U.S. Commission on Civil Rights: Agency Lacks Basic Management Controls
(Testimony, 07/17/97, GAO/T-HEHS-97-177).

GAO discussed the findings in its recent report on the management of the
U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, focusing on the: (1) general management
issues; and (2) management of the Commission's projects.

GAO noted that: (1) GAO found broad management problems at the
Commission on Civil Rights; (2) the Commission appears to be an agency
in disarray, with limited awareness of how its resources are used; (3)
for example, the Commission could not provide key cost information for
individual aspects of its operations, such as its regional offices, its
complaints referral process, its clearinghouse, its public service
announcements, and, in one case, a project; (4) furthermore, significant
agency records documenting Commission decision-making were reported
lost, misplaced, or nonexistent; (5) the Commission has not established
accountability for resources and does not maintain appropriate
documentation of agency operations; (6) lack of these basic,
well-established management controls makes the Commission vulnerable to
resource losses due to waste or abuse; (7) Commission records indicate
that projects accounted for only about 10 percent of the agency's
appropriations during fiscal years 1993 through 1996 despite the broad
array of civil rights issues addressed; (8) furthermore, GAO's work
showed that management of the 12 Commission projects completed or
ongoing during this 4-year period appeared weak or nonexistent; (9) the
Commission's guidance for carrying out projects is outdated, and the
practice described to GAO for conducting projects, including specifying
anticipated costs, completion dates, and staffing, was largely ignored;
(10) for instance, 7 of the 12 projects had no specific proposals
showing their estimated time frames, costs, staffing, or completion
dates; (11) specific time frames were not set for most projects, and
when they were, project completion dates exceeded the estimates by at
least 2 years; (12) overall, projects took a long time to complete,
generally 4 years or more; (13) some projects took so long that
Commission staff proposed holding additional hearings to obtain more
current information; (14) poor project implementation likely contributed
to the lengthy time frames; (15) moreover, GAO found that Commission
management did not systematically monitor projects to ensure quality and
timeliness; (16) finally, Commission project reports are disseminated to
the public through three different offices, none of which appears to
coordinate with the others to prevent duplication; (17) GAO made several
recommendations in its report about improving management at the Commiss*

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

 REPORTNUM:  T-HEHS-97-177
     TITLE:  U.S. Commission on Civil Rights: Agency Lacks Basic 
             Management Controls
      DATE:  07/17/97
   SUBJECT:  Management information systems
             Information resources management
             Civil rights
             Accountability
             Cost control
             General management reviews
             Government information dissemination
             Public relations
             Internal controls
             Agency reports

             
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Cover
================================================================ COVER


Before the Subcommittee on the Constitution, Committee on the
Judiciary, House of Representatives

For Release on Delivery
Expected at 10:00 a.m.
Thursday, July 17, 1997

U.S.  COMMISSION ON CIVIL RIGHTS -
AGENCY LACKS BASIC MANAGEMENT
CONTROLS

Statement of Cornelia M.  Blanchette
Associate Director
Education and Employment Issues
Health, Education, and Human Services Division

GAO/T-HEHS-97-177

GAO/HEHS-97-177T


(205346)


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

  FOIA - Freedom of Information Act
  OCRE - Office of Civil Rights Evaulation
  OGC - Office of the General Counsel
  OPM - Office of Personnel Management

U.S.  COMMISSION ON CIVIL RIGHTS: 
AGENCY LACKS BASIC MANAGEMENT
CONTROLS
============================================================ Chapter 0

Mr.  Chairman and Members of the Subcommittee: 

We are pleased to be here today to discuss the management of the U.S. 
Commission on Civil Rights. 

Racially motivated church burnings across the country; racial and
civil unrest in major metropolitan cities such as St.  Petersburg,
Florida; and the national debate over the continuing need for federal
affirmative action programs and policies are only some of the issues
the U.S.  Commission on Civil Rights is working on today. 
Established by the Civil Rights Act of 1957, the Commission had a
budget of $8.75 million, 8 part-time commissioners, and a staff of 91
in fiscal year 1996.  The commissioners have two principal
responsibilities:  (1) investigating claims of voting rights
violations and (2) studying and disseminating information, often
collected through specific projects, on the impact of federal civil
rights laws and policies. 

