.  In addition, NIST's proposed
use of technical milestones, and the number of collaborations and
strategic alliances, to evaluate ATP ran the risk of creating false
expectations of its economic success.\4


--------------------
\4 Performance Measurement:  Efforts to Evaluate the Advanced
Technology Program, (GAO/RCED-95-68, May 15, 1995). 


      THE YEAR 2000 PROBLEM
------------------------------------------------ Chapter STATEMENT:4.1

Three of Commerce's units--Census, NOAA, and the Patent and Trademark
Office--rely heavily on large computer systems to carry out their
missions.  Consequently, they face a major departmentwide challenge
in converting information systems for the year 2000.  Delays in CAMS
implementation could also result in significant year 2000 problems
for Commerce.  The root of the year 2000 problem is in the way dates
are recorded and computed.  To conserve on electronic data storage,
systems have typically used two digits to represent the year, such as
"97" for year 1997.  With this two-digit format, however, the year
2000 is indistinguishable from 1900, 2001 from 1901 and so on.  As a
result, system or application programs that use dates to do
calculations, comparisons, or sorting may generate incorrect results
when working with years after 1999. 

The year 2000 program is probably the largest and most complex system
conversion that the department and its components have ever
undertaken.  It requires first-class program management, as well as
the disciplined and coordinated application of scarce resources to a
departmentwide systems conversion that must be completed by a fixed
date.  We have concerns about Commerce's efforts.  While Commerce has
completed awareness training and issued a policy directive, it has
not documented a high-level year 2000 strategy.  Management of the
program is a collateral duty for its leadership, and the staff
assigned to the year 2000 program are not full time, and while
Commerce has established an overall schedule for the completion of
the remaining assessment, renovation, and implementation phases, it
has not defined year 2000 compliance or developed a year 2000 program
plan.  Further, although Commerce has an inventory of its major
systems, the inventory assigns equal priority to all of Commerce's
systems.  Thus, the inventory may not be useful for establishing
system conversion priorities.  Moreover, the inventory does not
identify internal or external interfaces, or show which systems are
to be renovated, replaced, or eliminated. 


   STRONG CONGRESSIONAL OVERSIGHT
   WILL BE NECESSARY TO KEEP THE
   FOCUS ON IMPROVING MANAGEMENT
-------------------------------------------------- Chapter STATEMENT:5

Our assessment of Results Act implementation efforts across the
government to date has shown that to effectively implement the act,
agencies face a number of policy challenges that will not be quickly
resolved.  For example, the federal approach to addressing national
needs often has been to give several agencies important
responsibilities in a given program area.  This is the case, as we
noted, with natural resource, economic development, and statistical
programs for which Commerce is one of several agencies having
responsibility. 

Forging the political consensus needed to create and sustain federal
programs often results in those programs having competing and/or
broadly stated goals.  Thus, coordinating cross-cutting program
efforts and reaching a reasonable degree of consensus on agencies'
strategic goals likely will force agencies and Congress to directly
confront significant political and policy hurdles that will not be
easily resolved.  Nevertheless, the Results Act implementation can
help to inform policy decisions by providing information on the
relative effectiveness and costs of different programs, thus allowing
comparisons among differing approaches in cross-cutting program
areas. 

Consistent congressional interest at authorization, appropriation,
budget, and oversight hearings on the status of an agency's Results
Act efforts, performance measures, and use of performance information
to make decisions, will send an unmistakable message to agencies that
Congress expects the Results Act to be thoroughly implemented.  The
first step is the consultation with congressional committees on
agencies' strategic plans that the Results Act requires--a step that
needs to be taken soon since the plans are to be formally transmitted
to Congress by September 30 of this year.  Another step that
committees can take toward sharpening agencies' focus on results
would be to hold comprehensive oversight hearings, using a wide range
of program and financial information.  Agencies' program performance
information in the form of accountability reports that will be
generated under the Results Act, and the audited financial statements
that are being developed to comply with the GMRA can serve as the
basis for these hearings.  The accountability reports are intended to
show the degree to which an agency met its goals, at what cost, and
whether the agency was well managed.  Congress must have a central
role in defining the content and format of these reports to ensure
that the reports eventually provide Congress with a comprehensive
"report card" on the degree to which agencies are making wise and
effective uses of tax dollars.  Such reports should provide a full
picture of an agency's performance and resource usage to accomplish
its mission--thus giving Congress an excellent tool for oversight. 

