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S. Hrg. 114–265 

IMPLEMENTING SOLUTIONS: THE IMPORTANCE OF 

FOLLOWING THROUGH ON GAO AND OIG 

RECOMMENDATIONS 

HEARING 

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON 

REGULATORY AFFAIRS AND FEDERAL 

MANAGEMENT 

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON 

HOMELAND SECURITY AND 

GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS 

UNITED STATES SENATE 

ONE HUNDRED FOURTEENTH CONGRESS 

FIRST SESSION 

DECEMBER 10, 2015 

Available via http://www.fdsys.gov 

Printed for the use of the Committee on Homeland Security 

and Governmental Affairs 

( 
(II) 

COMMITTEE ON HOMELAND SECURITY AND GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS 

RON JOHNSON, Wisconsin, Chairman 

JOHN MCCAIN, Arizona 

ROB PORTMAN, Ohio 

RAND PAUL, Kentucky 

JAMES LANKFORD, Oklahoma 

MICHAEL B. ENZI, Wyoming 

KELLY AYOTTE, New Hampshire 

JONI ERNST, Iowa 

BEN SASSE, Nebraska 

THOMAS R. CARPER, Delaware 

CLAIRE MCCASKILL, Missouri 

JON TESTER, Montana 

TAMMY BALDWIN, Wisconsin 

HEIDI HEITKAMP, North Dakota 

CORY A. BOOKER, New Jersey 

GARY C. PETERS, Michigan 

KEITH B. ASHDOWN, Staff Director 

GABRIELLE A. BATKIN, Minority Staff Director 

JOHN P. KILVINGTON, Minority Deputy Staff Director 

LAURA W. KILBRIDE, Chief Clerk 

BENJAMIN C. GRAZDA, Hearing Clerk 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON REGULATORY AFFAIRS AND FEDERAL 

MANAGEMENT 

JAMES LANKFORD, Oklahoma, Chairman 

JOHN MCCAIN, Arizona 

ROB PORTMAN, Ohio 

MICHAEL B. ENZI, Wyoming 

JONI ERNST, Iowa 

BEN SASSE, Nebraska 

HEIDI HEITKAMP, North Dakota 

JON TESTER, Montana 

CORY A. BOOKER, New Jersey 

GARY C. PETERS, Michigan 

JOHN CUADERESS, Staff Director 

ERIC BURSCH, Minority Staff Director 

RACHEL NITSCHE, Chief Clerk 
(III) 

C O N T E N T S 

Opening statement: Page 

Senator Lankford .............................................................................................. 1 

Senator Heitkamp ............................................................................................ 2 

Senator Tester .................................................................................................. 10 

Senator Ernst .................................................................................................... 13 

Senator Portman .............................................................................................. 22 

Prepared statement: 

Senator Lankford .............................................................................................. 35 

Senator Heitkamp ............................................................................................ 36 

WITNESSES 

THURSDAY, DECEMBER 10, 2015 

Hon. Gene L. Dodaro, Comptroller General of the U.S., U.S. Government 

Accountability Office ............................................................................................ 5 

Hon. Michael E. Horowitz, Inspector General, U.S. Department of Justice, 

and Chair, Council of the Inspectors General on Integrity and Efficiency ..... 6 

Jim H. Crumpacker, Director, Departmental GAO–OIG Liaison Office, U.S. 

Department of Homeland Security ..................................................................... 8 

ALPHABETICAL LIST OF WITNESSES

Crumpacker, Jim H.: 

Testimony .......................................................................................................... 8 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 84 

Dodaro, Hon. Gene L.: 

Testimony .......................................................................................................... 5 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 38 

Horowitz, Hon. Michael E.: 

Testimony .......................................................................................................... 6 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 77 

APPENDIX 

Mr. Crumpacker response to Senator Lankford’s question .................................. 95 

Mr. Dodaro response to Senator Lankford’s question ........................................... 98 

Graph referenced by Senator Tester ...................................................................... 101 

Statemensts submitted for the Record from: 

The Mercatus Center, George Mason University .......................................... 102 

Congressional Research Service ...................................................................... 109 

Audit process chart .................................................................................................. 126 

Deloitte Services ............................................................................................... 127 

Responses to post-hearing questions for the Record: 

Mr. Dodaro ........................................................................................................ 155 

Mr. Horowitz ..................................................................................................... 169 

Mr. Crumpacker ............................................................................................... 176 

(1) 

IMPLEMENTING SOLUTIONS: 

THE IMPORTANCE OF FOLLOWING THROUGH 

ON GAO AND OIG RECOMMENDATIONS 

THURSDAY, DECEMBER 10, 2015 

U.S. SENATE,

SUBCOMMITTEE ON REGULATORY,

AFFAIRS AND FEDERAL MANAGEMENT,

OF THE COMMITTEE ON HOMELAND SECURITY

AND GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS, 

Washington, DC. 

The Subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:02 a.m., in 

room SD–342, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon. James 

Lankford, Chairman of the Subcommittee, presiding. 

Present: Senators Lankford, Portman, Ernst, Sasse, Heitkamp, 

and Tester. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR LANKFORD 

Senator LANKFORD. Good morning, everyone. I would like to welcome you to today’s Subcommittee hearing that will focus on the 

recommendations made by the Government Accountability Office 

(GAO) and the Inspectors General (IG) to improve government efficiency. 

We all want a Federal Government that serves the American 

people in the most effective and efficient way. The Government Accountability Office and agencies’ Inspectors General are on the 

front lines in combating waste, fraud, and mismanagement within 

the Government. Their audits and investigations are vital in uncovering and eliminating the billions of waste and mismanagement of 

taxpayer dollars. 

Through reports, recommendations, and their High-Risk List, 

GAO serves Congress and the public by conducting oversight of 

how Federal dollars are spent. The mission is particularly vital 

today as we face a Federal debt approaching $19 trillion. Last year, 

GAO saved the taxpayers a record $74.7 billion, bringing their total 

to over a half a trillion dollars saved since 2003. 

Despite these important and impressive results, agencies consistently fail to implement roughly 20 percent of what GAO recommends each year. 

While GAO looks for waste across government, Inspectors General are uniquely positioned to focus on and work within their respective agency and play a critical role in congressional oversight. 

IG recommendations also have the potential to save significant tax-
2 

1The chart referenced by Senator Heitkamp appears in the Appendix on page 125. 

payer dollars, but there are 709 unimplemented recommendations 

at the Department of Justice (DOJ) alone. 

I recently published a report titled ‘‘Federal Fumbles’’ that described 100 examples of wasteful spending and burdensome regulations while also proposing solutions to each of these problems. I relied extensively on GAO and IG recommendations for this report 

and acknowledge that this report sheds light on only a small fraction of the waste that GAO and IGs identify every year. 