Last year, amid complaints of mismanagement and in preparation for
the agency's reauthorization, your Subcommittee began to look into
how the Commission carries out its responsibilities and manages its
resources.  You asked us to assist you in this effort by providing
information on the Commission's management of projects during fiscal
years 1993 through 1996.  The Commission identified 22 projects in
this time frame--5 were completed, 7 were ongoing, and 10 were
deferred.  Commission projects entail collecting and analyzing
information on civil rights issues, such as racial and ethnic
tensions in American cities and fair housing, in order to appraise
applicable federal laws and regulations.  While our review initially
addressed the Commission's management of its projects, problems we
encountered during our work caused us to be concerned with general
management at the Commission as well. 

My comments today will summarize the findings discussed in our recent
report on the management of the Commission, focusing first on general
management issues and then on the management of the Commission's
projects.\1 Our report is based on reviews of Commission records;
interviews with all of the current commissioners, the staff director
at the time of our review, and other responsible Commission
officials; and our observations from Commission meetings we attended. 

In summary, we found broad management problems at the Commission on
Civil Rights.  The Commission appears to be an agency in disarray,
with limited awareness of how its resources are used.  For example,
the Commission could not provide key cost information for individual
aspects of its operations, such as its regional offices; its
complaints referral process; its clearinghouse; public service
announcements; and, in one case, a project.  Furthermore, significant
agency records documenting Commission decision-making were reported
lost, misplaced, or nonexistent.  The Commission has not established
accountability for resources and does not maintain appropriate
documentation of agency operations.  Lack of these basic,
well-established management controls makes the Commission vulnerable
to resource losses due to waste or abuse. 

Commission records indicate that projects accounted for only about 10
percent of the agency's appropriations during fiscal years 1993
through 1996 despite the broad array of civil rights issues
addressed.  Furthermore, our work showed that management of the 12
Commission projects completed or ongoing during this 4-year period
appeared weak or nonexistent.  The Commission's guidance for carrying
out projects is outdated, and the practice described to us for
conducting projects--including specifying anticipated costs,
completion dates, and staffing--was largely ignored.  For instance, 7
of the 12 projects had no specific proposals showing their estimated
time frames, costs, staffing, or completion dates.  Specific time
frames were not set for most projects, and when they were, project
completion dates exceeded the estimates by at least 2 years. 
Overall, projects took a long time to complete, generally 4 years or
more.  Some projects took so long that Commission staff proposed
holding additional hearings to obtain more current information.  Poor
project implementation likely contributed to the lengthy time frames. 
Moreover, we found that Commission management did not systematically
monitor projects to ensure quality and timeliness.  Finally,
Commission project reports are disseminated to the public through
three different offices, none of which appears to coordinate with the
others to prevent duplication. 

We made several recommendations in our report about improving
management at the Commission.  Even though the commissioners did not
all agree with our findings, they did agree to implement the
recommendations. 


--------------------
\1 U.S.  Commission on Civil Rights:  Agency Lacks Basic Management
Controls (GAO/HEHS-97-125, July 8, 1997). 


   BACKGROUND
---------------------------------------------------------- Chapter 0:1

The Commission on Civil Rights was created to protect the civil
rights of people within the United States.  It is an independent,
bipartisan, fact-finding agency directed by eight part-time
commissioners.  Four commissioners are appointed by the president,
two by the president pro tempore of the Senate, and two by the
speaker of the House of Representatives.  No more than four
commissioners can be of the same political party, and they serve
6-year terms.  The Commission accomplishes its mission by (1)
investigating charges of citizens being deprived of voting rights
because of color, race, religion, sex, age, disability, or national
origin; (2) collecting and studying information concerning legal
developments on voting rights; (3) monitoring the enforcement of
federal laws and policies from a civil rights perspective; (4)
serving as a national clearinghouse for information; and (5)
preparing public service announcements and advertising campaigns on
civil rights issues.  The Commission may hold hearings and, within
specific guidelines, issue subpoenas to obtain certain records and
have witnesses appear at hearings.  It also maintains state advisory
committees and consults with representatives of federal, state, and
local governments and private organizations to advance its
fact-finding work. 