In the case of Commerce, a special obstacle is created by the
dispersion of responsibility among 18 different congressional
committees that have either authorizing, appropriating, or budgeting
jurisdiction over the Department and its wide array of programs and
services.  This presents a challenge for the department as well as
Congress in gaining coherent agreement on virtually all aspects of
performance and results--from the content of the strategic plan, to
the selection of performance goals and appropriate results-oriented
measures, to the review of the department's subsequent annual reports
on the extent to which goals were met.  The House has responded to
this challenge, which affects most agencies (though few to Commerce's
extent) by forming cross-cutting teams of staff members from
different committees to help ensure that strategic plans meet the
requirements of the Results Act and thereby provide a solid
foundation on which to assess the effectiveness of each department or
agency.  The teams' initial focus is on coordination of the
consultation process on draft strategic plans.  At the request of
several House chairmen, we have just developed a guide to the
consultation process that lists a series of key questions that the
teams may find useful in evaluating the plans and discussing them
with the agencies.\5 We are also assisting most of these teams in
their work by bringing to bear the results of our work in a
systematic fashion on important issues identified by the teams. 

In summary, the Results Act, if properly implemented, can be a useful
tool for improving the management of the Department of Commerce. 
Having enacted it and other financial and information statutes,
Congress has put into place the right tools for obtaining the kinds
of information it needs for effective oversight.  We have no higher
priority than helping Congress carry out this role. 


--------------------
\5 Agencies' Strategic Plans Under GPRA:  Key Questions to Facilitate
Congressional Review (GAO/GGD-10.1.16, May 1997)


------------------------------------------------ Chapter STATEMENT:5.1

That concludes my prepared statement, Mr.  Chairman.  I will be
pleased to respond to any questions you or other Members of the
Committee may have. 


RELATED GAO PRODUCTS
=========================================================== Appendix 0

Agencies' Strategic Plans Under GPRA:  Key Questions to Facilitate
Congressional Review (GAO/GGD-10.1.16, May 1997 Version 1). 

Statistical Agencies:  Consolidation and Quality Issues
(GAO/T-GGD-97-78, Apr.  9, 1997). 

Weather Satellites:  Planning For the Geostationary Operational
Environmental Satellite Program Needs More Attention (GAO/AIMD-97-37,
March 13, 1997). 

Managing for Results:  Enhancing the Usefulness of GPRA Consultations
Between the Executive Branch and Congress (GAO/T-GGD-97-56, March 10,
1997). 

Managing for Results:  Using GPRA to Assist Congressional and
Executive Branch Decisionmaking (GAO/T-GGD-97-43, Feb.  12, 1997). 

Information Technology Investment:  Agencies Can Improve Performance,
Reduce Costs, and Minimize Risks (GAO/AIMD-96-64, Sept.  30, 1996). 

Information Management Reform:  Effective Implementation Is Essential
for Improving Federal Performance (GAO/T-AIMD-96-132, July 17, 1996). 

Managing for Results:  Key Steps and Challenges in Implementing GPRA
in Science Agencies (GAO/T-GGD/RCED-96-214, July 10, 1996). 

Executive Guide:  Effectively Implementing the Government Performance
and Results Act (GAO/GGD-96-118, June 1996). 

Managing for Results:  Achieving GPRA's Objectives Requires Strong
Congressional Role (GAO/T-GGD-96-79, Mar.  6, 1996). 

Weather Forecasting:  NWS Has Not Demonstrated that New Processing
Systems Will Improve Mission Effectiveness (GAO/AIMD-96-29, February
29, 1996). 

Measuring Performance:  The Advanced Technology Program and Private
Sector Funding (GAO/RCED-96-47, January 11, 1996). 

Government Reorganization:  Observations on the Department of
Commerce (GAO/T-GGD/RCED/AIMD-95-248, July 25, 1995). 

Managing for Results:  Status of the Government Performance and
Results Act (GAO/T-GGD-95-193, June 27, 1995). 

Government Restructuring:  Identifying Potential Duplication in
Federal Missions and Approaches (GAO/T-AIMD-95-161, June 7, 1995). 

Weather Forecasting:  Radar Availability Requirements Not Being Met
(GAO/AIMD-95-132, May 31, 1995). 

Performance Measurement:  Efforts To Evaluate the Advanced Technology
Program (GAO/RCED-95-68 May 15, 1995). 

Government Reorganization:  Issues and Principles
(GAO/T-GGD/AIMD-95-166, May 17, 1995). 

Research Fleet Modernization:  NOAA Needs To Consider Alternatives to
the Acquisition of New Vessels (GAO/RCED 94-170, August 3, 1994). 

Executive Guide:  Improving Mission Performance Through Strategic
Information Management and Technology (GAO/AIMD-94-115, May 1994). 

Weather Forecasting:  Systems Architecture Needed For National
Weather Service Modernization (GAO/AIMD-94-28, March 11, 1994). 

Decennial Census:  1990 Results Show Need for Fundamental Reform
(GAO/GGD-92-94, June 9, 1992). 


*** End of document. ***