When looking at this issue, it is important to remember that this 

is not an adversarial conversation. Creating a responsible, efficient 

government is something we all can and should agree on, and I 

find many Federal employees that struggle with the waste that 

they clearly see every day in their agencies and look for ways and 

outside accountability to be able to help them solve it. It is important for Congress to take an active role and ensure that the GAO, 

IGs, and agencies work together to eliminate waste and mismanagement, and I look forward to this conversation today. 

With that, I would like to recognize Ranking Member Heitkamp 

for her opening remarks. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR HEITKAMP 

Senator HEITKAMP. Thank you, Chairman Lankford, and thank 

you, all of you, for your service and for agreeing to come here during the holiday season. We really appreciate it. This has been an 

incredibly active Subcommittee, probably the most active Subcommittee in all of the Senate, because this is a Committee where 

we come to talk about how we can do things better. And if anyone 

thinks you cannot do things better, they are wrong. Nobody is perfect. We have to constantly be striving. 

The Federal Government spends hundreds of millions of dollars 

annually to have Federal programs audited and investigated by the 

Government Accountability Office and the Offices of Inspectors 

General (OIGs). The GAO and IGs spend their days providing incredibly valuable recommendations on how the Federal Government can be more effective and efficient with those sacred taxpayer 

dollars. 

This type of oversight is critical and valuable. The American people can be sure that their taxpayer dollars are being used wisely 

when agencies like GAO and IG recommendations are taken seriously and that we use these recommendations to make government 

more efficient and better. 

Our hearing today is about learning more about how we can improve agency follow up and make sure that everyone is doing their 

part in assessing and improving recommendations and recommendation follow up. The work that GAO and Inspectors General perform in providing recommendations to agencies is important, and the recommendations should not go unimplemented or 

unnecessarily delayed. 

I want to just point out one of the topics I want to cover today, 

and as you can see from the Audit Process over to the side, on the 

chart1 on the left, a great deal of planning and many hours of work 

go into the auditing process by GAO and IGs. We want to make 
3 

sure that that the hard work does not go unnoticed, unappreciated, 

and certainly unimplemented. 

But I want to also draw your attention to the lower left-hand 

side. You will see GAO’s work on monitoring and implementation 

of recommendations. Over the years, GAO has taken a number of 

steps to increase oversight of whether their recommendations have 

been implemented. The GAO maintains an online database of open 

recommendations that still need to be addressed by agencies. And 

according to GAO’s website, the goal of the recommendation database is to ‘‘help congressional and agency leaders prepare for appropriations and oversight activities, as well as help improve government operations.’’ Because of this database of open recommendations, we know that there are almost 4,600 open recommendations with Federal agencies. This is a huge number, and 

it is not insignificant. I hope we can discuss today how we can 

lower that number, move forward and give you the tools to continue to do your excellent work. 

I also want you to take a look at the other side of the chart when 

we look at the recommendations that Inspectors General provide. 

They operate differently than GAO. It is a little more challenging 

for us as decisionmakers here to know how Federal agencies are responding to Inspector General recommendations. The information 

is not as transparent as what it is at GAO. And while the IGs are 

required by law to provide a semiannual report to Congress tracking audit recommendation implementation, each IG has their own 

system for tracking those recommendations. 

IGs do not maintain a centralized database in which all outstanding recommendations governmentwide are input, stored, and 

accessible to Members of Congress and the public. While we know 

there are IGs doing terrific work, great work, we need to know 

about that follow up, and we need to see if we have inconsistencies 

across agencies. 

Every agency operates differently, but a lot of these recommendations, I would assume, are fairly consistent across the board. So it 

is not just Congress that would win with having a more open process regarding IG recommendations, but other IGs, taking a look at 

the work that is being done by their colleagues. 

Today’s hearing is about learning the recommendation follow up 

practices that work for agencies and figuring out how we can do 

more, how we can reduce those numbers of recommendations that 

are not implemented. We are not here, as you know, in this Committee to place blame. This is the good government Committee, and 

everybody should be for good government. There is no controversy 

about this. I think just as you are very nonpartisan—not bipartisan 

but nonpartisan—this Committee has been very nonpartisan in 

how we evaluate and look at some of these challenges of inefficient 

government. 

And so I want to thank Chairman Lankford for his excellent 

leadership, and we look forward to hearing this testimony and having an ongoing dialogue this morning. 

Senator LANKFORD. Thank you, Senator. 

At this time we will proceed with testimony from our witnesses. 

Let me introduce our three witnesses. Then we will swear each in. 
4 

Mr. Gene Dodaro is the Comptroller of the United States. He is 

the head of the Government Accountability Office. As Comptroller 

General, Mr. Dodaro helps oversee the development and issuance 

of hundreds of reports and testimonies each year to various committees and individual Members of Congress. These and other GAO 

products have led to hearings, legislation, billions of dollars in taxpayer savings, and improvements to a wide range of government 

programs and services. 

Mr. Dodaro, how many hearings do you think you have testified 

before? 

Mr. DODARO. At least 150. 

Senator LANKFORD. That is impressive just to survive that. 

[Laughter.] 

Mr. Michael Horowitz is the Chair of the Council of the Inspectors General on Integrity and Efficiency (CIGIE), and the Inspector 

General for the Department of Justice. As Inspector General, he 

oversees a nationwide workforce of more than 400 special agents, 

auditors and inspectors, attorneys, and support staff whose mission 

is to detect and deter waste, fraud, and misconduct in DOJ programs and personnel and to promote economy and efficiency in Department operations. Thank you again. You have also been on this 

Hill quite a few times giving testimony. We thank you for your 

service in that. 

Mr. Jim Crumpacker is the Director of the Departmental GAOOIG Liaison Office within the Department of Homeland Security 

(DHS). In this capacity, he serves as the executive management official responsible for maintaining mutually beneficial and productive relations within the U.S. Government Accountability Office 

and the DHS Office of the Inspector General. He also functions as 

a key adviser to senior DHS leadership, including the Secretary 

and Deputy Secretary. 

I would like to also note that Mr. Crumpacker also served with 

the U.S. Air Force (USAF), both active duty and reserve officer, retiring as a colonel after 29 years. Thank you, Colonel Crumpacker, 

for that and for your continued service. 

I would like to thank all of our witnesses and I would like to ask 

you to rise. It is the custom of this Subcommittee to swear in all 

witnesses that appear before us. Would you please raise your right 

hand? Do you swear that the testimony you are about to give before this Subcommittee will be the truth, the whole truth, and 

nothing but the truth, so help you, God? 

Mr. DODARO. I do. 

Mr. HOROWITZ. I do. 

Mr. CRUMPACKER. I do. 

Senator LANKFORD. Thank you. You may be seated. 

Let the record reflect the witnesses all answered in the affirmative. 

We will be using a timer system in front of you. Most of you are 

very familiar with that. As you know, your written testimony is a 

part of the permanent record. Anything you would like to add to 

that in your oral testimony, we will be glad to be able to receive. 

