United States General Accounting Office

GAO Testimony

Before the Committee on Rules and Administration

U.S. Senate

For Release on Delivery

Expected at

9:30 a.m. EDT

Wednesday

July 29, 1998

GOVERNMENT PRINTING

GPO Faces Management

Challenges

Statement for the Record of

L. Nye Stevens

Director, Federal Management

 and Workforce Issues

General Government Division

GAO/T-GGD-98-180

Mr. Chairman and Members of the Committee:

Thank you for this opportunity to participate in your hearing on S. 2288,

The Wendell H. Ford Government Publications Act of 1998. As agreed with

the Committee, we will not comment on the provisions of the bill today,

but will use the prospect of a major redefinition of printing and

publication responsibilities as a backdrop for discussion of the

management audit of the Government Printing Office that was recently

delivered to you and other congressional stakeholders. This report was

mandated by the Legislative Branch Appropriations Act for 1998. The

conference report accompanying the act directed us to make extensive use

of outside consultants in conducting the audit. We contracted with

Booz-Allen & Hamilton for conduct of the audit in December of last year,

on a competitive basis.

We worked closely with Booz-Allen during the 5 months it took to conduct

the audit and prepare the report. To assure a sound approach to the study,

we reviewed the contractor’s workplans, regularly discussed the progress

of agreed-upon tasks and development of findings, reviewed evidentiary

support, and participated with Booz-Allen in several briefings for GPO

management and congressional sponsors of the work. The final report,

delivered to us by Booz-Allen on May 21, makes some 90

recommendations organized under the topics of marketing, sales and

distribution, procurement services, human resources, financial

management, and information technology. The Public Printer’s comments

are included in the final report.

I am accompanied by Joyce Doria, the Booz-Allen partner for the study,

and Jack Mayer, who managed the project for Booz-Allen. I will leave it to

them to summarize the study’s findings and recommendations. I would

like to make a single broad point that relates these findings to the bill you

have before you today. That point is that the bill as presently written does

not take into account the need to fix GPO’s management deficiencies.

S.2288 would establish the Government Publications Office as an

independent entity with substantially more authority, and autonomy, than

the Government Printing Office enjoys today. The Joint Committee on

Printing, which today closely oversees the work of GPO, would be

eliminated. In its discussions with GPO’s customers, Booz-Allen found

little support for eliminating GPO and thereby forcing the branches and

agencies of government to develop their own means of publishing and

distributing the information they produce. The dissemination of

Page 1 GAO/T-GGD-98-180
government information is an important governmental function, and

Booz-Allen found no evidence that people believe otherwise. However,

this finding was closely linked with the strong desire on the part of GPO’s

customers to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of the organization.

The Booz-Allen study confirmed that there were many ways in which

GPO’s management could be improved to better focus on and meet the

needs of its customers in Congress, the executive branch, and the user

community. Its recommendations, beginning with the need for a

future-oriented and proactive strategic plan to guide the institution’s

direction and focus accountability, provide a guidepost for the

management and operational improvements that are needed.

S.2288, in its present form, would not require the newly-constituted

Government Publications Office to make these needed management

improvements. In fact, as an organization with freedom to depart from the

standard governmentwide human resource management, procurement,

and budget oversight requirements, the reconstituted GPO would be

outside the accountability framework that shapes oversight of most

executive branch entities. We realize that one of the purposes of the

proposed reorganization is to provide GPO the independence and

autonomy that would enable it to serve all three branches of government.

Nevertheless, the need would remain for some form of systematic

accountability for efficiency and performance. We believe that making the

agency subject to some specially-tailored provisions of the Government

Performance and Results Act, just as the Postal Service is, would impose

strategic planning and performance reporting requirements that could only

be therapeutic. Similarly, although the bill does provide for the

preparation and audit of annual financial statements, adding GPO to the

list of agencies subject to the Chief Financial Officers Act of 1990 would

expand the agency’s financial management obligations and help deter

fraud, waste, and abuse of government resources. Finally, explicitly

relating any new GPO information responsibilities to those of executive

agencies under such statutes as the Paperwork Reduction Act, the Federal

Records Act, and the Freedom of Information Act, would help clarify

GPO’s intended role.

In short, Mr. Chairman, based on the management audit Booz-Allen

conducted in collaboration with us, we believe that GPO has significant

and persistent management problems, beginning with the lack of a

clearly-defined strategic mission and plan for achieving it. These issues are

relevant to congressional consideration of the terms under which GPO is

to be granted a greater degree of independence and autonomy than its

Page 2 GAO/T-GGD-98-180
present relationship to the Joint Committee on Printing affords. My

colleagues from Booz-Allen will present their findings in some more detail,

and then we will be pleased to respond to whatever questions you or the

other members of the Committee may have.

(410354) Page 3 GAO/T-GGD-98-180
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