The Commission is required to issue reports on the findings of its
investigations to the Congress and the president, and to recommend
legislative remedies.  The Commission also must submit to the
president and the Congress at least once annually a report that
discusses the Commission's monitoring of federal civil rights
enforcement in the United States.  Because it lacks enforcement
powers that would enable it to apply remedies in individual cases,
the Commission refers specific complaints it receives to the
appropriate federal, state, or local government agency for action.\2

Projects conducted by the Commission to study various civil rights
issues are largely the responsibility of its Office of the General
Counsel (OGC) with a staff of 15 and the Office of Civil Rights
Evaluation (OCRE) with a staff of 12 in fiscal year 1996.  The
largest component of the Commission is the Regional Programs
Coordination Unit with 2 staff members in the Washington, D.C.,
office and 25 staff members in six regional offices.  The regional
offices direct the Commission's work, which is carried out through 51
advisory committees--one in each state and the District of
Columbia--composed of citizens familiar with local and state civil
rights issues. 


--------------------
\2 Several agencies have enforcement authority for civil rights
issues.  For example, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission is
charged with enforcing specific federal employment antidiscrimination
statutes, such as title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the
Americans With Disabilities Act of 1990, and the Age Discrimination
in Employment Act of 1967.  Also, the Assistant Attorney General for
Civil Rights in the Department of Justice is the enforcement
authority for civil rights issues for the nation. 


   COMMISSION'S MANAGEMENT
   REFLECTS AN AGENCY IN DISARRAY
---------------------------------------------------------- Chapter 0:2

The Commission's management of operations at the time of our review
showed a lack of control and coordination.  The Commission had not
updated its depiction of its organizational structure as required
under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) nor its administrative
guidance to reflect a major reorganization that occurred in 1986. 
Obsolete documentation of the agency's operating structure and
administrative guidance leaves the public and Commission employees
unsure of the agency's procedures and processes for carrying out its
mission.  Moreover, Commission officials reported key records as
lost, misplaced, or nonexistent, which leaves insufficient data to
accurately portray Commission operations.  Agency spending data are
centralized, and Commission officials could not provide costs for
individual offices or functions.  We also found that the Commission
has never requested audits of its operations, and information
regarding Commission audits in its fiscal year 1996 report on
internal controls was misleading. 


      AGENCY POLICIES AND
      PROCEDURES UNCLEAR
-------------------------------------------------------- Chapter 0:2.1

The Commission has no documented organizational structure available
to the public that reflects current information on procedures and
program processes of the Commission.  FOIA requires federal agencies
to publish and keep up to date their organizational structure and to
make available for public inspection and copying the agencies'
orders, policies, and administrative staff manuals and instructions. 
The Code of Federal Regulations, the principal document for
publishing the general and permanent rules of federal agencies, shows
the Commission's organizational structure as of May 1985,\3 but the
Commission's current organizational structure is substantially
different because of a major reorganization in 1986. 

In addition, the Commission's Administrative Manual was issued in May
1975, but the Commission has paid little attention over the last 10
years to maintaining and updating it to accurately reflect agency
operations.  The purpose of the manual is to translate administrative
policy derived from the various legislative and regulatory policies
affecting the day-to-day operations of the Commission into procedures
that the Commission staff can rely on for guidance in carrying out
the agency's mission.  The Commission's major reorganization in the
mid-1980s, coupled with a high turnover of staff in key positions,
makes up-to-date operating guidance especially important for
maintaining continuity and performing work efficiently and
effectively.  The directors of the two offices responsible for
conducting projects, however--who had been employed at the Commission
for 5 and 2-1/2 years, respectively--had only the 1982 version of the
manual to rely on for official procedures for conducting projects. 

Commission officials told us that, although it was outdated, the
guidance in the manual still reflects the basic Commission policy for
conducting projects.  We found, though, that projects did not follow
all steps outlined in this guidance and could not, for some steps,
because the offices no longer existed. 