Mr. Dodaro, since you are a rookie at this, we will take you first. 

[Laughter.] 
5 

1The prepared statement of Mr. Dodaro appears in the Appendix on page 38. 

TESTIMONY OF THE HONORABLE GENE L. DODARO,1 COMPTROLLER GENERAL OF THE UNITED STATES, U.S. GOVERNMENT ACCOUNTABILITY OFFICE 

Mr. DODARO. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Good morning to you, 

Ranking Member Senator Heitkamp, Senator Tester. I appreciate 

the opportunity to be here today to talk about GAO’s work. 

Our mission is to support the Congress in carrying out its responsibilities, but also to help improve the performance and ensure 

the accountability of the Federal Government for the benefit of the 

American people. 

One of the chief ways that we do this is to make recommendations to improve government operations and activities. On average, 

we issue about 1,800 recommendations each year. As has been 

noted in your opening statement, Mr. Chairman, about 80 percent 

of our recommendations on average are implemented within a 4- 

year period of time. 

The recommendations that are implemented have tremendous 

benefits to the government. Mr. Chairman, you mentioned that last 

year our recommendations resulted in over $74 billion in financial 

benefits to the government. That is a $134 return for every $1 invested in GAO. 

The Bipartisan Budget Act that just passed this year, covering fiscal years (FY) 2016 and 2017, for example, had over $30 billion 

in offsets to help avoid sequestration as a result of implementing 

GAO’s recommendations. So both cost savings and revenue enhancements are always on our mind, and we are trying to press 

that. 

But there are thousands of other benefits that occur as a result 

of implementation of our recommendations. There are enhanced 

services to veterans, children, the elderly. There are improvements 

in public safety and security. There is strengthening of our homeland security and national defense operations. There is bolstering 

of our cyber defenses as a result of implementing our recommendations, and a wide range of program improvements across the full 

spectrum of the Federal Government’s programs and activities. So 

we are very proud of that record. 

Now, as you mentioned, Senator Heitkamp, there are a lot of 

open recommendations. There are over 4,600 for the 24 major Chief 

Financial Officers (CFO) Act agencies, and if you include, the Office 

of Management and Budget (OMB) and a wide range of smaller 

agencies, there are another 1,000 that are outstanding. So there is 

a lot of work to be done. Implementation of these open recommendations can result in tens of billions of dollars in additional 

savings and can result in improved program operations and help 

the Federal Government carry out its services to citizens across the 

country more efficiently. 

Now, in order to encourage implementing our recommendations, 

we carry out a wide variety of activities, and I will highlight some 

of them, given your interest in follow up. We start with the audit 

process. During the audit process itself, if we have recommendations for agencies to take action right away, we encourage that, and 

that happens on occasion. 
6 

1The prepared statement of Mr. Horowitz appears in the Appendix on page 77. 

We provide draft reports to agencies for comment, and include 

their comments on whether they agree with the recommendations 

that we are proposing. And, by and large, agencies agree with 

many of our recommendations. 

One important point I would make is that for most of the open 

recommendations, agencies have agreed to implement them. They 

just have not executed and implemented them yet. 

Then 60 days after GAO issues a report, by law, the agencies 

have to provide a report to the Congress about their response to 

our recommendations, and that follow up process has been in place 

now for about 40 years. I would like to take a look at it and make 

sure it is best serving the needs of the Congress, particularly in the 

current budget environment. We will be doing a reexamination of 

that process to assure it is used effectively. 

And then we follow up on our recommendations to agencies at 

least once a year. Also, I meet on a regular basis with the Deputy 

Director for Management at OMB and the heads of major departments and agencies about implementing recommendations related 

to the high-risk areas we identified. We issue the overlap and duplication report each year. That includes a scorecard for the recommendations implemented by the Executive Branch as well as 

recommendations we have made to the Congress. We can expand 

that and do more in order to show the overall number of recommendations we have for the Congress. Right now we have close 

to 200 open recommendations to the Congress. About a third of 

them are the ones we report in the overlap, duplication, and fragmentation report. 

We are very focused on this. One of the reasons you see an elaborate process, Senator Heitkamp, as you pointed out, is that we 

judge our performance not on how many reports we issue or how 

many recommendations we make, but how many are implemented 

and what kind of benefits we have brought to the Federal Government as a result of the investment that all of you make in the GAO 

each year. 

So, again, thank you for the opportunity to be here today, and 

I would be happy to answer any of your questions. 

Senator LANKFORD. Thank you. Mr. Horowitz. 

TESTIMONY OF THE HONORABLE MICHAEL E. HOROWITZ,1 INSPECTOR GENERAL, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE, AND 

CHAIR, COUNCIL OF THE INSPECTORS GENERAL ON INTEGRITY AND EFFICIENCY 

Mr. HOROWITZ. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Senator Heitkamp, 

Members of the Subcommittee. Thank you for inviting me to testify 

at this important hearing today. 

The Federal Inspector General community issues thousands of 

recommendations each year that help make our government more 

effective and efficient and reduce waste, fraud, and abuse in government programs. One of the many important responsibilities that 

IGs have is to ensure that agencies are implementing those recommendations and that identified cost findings are remedied. 
7 

To remain vigilant in this effort, OIGs maintain information 

about unimplemented recommendations, analyze agency efforts to 

close those recommendations, and request and respond to agency 

status updates. In addition, we issue semiannual reports that include information identifying significant recommendations for 

which corrective action has not been completed. 

At my office at the DOJ OIG, we have developed a robust process 

to follow up and ensure implementation on our recommendations. 

Where the Department has agreed with an OIG recommendation, 

which is almost always the case, the Department will seek to demonstrate to us how it has addressed the concerns we have identified 

that gave rise to the recommendation. We only close a recommendation after we conduct an independent analysis on that information and we determine that sufficient actions have been taken 

to close the recommendation. For those that remain 

unimplemented, the Department must provide us with periodic status reports on how they are proceeding toward closing that recommendation. 

In those rare instances where the Department does not agree 

with an OIG recommendation, we undertake an accelerated resolution process. If no agreement is reached with the Department within 6 months, we then elevate that to the leadership of the Department, and we report it to Congress in our semiannual report so 

that there is transparency around that kind of an issue. 

In addition, every 6 months we provide to the Department’s leadership and Congress a report on unimplemented OIG recommendations. That is something that we began within the last 2 years in 

an effort to reduce the number of open recommendations in the Department and to elevate it to a higher level and ensure there was 

high-level oversight. That has proven to be very effective. 

We have had the Deputy Attorney General and her staff follow 

up on those recommendations and see action with the Department 

components as a result. We have appreciated the leadership’s support for the process, and having them involved, having leadership 

involved, has proven to be beneficial. 

In addition, the Department’s leadership just implemented this 

month a new system that will utilize Justice Management Division 

auditors to track unimplemented recommendations and to work 

with Department components to make the changes necessary to implement them, and we are hopeful that that new process will further move us toward closing more and more recommendations in 

a timely fashion. 

In a further effort to ensure that our recommendations are implemented, we often conduct follow up reviews to assess compliance. We are in the middle of one on the Fast and Furious recommendations, for example. Additionally, we will often issue in the 

course of our reviews and audits interim reports or Management 

Advisory Memoranda where we see issues that require immediate 

action. And as Gene said, one of the things we frequently do is inform the Department as we are learning about information of problems we find so they can take immediate action to resolve the problems. 

We also try and take proactive steps to address issues. We, of 

course, as every IG does, issue Top Management and Performance 
8 

1The prepared statement of Mr. Crumpacker appears in the Appendix on page 84. 

Challenges that summarize the issues we have seen in the past 

and we foresee in the future that the Department should be looking 

at. 

We have also engaged, as an example, in our grant fraud and 

grant oversight work in an interagency process and created a working group that brings together IGs and various Department components—OMB is involved as well—trying to identify challenges associated with administering grant programs. That group has pulled 

together documents and recommendations about improving grant 

administration and how to improve internal controls in that regard. 

My office separately has issued guidance in that area as well, all 

in an effort to increase and promote proactively increased effectiveness in our oversight efforts. 

We are committed to working as a community to implement corrective actions that improve the effectiveness and efficiency of the 

government, and we appreciate this Committee and the Congress’ 

bipartisan support for those efforts, and we look forward to working with you and the agencies to further that process. 

Thank you. 

Senator LANKFORD. Colonel Crumpacker. 

TESTIMONY OF JIM H. CRUMPACKER,1 DIRECTOR, DEPARTMENTAL GAO-OIG LIAISON OFFICE, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF 

HOMELAND SECURITY 

Mr. CRUMPACKER. Good morning, Chairman Lankford, Ranking 

Member Heitkamp, and distinguished Members of the Subcommittee. I appreciate the opportunity to appear before you today 

to discuss the Department of Homeland Security’s interactions with 

the Government Accountability Office and our Office of Inspector 

General. I am the career executive management official responsible 

for maintaining mutually beneficial and productive relations with 

GAO and the OIG. Previously, I held leadership positions within 

the Offices of Inspector General at the Department of Transportation (DOT) and the U.S. Postal Service (USPS) and with the Air 

Force Audit Agency. I am also a certified internal auditor and a 

certified fraud examiner. 

Today I am proud to say that the Department’s relations with 

GAO and the DHS OIG have never been stronger or healthier. This 

is attributable to sustained senior leadership commitments from 

multiple Secretaries, Deputy Secretaries, General Counsels, and 

Under Secretaries of Management to having open and transparent 

relations with our auditors. In turn, this has resulted in a changed 

culture across DHS from one in which audits were generally 

viewed as unimportant to one where leadership, program officials, 

and others at all organizational levels now understand that audits 

are important and deserve an appropriate level of attention among 

competing priorities and demands in protecting the homeland. 

In addition, continuous senior leadership focus sustaining this 

change has been dependent on strengthening and improving the 

Departmental GAO OIG Liaison Office and our DHS-wide audit liaison community. 
9 

My office is responsible for facilitating successful outcomes for 

everyone involved in the process, including activities related to 

auditor access to records and employees, tracking the resolution 

and closure of recommendations, and supporting and providing 

oversight of component audit liaison activities throughout the Department. 

Within each component, we also have a senior component accountable official responsible for GAO and OIG activities that 

works with my office. Our overriding goals are to ensure that all 

parties that need to be involved in audits are involved; that audits 

are worked in concert with our operating principles of engagement, 

responsiveness, and mutual respect; that audit issues are worked 

at the lowest organizational level possible and only elevated to 

more senior leadership when absolutely necessary; and that there 

are no surprises for anyone at the end of the process. 

We work collaboratively and as partners with our auditors while 

respecting their independence. For our employees, we start with 

clear expectations regarding interactions with auditors. DHS has a 

formal administrative policy issued in 2010 that acknowledges the 

important role GAO has and serves as a foundation of the Department’s commitment to fully cooperating with GAO in its reviews 

consistent with well-established Executive Branch privileges and 

responsibilities. 

Expectations for cooperating with the OIG were reaffirmed in a 

memorandum that Secretary Johnson sent to all DHS employees in 

May 2014, updating similar guidance that former Secretary 

Chertoff issued in 2008. 

DHS has also instituted a number of formal processes to ensure 

it works collaboratively with auditors and, in turn, effectively resolves and implements audit findings and recommendations. 

For example, DHS has documented formal performance measures 

and goals for program offices to submit corrective action plans, perform quarterly reporting on these actions, and strive to close recommendations within 24 months. The current status of these measures and goals is briefed to the Deputy Secretary and other senior 

leaders on a bimonthly basis. 

DHS has also increased the standardization of its responses provided for draft GAO and OIG audit reports. Today a signed letter 

or memorandum is provided to the auditors for all reports having 

recommendations to the Department. This previously did not always happen. 

DHS firmly believes that following through on GAO and OIG recommendations is an integral part of good management and essential to improving the effectiveness and efficiency of our programs, 

operations, and activities. We appreciate the GAO and OIG’s understanding that this is a shared responsibility between management officials and auditors. 

Examples of a few of our successes include: closing more GAO 

and OIG audit recommendations than auditors have issued for the 

fifth year in a row; and steadily reducing the number of open DHS 

OIG recommendations by 65 percent, from a high of 1,663 at the 

end of fiscal year 2011 to just 583 at the end of fiscal year 2015. 

DHS is in a very different place than it was just a few years ago 

with its GAO and OIG relationships. This not only includes the 
10 

openness and transparency with which we work with our auditors 

and a significantly lower number of open recommendations, but 

also our institutional attitude toward oversight. We are committed 

to continuing improvements. 

Thank you for the opportunity to appear before you today. I 

would be pleased to address any questions the Committee may 

have. 

Senator LANKFORD. Thank you all three gentlemen. 

Senator Heitkamp and I are going to defer our questions to the 

end. I recognize Senator Tester for questions. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR TESTER 

Senator TESTER. Thank you, Chairman Lankford. I appreciate 

the hospitality, and, Ranking Member Heitkamp, the same. And 

thank you for your testimony. It is always good to see you, Gene. 

Michael, Jim, I do not know if we have had the opportunity to work 

together much, but we look forward to it this morning. 

This is the way I understand it, Gene: You issue a report. The 

agency has 60 days to return what they have done to address what 

you have pointed out. That is correct? 

Mr. DODARO. That is correct. But they also have an opportunity 

when we give them the draft report to comment as to whether they 

want to agree with the recommendation and to say what they are 

planning to do. Then there is the letter agencies write 60 days after 

the final report is issued. So there are two windows. 