Commission officials told us that they were in the process of
updating the Commission's Administrative Manual and had updated 8 of
73 administrative instructions; but the administrative instruction
for implementing projects is not one of the 8.  The staff director\4
told us that she had recently convened a task force, made up of the
two office directors responsible for conducting projects and the
special assistant to the staff director, to revamp the administrative
instruction for projects.  As of June 16, 1997, Commission officials
said that the task force had met at least three times over the past
several months and that the Commission expected to have a final
version of the administrative instruction to propose to the new staff
director when appointed. 


--------------------
\3 U.S.  Commission on Civil Rights mission and functions:  45
C.F.R., part VII. 

\4 The staff director at the time of our review resigned effective
December 31, 1996.  A new staff director joined the Commission on
June 30, 1997. 


      KEY COMMISSION RECORDS
      MISSING
-------------------------------------------------------- Chapter 0:2.2

The Commission reported that key records--which either were the basis
for or documented decisions about Commission operations and
management of projects--were lost, misplaced, or nonexistent.  And
minutes of certain Commission meetings were reported to be lost. 
According to officials, minutes of Commission meetings discussing the
initiation of 7 of the 22 projects were lost or misplaced. 
Additionally, the files for these seven projects were misplaced,
misfiled, or not available for review.\5 Other key records outlining
critical information about projects did not exist, such as project
proposals, or were not available, such as the actual start dates for
projects.  The Commission also did not have a record showing the
total cost of its project on funding federal civil rights
enforcement. 


--------------------
\5 These projects included six on racial and ethnic tensions in
American communities that were completed or ongoing and one completed
project on funding federal civil rights enforcement. 


      SPENDING DATA NOT MAINTAINED
      BY OFFICE OR FUNCTION
-------------------------------------------------------- Chapter 0:2.3

Commission officials told us that they maintain a central budget and
could not provide the amount or percentage of the budget used by
individual offices or functions, such as complaint referrals or
clearinghouse activities.  The only function Commission officials
gave us separate financial information on was the projects' costs. 
But even for project costs, records were poorly maintained, and it is
unclear whether they reflect the true costs for projects.  For
example, the Commission approved one project's report for publishing
on September 9, 1994, and the report shows an issuance date of
September 1994.  Yet financial information provided to us showed
costs incurred through fiscal year 1996 for this project.  A November
1, 1995, letter from the Commission to the House Constitution
Subcommittee showed actual costs for the project of $261,529, but
data Commission officials provided us showed total project costs of
$531,798.  At the time of our audit work, the Commission was not able
to reconcile these differences.\6


--------------------
\6 The project evaluated the enforcement of the Fair Housing
Amendments Act of 1988.  In responding to a draft of our report, the
Office of the Staff Director said that the project produced two
reports and that data provided to the Congress reflected fiscal year
1994 costs, while our request represented all costs on the project,
and adding the costs associated with the two reports reconciles the
difference.  Records provided us during the audit do not support
these comments. 


      COMMISSION'S MANAGEMENT
      CONTROLS ARE WEAK
-------------------------------------------------------- Chapter 0:2.4

The Commission's management controls over its operations are weak and
do not ensure that the Commission can meet its statutory
responsibilities\7 or program objectives.  Federal agencies are
required under the Federal Managers' Financial Integrity Act to
report annually on internal controls to the president and the
Congress, but the Commission did not do such a report for fiscal year
1995.  Furthermore, the Commission's internal controls report for
fiscal year 1996 appears to misrepresent information concerning
audits of the Commission.  The report claims that several
administrative activities are randomly audited by the U.S. 
Department of Agriculture's Inspector General, when in fact no such
audits were done.  The only direct connection between the Commission
and the Department of Agriculture is that the Commission's financial
transactions are handled through Agriculture's National Finance
Center.  Vendors submit invoices directly to the National Finance
Center for payment, and the Commission does not verify the accuracy
of the invoices submitted.  The Agriculture Inspector General is
responsible for auditing the automated systems of Agriculture's
National Finance Center.  But the Inspector General's office told us
that the Commission has never requested any audits of its
transactions.  We did not find that any other audits of Commission
expenditures had been performed.\8