Senator TESTER. And in that 60 days, that report goes to you, 

right, Jim, the report of what the agency has done? 

Mr. CRUMPACKER. No, sir. That is a letter that we sent to OMB 

and Congress with a copy to GAO. It is 60 days after we receive 

a copy of GAO’s final report, 60 days from the date we receive that 

final report. 

Senator TESTER. OK. Let me get to the crux of my—and maybe 

I am wrong on this, but it is my understanding that this Committee—and I do not have a problem with that—gets the update 

on what the agency has done. Is that correct? 

Mr. DODARO. That is correct. 

Senator TESTER. OK. So I also serve on Veterans’ Affairs, which 

is an authorizing committee, and all of us serve on authorizing 

committees here. When does the authorizing committee get the results of that? 

Mr. DODARO. I believe they are supposed to get it within the 60- 

day window as well. 

Senator TESTER. Simultaneously? 

Mr. DODARO. Yes. 

Senator TESTER. Good. Solve that problem. Thank you. 

Mr. DODARO. But I do think, Senator, that process has been in 

place for about 40 years right now, and I want to take a look at 

it. We are going to reexamine whether it is serving the needs of 

the Congress. So we are going to look at that, and we will give you 

the results of any suggestions we have for improving it. 

Senator TESTER. OK. This is for you, Gene, and Michael. Do you 

have the resources you need to do your job? 

Mr. DODARO. We are not at the optimum level I believe GAO 

needs to be. 
11 

Senator TESTER. How short are you? 

Mr. DODARO. We do not have an appropriation for this year yet, 

but I am hopeful it will be sufficient. I mentioned to the appropriators I believe GAO’s optimal level should be 3,250 people. Last 

year, we were slightly under 3,000. So, we are close, but we are not 

where we need to be. 

Senator TESTER. OK. Michael. 

Mr. HOROWITZ. We have the same issue. We have asked for 

slightly increased funding to cover some of the additional challenges we face. We are waiting to see what happens through the 

appropriations process. 

Senator TESTER. OK. That sounds like you are about 10 percent 

short, Gene, by the numbers you gave? 

Mr. DODARO. Correct. 

Senator TESTER. About the same thing with you, Michael? 

Mr. HOROWITZ. Correct. 

Senator TESTER. OK. That is fine. 

Are both of you given the access within the agencies that you 

need to be able to conduct the studies that you need to conduct? 

Mr. HOROWITZ. We have had a number of issues over the last 5 

years, and in light of the Office of Legal Counsel opinion from July, 

the answer is that problem continues. The Department has tried to 

address it by setting up a process, but it is a non-independent process, and what we need is the IG Empowerment Act that this Committee has moved on to get through so that we can get that access 

again that we need. 

Senator TESTER. How about you, Gene? 

Mr. DODARO. Yes, we generally get the access that we need, although in some cases, I have to get involved and elevate it to the 

department head or get assistance from the Congress. But we are 

in pretty good shape. 

There is one area, though, where Congress could be very helpful. 

That is on the National Directory of New Hires that the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) maintains. Their interpretation of the law is that they are prevented from sharing that 

information with us. We do not agree with that legal interpretation. Access to it would make a significant advancement in our 

ability to identify improper payments across the government and 

help solve that problem. We have asked the Congress to confirm 

our access to that information. 

Senator TESTER. Is there a bill to do that? 

Mr. DODARO. I have been trying for three Congresses now to get 

this through. 

Senator TESTER. Senator Heitkamp will take care of that. 

[Laughter.] 

Mr. DODARO. I am counting on it. 

Senator TESTER. Michael, how many IG recommendations to 

agencies are out there currently? 

Mr. HOROWITZ. I do not know the total number across all 72 IGs. 

In DOJ OIG, just about 700 is the number. That is down from 

about 800 2 or 3 years ago when we started the process, as I mentioned in my statement. 

Senator TESTER. Is that a reasonable number? Is that something 

we should be concerned about? Or is it that—— 
12 

1The graph referenced by Senator Tester appears in the Appendix on page 101. 

Mr. HOROWITZ. I think if you look at our aging report, on the internal side it is a reasonable number with the follow up that has 

occurred recently. We have currently over the last 3 years about 84 

percent of our recommendations closed, so that is a pretty good 

number. The ones that linger longer tend to be the external grantrelated reports, and that is where we need more vigilance, I think, 

generally. 

Senator TESTER. OK. And excuse me for running a little bit over, 

but this graph1—and I do not know who put this out. Maybe it was 

you, Mr. Chairman. Maybe it was the GAO. This graph shows the 

number of open recommendations, and it is amazing to me that the 

Department of Defense (DOD) has over two times as many as the 

next highest agency. And I know that there has never been an 

audit done on the Department of Defense. What is going on here, 

Gene? Can you tell me what—I mean, is it they just do not want 

to respond? Are they balking? Tell me what is going on. 

Mr. DODARO. Yes, well, the Defense Department spends roughly 

half of all the discretionary spending in the Federal Government, 

so commensurate with that, we do a lot of audit work there. They 

have one of the lowest response rates of implementing our recommendations. They are more in the 70-percent range rather than 

the 80-percent range. 

Part of the issue is that we find lots of problems at DOD. Onequarter of our High-Risk List focuses on, the Department of Defense and its business practices, and it is very difficult to get these 

issues addressed. One of the reasons is it requires multiple components of the Defense Department to work together. 

Many of our recommendations on overlap, fragmentation, and 

duplication are for issues within the Defense Department. So it is 

a large operation. 

Senator TESTER. But that is not an excuse. 

Mr. DODARO. Well, I agree with that. I have sent letters recently 

to the heads of all major departments and agencies listing the total 

number of open recommendations and prioritizing which ones that 

I think require their personal attention. I have not yet received a 

response from the Defense Department. I have from other agencies. 

Senator TESTER. When did you send that out? 

Mr. DODARO. I am going to follow up with them. 

Senator TESTER. When did you send that out to the departments? 

Mr. DODARO. The Defense one, in August. 

Senator TESTER. And no response? 

Mr. DODARO. Not yet, other than that they are working on it. 

Senator TESTER. OK. Well, I would just say that I think this 

should be concerning to everybody on the Committee, and I thank 

the Chairman for putting that chart in front of us. There is no 

doubt we are very proud of our military, but we need to make sure 

that we are not wasting dough. 

Mr. DODARO. Right. 

Senator TESTER. Thank you, guys. I thank all of you for what you 

do. I appreciate your service. 

Senator LANKFORD. Before we move to Senator Ernst, can I ask 

one quick clarification as well? You had mentioned this new hire 
13 

database access for HHS. Can you give us greater clarity to that? 

What is missing and what you do not have access to? 

Mr. DODARO. Yes, this database was set up for child enforcement 

purpose for HHS, so it has all the current information on wage 

earnings by people across the country. We could use it for comparison purposes with programs within the Federal Government, that 

have eligibility criteria based on income levels. We find that that 

information is more current than anything else the Federal Government has. So if we cannot use that information to determine eligibility for means-tested Federal programs it limits our ability to 

address the high level of improper payments. We want to go in and 

match that database to eligibility decisions that agencies made for 

programs where there is an income eligibility determination. 

Now, we have obtained some of the data in the past, but we had 

to go to all 50 States to collect the information from the individual 

States because HHS would not provide it. It is not efficient. It 

takes a large amount of resources. There was a time when the Department was advising States not to cooperate with us. 

Senator LANKFORD. So HHS has said you do not have access to 

it because? 

Mr. DODARO. Well, in the law it says they are not to provide it 

to anybody other than specified agencies, and we do not think that 

Congress intended for that to mean not to give it to GAO. So we 

disagree with them on the legal interpretation, but we are stuck 

right now. 

Senator LANKFORD. All right. Thank you. Senator Ernst. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR ERNST 

Senator ERNST. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and Ranking Member 

Heitkamp. I appreciate it. 

Thank you, gentlemen, for being here today. Your input is always very valuable to us, so I appreciate the time that you take. 

Mr. Dodaro, in 2015 you added VA Health Care to your HighRisk List, citing concerns about the VA’s ability to ensure the timeliness, cost-effectiveness, quality, and safety of the health care the 

Department provides in a number of different areas. You mentioned that there are more than 100 GAO recommendations that 

have not been addressed by the agency, which is very concerning. 

Approximately one year later from when this report was released, can you tell us where the VA is on implementing some of 

these recommendations and how they are coming on their high-risk 

progress with that rating? And has there been what you would call 

significant progress made from the beginning of the year until 

now? 

Mr. DODARO. Thank you, Senator Ernst. There has not been significant progress. I am very disappointed that we have not seen a 

very good corrective action plan from VA to address the high-risk 

areas. 

Now, I know there are other assessments that have been made 

and set in law by the Veterans Choice Act in terms of the commission on care and an independent technical assessment. So they are 

receiving a lot of different recommendations. 

But I have been concerned. In fact, I have asked for a meeting 

with the Secretary. I am meeting with him tomorrow. 
14 

Senator ERNST. Very Good. 

Mr. DODARO. We have a scheduled meeting to talk about the fact 

that I do not think they have a good plan. They have not made significant progress. A number of our recommendations overlap those 

of or are consistent with ones from these independent assessments 

that are being done now by other parties. So I think they need an 

integrated plan to address our concerns and those expressed by the 

IG and by others. And I have some ideas on how they could do that 

that I want to talk to the Secretary about. But I am concerned. 

Senator ERNST. OK. Thank you. I appreciate that honest and 

very straightforward response, because so many of us want to be 

great supporters of the VA, but we cannot right now because they 

are not providing the necessary services for our veterans. And so 

we need to continue talking about this. It is important. But more 

than talk, we need to make sure that the VA is actually following 

up, and if there is a way that we can assist with that, we need to 

make sure we are doing that. 

Mr. DODARO. I will keep this Committee posted on our progress. 

Senator ERNST. OK. Thank you. I appreciate it. 

Also, following up with that, too, I cosponsored Senators Ayotte 

and Manchin’s Duplication Elimination Act, which would require 

the President to submit to Congress a proposed joint resolution implementing recommendations outlined in your annual report on duplication. It also includes procedures for expedited consideration of 

the joint resolution in Congress, and I would just like to know what 

your thoughts are on that particular piece of legislation. We have 

seen that these Federal agencies have fully implemented only 36 

percent of the recommendations, and I really think it is time that 

Congress starts holding someone responsible. So if you could just 

maybe talk a little bit about the legislation and what your thoughts 

are. 

Mr. DODARO. I think it is a very good legislative initiative. I am 

supportive of it. I think it is necessary because many of our recommendations involve overlap and duplication among or between 

agencies across the Federal Government. Most of the 36 percent 

that have been implemented have been implemented where it involves one agency and they could take action. So you need leadership on the part of OMB and the President to work with multiple 

agencies and come up with an administration position on our recommendations. And this legislation would require that. I think that 

is fair. They either agree or they do not agree, or they are going 

to implement it or not. And then the Congress can take action on 

those areas. 

And it also helps where you have multiple congressional jurisdictions over some of these issues, too. I have advocated joint hearings 

in some of the committees. So you have, both within the Executive 

Branch and the Congress multiple parties that have to agree in 

order to implement our recommendations. 

Senator ERNST. Well, good. I appreciate that. And it goes to Senator Tester’s point as well with the DOD. There is so much duplication within the DOD, and I think that we do need to hold people 

accountable and streamline and find efficiencies where we can. So 

thank you, gentlemen, for being here. Again, thank you very much. 

I appreciate that. 
15 

Thank you. 

Senator LANKFORD. Senator Heitkamp. 

Senator HEITKAMP. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thanks for 

holding this hearing. 

I want to get back to kind of collaboration, and I think, Gene, 

I have been asking you repeatedly whether it would be a good idea 

to prioritize recommendations. Let us say there is limited resources 

within the agency, kind of big bang for the buck. I failed to write 

this down, but I think you said for every dollar invested in GAO, 

you return over $130 in savings, right? Was it $135, Gene? 

Mr. DODARO. 134. You are only a buck off. 

Senator HEITKAMP. OK, 134. That is what I was going to say. 

But that is a pretty good return on investment. But when people 

do not implement the recommendations, we are not only frustrating the purpose of government, but we are frustrating this opportunity for financial savings. 

So, when you look at the creation of a possible database that 

would serve kind of as a crosswalk across the top 25 open GAO recommendations and any related IG recommendations for agencies to 

address specific findings, can we look at a way of prioritizing or collaborating or actually—as we whittle down this number, if they 

take the low-hanging fruit—I do not want them always to take the 

low-hanging fruit, is my point, because doing the tough thing has 

the effect of having long-term systemic reforms that will reap rewards and financial opportunities going forward. 

Mr. DODARO. Yes, I agree with you. And as a step in that direction—— 

Senator HEITKAMP. That is always a good way to start an answer 

to the question: ‘‘I agree with you.’’ [Laughter.] 

Mr. DODARO. Well, I have learned something in over 100 hearings. But as a step in that direction, though, I have sent these letters to all major departments and agencies with the total number 

of recommendations, but also prioritizing them on a very limited 

number of areas where I think there are dollar savings and big improvements that could occur. We have shared those letters with the 

Congress, with the various committees, the appropriation and authorizing committees for the agencies. So we could start there with 

a list of those priority recommendations and make a major push 

where Congress could hold hearings, write follow up letters, et 

cetera. And then we can figure out a way to better institutionalize 

that in the database. 