Recent reviews of the Commission's operations by the Office of
Personnel Management (OPM) and a civil rights advocacy group have
been critical of Commission management.  OPM reviewed the
Commission's personnel practices and concluded in a 1996 report that
the Commission is "badly in need of managerial attention."\9 The OPM
report has resulted in proposed corrective actions that, if fully
implemented, should improve the situation.  A 1995 report by the
Citizens' Commission on Civil Rights reported that the Commission's
performance has been "disappointing."\10 The report noted that
projects take so long to complete that changing conditions may render
them out of date by the time the project is completed, reducing the
effectiveness of the Commission's work. 


--------------------
\7 The Subcommittee on the Constitution, House Committee on the
Judiciary, reported that for fiscal year 1995 the Commission did not
meet its statutory requirement to submit to the Congress at least one
report that monitors federal civil rights enforcement.  (104th
Congress, House Report 104-846, Sept.  1996). 

\8 The Commission is not required by statute to have an Inspector
General, and its operations have not been audited by an outside
accounting firm. 

\9 OPM, Office of Merit Systems Oversight and Effectiveness, Report
of an Oversight Review:  U.S.  Commission on Civil Rights-Washington,
D.C.  (Washington, D.C.:  OPM, Nov.  1996). 

\10 Citizens' Commission on Civil Rights, New Challenges:  The Civil
Rights Record of the Clinton Administration Mid-term:  Interim Report
on Performance of U.S.  Commission on Civil Rights During the Clinton
Administration (Washington, D.C.:  Citizens' Commission on Civil
Rights, 1995).  The Citizens' Commission on Civil Rights is a private
bipartisan group of officials who formerly served in federal
government positions with responsibility for equal opportunity.  The
Citizens' Commission was established in 1982 to monitor the federal
government's civil rights policies and practices and seek ways to
accelerate progress in the area of civil rights. 


   COMMISSION PROJECTS ARE POORLY
   MANAGED AND TAKE YEARS TO
   COMPLETE
---------------------------------------------------------- Chapter 0:3

Although Commission projects address a broad array of civil rights
issues, including racial and ethnic tensions in American communities;
the enforcement of fair housing, fair employment, and equal education
opportunity laws; and naturalization and citizenship issues, its
project spending accounts for a small percentage of the Commission's
budget.  Furthermore, the Commission's efforts to manage these
projects fall short in areas such as following project management
guidance, meeting projected time frames for completing projects, and
systematic monitoring of projects.  During fiscal years 1993 through
1996, the Commission completed 5 projects, deferred 10 others, and
worked on another 7 that were still ongoing at the end of fiscal year
l996. 


      PROJECT SPENDING ACCOUNTS
      FOR SMALL PERCENTAGE OF
      COMMISSION BUDGET
-------------------------------------------------------- Chapter 0:3.1

Although the Commission appears to spend about 10 percent of its
resources annually on projects, we were unable to verify project
spending because of the Commission's poor record-keeping.  According
to Commission records, costs incurred for ongoing and completed
projects during fiscal years 1993 through 1996 ranged from about
$33,000\11 for a completed project on funding for federal civil
rights enforcement to about $764,000 for a project on racial and
ethnic tensions in Los Angeles that had been ongoing throughout the
4-year period. 


--------------------
\11 The total cost of this project is not known because Commission
officials did not, as they had for other projects, account for staff
salaries spent to conduct the project. 


      PROJECT MANAGEMENT GUIDANCE
      OFTEN IGNORED
-------------------------------------------------------- Chapter 0:3.2

The Commission's Administrative Manual, which governs the process for
conducting projects, has not been updated since 1982 and does not
accurately reflect the current practices as described to us. 
Furthermore, our review of the projects showed that the process
described was often not followed.  According to Commission officials,
the process that should be used to develop an idea into a project and
ultimately a report includes five stages:  (1) initiating an idea as
a concept, (2) selecting concepts to develop into proposals for
projects, (3) conducting project research, (4) approving final
publication of a report, and (5) publishing and disseminating the
report. 