Senator HEITKAMP. Yes, I am very excited about what you are 

doing, and I hope you share with our staff all of those letters. Once 

again, it is the diffusion of all this authority. This is the Committee 

where it all can come together. 

Michael, thank you so much, and I am going to go back to my 

chart. Obviously, GAO has that consolidation. You are present, 

kind of the internal auditor, the internal watchdog in every agency, 

so we do not have that overarching view of what the IG recommendations are. There may be, some patterns that we can see 

that we need to take corrective action on. What do you think about 

doing a database, doing something like GAO does that can give us 

a better kind of view from a mile high perspective? 
16 

Mr. HOROWITZ. I think it is a great idea. I think the issue has 

been for us in the IG community—Congress created the Council of 

IGs in 2008 to try and place some of these functions. We have not 

been funded with an appropriation in any year since our creation. 

The last 4 years, we have asked to be included in the President’s 

budget. We have not been. We have been funded through a variety 

of mechanisms, and we are talking about a request of about $4 million that we have asked for. 

Our budget this year is about $6.5 million. It takes a fair amount 

of staff to do that kind of work and information technology (IT) infrastructure as well. We do not think we even have the IT capacity 

to do that at this point without an actual appropriated direct appropriation to do it. 

Senator HEITKAMP. It is just so frustrating because this is so 

penny-wise and pound-foolish, I mean, to not have agencies like 

yours fully funded, in fact, not even challenge you to amp up your 

work, to realize more savings. And so we want to participate and 

play a pretty active role in encouraging and being your advocate 

here to get that level of funding, because I think that it would be 

very enlightening to see those recommendations across agencies 

and see what we are seeing over and over again as recurring patterns of inefficiency. 

Mr. HOROWITZ. And just to pick up the investment point, every dollar invested in IGs returns about $18 in much the same way. 

And that does not count, for example, in my agency all the nondollar-related work we do like on a Fast and Furious, like on National Security Letters, and that kind of work. 

Senator HEITKAMP. Yes, and I think Gene made such an excellent point, that not only do we see dollar returns, but we see returns in better services. The point that Joni made about veterans, 

it is not just about dollars. This is livelihood. 

And, Colonel Crumpacker, when I started on this Committee, we 

were tearing our hair out because there was an attitude, we believed, about GAO at Homeland Security that was not very conducive to resolving a lot of the controversy, and with your presentation today, we are seeing a pretty positive attitude, seeing the 

numbers go down. I think that is really a step in the right direction, so I want to applaud the effort of Homeland Security in stepping up and actually being responsive. 

Mr. CRUMPACKER. Thank you, Senator. 

Senator HEITKAMP. I think that is a great step forward and real 

progress. 

With that, I will yield the floor. 

Senator LANKFORD. Thank you. 

I will ask a few questions as well, and then we are just going 

to open up the microphone, and we will have open dialogue here 

around the table. 

Gene, talk to me a little bit more about the follow up process 

with Congress. As you mentioned before, this is a 40-year process 

that has been in place, and it needs a review. So talk about the 

rest of the details on that. 

Mr. DODARO. Yes. Well, first, we have a wide footprint across the 

Congress. Last year, about 97 percent of the committees and 66 

percent of the subcommittees requested GAO work. And some of 
17 

that requested work is actually right on following up on our recommendations on previous reports. So that dialogue goes on all the 

time. 

We are heavily involved with the appropriations bill every year. 

Since it is a vehicle that goes through every year in both the Appropriations Committees and the subcommittees work with them 

on open recommendations and recommendations things the agencies have not agreed to and that still need to be implemented. We 

encourage them to put something in statute, and that works. For 

example, where there is a need for an agency plan, say, to improve 

an IT project, the committees will withhold the money until agencies implement our recommendations. 

This happened for Defense spending. For example, we found that 

the Department of Defense was using a proliferation of camouflage 

across all the different services. And not only was it wasteful from 

a dollars standpoint, but it had safety implications because you 

cannot operate well in joint environment having different camouflage patterns. You are supposed to be disguised from the enemy, 

not from yourselves. And so DOD agreed with our recommendations, but Congress mandated in the national defense authorization 

bill that they have a uniform approach to that issue. So that is just 

one minor example of Congress acting to reinforce our recommendations over time. 

Now, the 60-day response is something that has been in statute 

for 40 years, and regularly these letters go to committees. I am not 

sure, quite frankly, what all the committees do with the letters 

that they receive. We get them, too. We follow up. In some committees we have regular dialogue on these. Some others we may not 

have the same level of attention. Because I am not sure, I want to 

look at it systematically across the various committees in the Congress, and we plan to do that. And once we have that done, we will 

share the results with this Committee and see if there are any 

changes that need to be made in statute or in practice. 

I want to look at this, too—what the quality of the responses are 

from the agencies in the 60-day letters. So I want to look at whether or not they are being clear on whether they are going to implement our recommendations. 

Regarding Senator Tester’s question earlier about DOD, I also 

want to make sure, too, ultimately that they will implement the 

recommendations. But the pace at which they are going about this 

in many cases is too slow to realize the full benefit. So it is not only 

whether they are going to eventually implement recommendations, 

but it is the pace at which they are implementing them, where 

Congress can be very helpful. We expect that the prioritization of 

the recommendations could be helpful too. 

Senator LANKFORD. Is it your suspicion, because of the, let us 

say, tenacity of the infrastructure there and bureaucracy at DOD 

that it tends to slow down the process and takes long to get anything done? Or is it the decision whether they are going to do it 

or not? 

Mr. DODARO. I think sometimes the decision to implement a recommendation may not be with the level of intensity that we would 

like to see. It is like, DOD says, it is a good idea, we will get 
18 

around to it when we can. Definitely resource issues also come into 

play. 

I am very concerned—one of the reasons I sent the letters to the 

heads of the departments and agencies now is that we are going 

to have a transition in administrations. There is a huge potential— 

and I have seen this happen over the years; it does not matter 

what administration it is—where there will be a lull in the activities of the individual departments and agencies. They will not 

know, what the new priorities are going to be of the new administration. It is an opportunity, if they do not really believe fully in 

implementing the recommendations, to slow things down until they 

get new priorities. 

So there is a lot of lost momentum that occurs in a change in 

administration, and the Congress needs to be helpful. I try to do 

what I can because we have a lot of continuity in GAO. I have a 

15-year term, so I see administrations come and go. And I try to 

focus on making sure they maintain good progress on initiatives 

they began but also attend to things that have not been addressed 

before. But I always worry about the loss of momentum during 

these changes in administration. 

Senator LANKFORD. OK. Let me just open this up for open dialogue as well. Mr. Horowitz, let me ask you a question. How do you 

all share ideas. As you mentioned, CIGIE is a fairly new organization, so how are the Inspectors General sharing ideas, ‘‘This is 

what we do, this has been effective,’’ and not only methods of investigation but places to go look and things to do that become a frequent gold mine for efficiencies within agencies? 