Project documentation showed that this process was frequently
ignored; less than half of the projects during the period we studied
followed these procedures.  Of the 12 completed and ongoing projects,
only 4 had both concept papers and detailed proposals specifying the
focus of the project, time frame, budget, and staff level.  None of
the racial and ethnic tensions projects included proposals indicating
the time frame for completion, proposed budget, or anticipated staff
level.  These six projects have absorbed years of staff time and
accounted for more than 50 percent of the Commission's total project
spending, yet only two have been completed.  Although concept papers
are required for deferred projects, only 3 of the 10 deferred
projects had concept papers. 


      PROJECTS TAKE YEARS TO
      COMPLETE
-------------------------------------------------------- Chapter 0:3.3

The Commission has no overall standard for assessing a project's
timeliness or for estimating the time needed for specific projects. 
While an estimate of the time needed to conduct projects is required
in proposals, very few projects had estimated time frames for
completing projects.  For the projects that did specify time frames,
the actual time a project took to complete was 2 to 3 years beyond
its planned duration.  Only two of the five completed projects had
anticipated start and finish dates, but both overran their time
frames.  Both had anticipated time frames of 1 year, but one project
took 3 years (Federal Title VI Enforcement to Ensure
Nondiscrimination in Federally Assisted Programs, issued June 1996),
and the other took 4 years (The Fair Housing Amendments Act of 1988: 
The Enforcement Report, issued Sept.  1994).  The Commission
attributed delays in meeting estimated time frames to staff turnover,
limited staff resources, and the need to update factual information. 

Although the duration of the projects cannot generally be compared
with an expected or approved length, we found that their actual time
frames spanned several years.  During the period of our review,
projects took an average of 4 years to complete from the time they
were approved by the commissioners.\12 Four of the five completed
projects had data available on time frames--three of the projects
took 4 or more years to complete, and one was completed in about
2-1/2 years.  For one project, the Commission held a hearing in May
1992 and in the ensuing 3 years incurred additional costs of about
$50,000.  In 1995, it issued the hearing transcript, accompanied by a
summary of its contents without any further analysis, as a final
product.\13 The Commission's staff director reported in a November
1995 letter to the House Judiciary Committee's Subcommittee on the
Constitution that the Commission originally scheduled publication of
the hearing transcript for fiscal year 1993 but "subsequently, the
decision was made to publish an executive summary in addition to the
transcript, which delayed publication of the document." Ongoing
projects appeared likely to overrun estimated time frames as well: 
Six of the seven ongoing projects were approved nearly 6 years ago. 

Problems with the quality of the planning and implementation of
certain projects have apparently contributed to the lengthy time
frames.  For example, the Commission's General Counsel requested
additional hearings on three projects because of poor planning for
the initial hearings and the resulting inadequate data gathering. 
For the racial and ethnic tensions projects for New York, Chicago,
and Los Angeles, the General Counsel determined that the information
gathered at previous hearings was insufficient, outdated, or too weak
to support a quality report.  The New York project had insufficient
testimony and documentation in eight different areas.  The Chicago
project was criticized by city officials as presenting an unbalanced
picture, including unsubstantiated testimony, mischaracterized
information, inadequate or nonexistent analyses, and missing certain
recent city initiatives.  The Los Angeles report contained
information that the Commission's General Counsel viewed as outdated
and therefore required further investigation for the Commission's
report to be current. 


--------------------
\12 Because the Commission did not have information on actual start
dates, we determined our cycle time calculations using the project
approval date as the start date and the report issuance date as the
end date. 

\13 Commission on Civil Rights, Racial and Ethnic Tensions in
American Communities:  Poverty, Inequality, and Discrimination - A
National Perspective, executive summary and transcript of hearing
held in Washington, D.C.  (Washington, D.C.:  U.S.  Commission on
Civil Rights, May 21-22, 1992).  Commission data provided us showed
that the Commission approved the transcript and executive summary for
publication as of March 1995, but the actual document is dated May
1992. 


      PROJECTS NOT SYSTEMATICALLY
      MONITORED
-------------------------------------------------------- Chapter 0:3.4

The Commission does not systematically monitor projects to ensure
quality and timeliness of project results and to help set priorities. 
The only formal mechanism in place to inform the commissioners about
the status of projects is used at the discretion of the staff
director, who may report the status orally or in a monthly report to
the commissioners.\14

We found that the commissioners received only limited updates on some
projects in the staff director's monthly report.  The staff director
did receive periodic updates about the progress of projects being
conducted by OCRE.  However, because of frequent staff turnover and
misfiled or lost records, we could not determine whether the staff in
the General Counsel's office similarly informed the staff director
about project progress. 

Commissioners do not receive information routinely on the costs of
projects or personnel working on the projects.  After a vote to
approve a project, commissioners are not informed of (1) which
projects the staff director decides to start, (2) when projects are
actually started, (3) cost adjustments for projects, (4) time frame
changes, or (5) personnel changes, all of which can affect the
timeliness and quality of projects.  All of the commissioners told us
that they are not involved in assigning projects or specific tasks to
the staff and that this is strictly a responsibility of the staff
director.  However, most commissioners expressed a desire to receive
routine reports on the status of individual projects, specifically,
costs and time frames for completion, so they would know when to
expect draft reports.  In fact, most of the commissioners told us
that they frequently have no knowledge of the status of a particular
project from the time they approve it until a draft report is given
to them for review.  Some commissioners said that communication is a
big problem at the Commission and that improvement in this area up
and down staff levels could help resolve the problem. 


--------------------
\14 While the Commission holds planning meetings to discuss future
projects, these meetings are held annually and therefore do not serve
to routinely inform the commissioners about the status of projects. 


   DISSEMINATION OF PROJECT
   REPORTS
---------------------------------------------------------- Chapter 0:4

The Commission uses three different offices to disseminate project
reports, but a lack of coordination among these offices raises the
potential for duplication.  The responsible project office; the
Congressional Affairs Unit; and the Office of Management,
Administrative Services and Clearinghouse Division, all maintain
mailing lists but do not coordinate to prevent duplicative mailings. 


   CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS
---------------------------------------------------------- Chapter 0:5

Our overall assessment of the Commission is that its operations lack
order, control, and coordination.  Management is unaware of how
federal funds appropriated to carry out its mission are being used,
it lacks control over key functions, and it has not requested
independent audits of Commission operations.  These weaknesses make
the Commission vulnerable to misuse of its resources.  The lack of
attention to basic requirements applying to all federal agencies,
such as up-to-date descriptions of operations and internal guidance
for employees, reflects poorly on the overall management of the
Commission. 

Projects embody a key component of the Commission's operations, yet
the management of projects is haphazard or nonexistent.  No overall
standard exists for assessing the timeliness of projects or for
estimating how long projects should take.  And the lack of project
documentation, systematic monitoring to detect delays and review
priorities, and coordination among offices that disseminate reports
seriously hamper the Commission's ability to produce, issue, and
disseminate timely reports.  Results from independent reviews of the
Commission's operations, such as the Citizens' Commission on Civil
Rights and OPM, substantiate our assessment of the Commission's
management and the need for improvements. 

In our report, we recommended that the Commission develop and
document policies and procedures that (1) assign responsibility for
management functions to the staff director and other Commission
officials and (2) provide mechanisms for holding them accountable for
properly managing the Commission's day-to-day operations.  We
specified some actions that such an effort should include. 

In the Commission's comments on our draft report, half of the
commissioners agreed with our assessment, while the other half
challenged the report.  All of the commissioners agreed, however, to
implement the recommendations.  In fact, the Commission Chairperson
and the Office of the Staff Director reported that some efforts
already were under way to implement the recommendations.  We hope
that these efforts will significantly improve management of the
Commission. 


-------------------------------------------------------- Chapter 0:5.1

Mr.  Chairman, this concludes my prepared remarks.  We would be happy
to answer any questions you or Members of the Subcommittee may have. 


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