Mr. HOROWITZ. We have organized ourselves not only in monthly 

meetings to get together to talk about issues we are seeing and we 

need to address, but we have broken down our structures by committee consistent with the kind of work we do. So there is an audit 

committee, an investigations committee, evaluations and inspections committee, an IT committee. Those are the committees that 

get together and talk about what are the auditors seeing, what are 

we finding, what are the agents seeing when they are doing their 

work; evaluators and inspectors, same thing; on the IT side, cyber 

related, what are we seeing there? 

They then generate proposals and ideas that the larger community then discusses on what should we jointly do. That led to our 

cloud computing review last year, which was a very useful and I 

think important review. We are undertaking one now on cyber-related issues as well, trying to think about these issues across the 

community. But we could be doing more in this regard, and that 

is one of the reasons we have sought a direct appropriation for several years now because there could be more we are doing across 72 

IGs and what we are learning and seeing and sharing that. But we 

need to upgrade our IT systems. We need staffing to do that. 

We have about 20 staff total for CIGIE. Many of them are 

detailees because we do not have the direct appropriation, which 

means we do not know year to year what the pass-through funding 

is going to be, which has been largely the mechanism we have had 

over the last several years. 

So the President’s budget does not include money directly for us, 

but for the prior several years, they have divided up through 17 
19 

IGs to see if they get funding. Those that get funding—not all of 

them do—then pass the money through to the CIGIE. We have 

asked for, for example, $6 to $7 million over the last several years, 

and in the pass-through process have gotten $1 to $4 million. That 

is no way—we cannot run an organization and do some of the 

things that make complete sense to do when we do not know how 

much money we are getting year to year because we cannot hire 

staff in that way. We can get detailees, but that means people are 

just coming and going, and we do not have the kind of consistency 

that you need to do these kind of efforts. 

Senator HEITKAMP. It just kind of boggles my mind that, from 

somebody who used to run a State agency and when the State 

auditor gave me a recommendation, man, we turned Heaven and 

Earth to get it done, because we knew there was going to be political accountability, accountability and oversight committees in the 

State legislature. We did not always agree with what the State 

auditor told us, but we certainly came to terms and said, ‘‘Let us 

get this done. Let us get the review done.’’ 

And so I think that part of this is trying to change the dynamic 

of what seems to be maybe a little bit too cavalier of an attitude 

that, ‘‘Well, it is just those guys,’’ ‘‘It might be a bad hearing on 

the Hill, but everybody will forget about it, and we will just go 

about our life the way we have always gone about our life.’’ 

How do we change that attitude? Colonel, I want to talk to you, 

because I think we have—and I think Gene would agree—seen an 

attitude change at DHS. What kinds of things internally did you 

do to really make the supervisors and everybody there aware that 

these are problems, we do not want to go to the Hill anymore and 

say we are on high-risk and doing nothing about it, let us change 

attitude, let us work collaboratively and cooperatively with GAO? 

And how can we kind of take your experience and expand on it in 

other agencies? 

Mr. CRUMPACKER. So with us at DHS, it, quite frankly, started 

with the senior most leadership in the Department, from the Secretary, the Deputy Secretary, the General Counsel, and the Under 

Secretary for Management. If you go back to each of their confirmation hearings, this type of issue was discussed at the hearings, and they all went on record and committed to helping grow 

and robust up the new and improved process that we had. And that 

cascaded down through the Department. They have been tremendously supportive of my office. We are allowed to reach out and 

touch anyone anywhere within the Department at any time to dialogue and engage on GAO and OIG audit activity. 

Senator HEITKAMP. So you think the accountability point really 

was when it reached a level here where we are sitting across from 

the nominee saying, ‘‘Here is your audit report. What are going to 

do about it?’’ 

Mr. CRUMPACKER. Well, I think our leadership wanted to do the 

right thing and would have done it regardless. But certainly when 

it is on record at a confirmation hearing and they have taken that 

to heart and followed through, they have cascaded it down. The 

Comptroller General talked about recommendations hopefully 

being closed within 4 years. Our goal at DHS is to close them within 2 years, 24 months, and we track and monitor that all the time, 
20 

to include bimonthly briefings to the Deputy Secretary and other 

senior leaders, including the Under Secretary for Management and 

the General Counsel. 

Senator HEITKAMP. Not to belabor this, but, Gene, that might be 

the point of getting that kind of information on what is open so we 

do not see a lapse as we transition and make it part of that process, make it part of the expectation that when you come, you are 

going to take these recommendations seriously, and if you do not 

agree with them, then we can have that debate. But if you do agree 

with them, then what is the timeframe? 

And so I think, having a high-profile evaluation here on these 

kinds of recommendations and having your priority list and having 

those letters is going to be useful in the transition. 

Mr. DODARO. Yes, there are two points on this. 

One, we have done for this Committee in the past a set of questions that could be asked during nomination hearings. Senator 

Voinovich was involved in this before. We can dust that off and update it and provide that to you as well. This was made broadly 

available from this Committee to all the other committees that hold 

confirmation hearings on new appointees. 

Second, under the Presidential Transition Act, GAO has a responsibility to be a source of information to incoming administrations. So last time, in 2008, we produced a website with all the key 

issues that we thought by department and agency, on a cross-cutting basis and priority recommendations for the incoming administration to use. That was made available to the Congress and the 

public all at the same time. We did that 2 days after there was a 

President-elect determination, so we are positioning ourselves to do 

the same thing next time around. 

Now, while I have the floor, there is one correction I need to 

make, that I think is significant. The 60-day letters that we have 

been talking about, by law they come to this Committee, GAO’s 

oversight committee in the House and the Appropriations Committees. They do not go, my team tells me, to the authorizing committees, as Senator Tester mentioned. So I want to correct that answer, but also, I think that is an opportunity for changing the law. 

I think they need to go to the authorizing committees. 

Senator LANKFORD. Or it should be standard practice that this 

Committee shares it with the authorizing committee. 

Mr. DODARO. Yes, so we will take that and then build upon any 

other suggestions in our reexamination. But I think that change 

should be made. 

Senator LANKFORD. Can I ask a follow up question as well on 

DHS? Some of the high-risk areas that have come up, the Federal 

Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) Disaster Relief Fund 

(DRF) and the administrative costs, that was one of those areas 

that for 10 years, there was 13 percent administrative costs to be 

able to run the Disaster Relief Fund. Tell me where that is and 

what the conversation is like, and how do you resolve that? So as 

you are walking through, that is a big one. That is billions of dollars. How does that kind of thing get resolved? 

Mr. CRUMPACKER. Well, there was an audit report this year, 

which we responded to, and it began with our program officials and 

subject matter experts specifically concurring or non-concurring 
21 

1Mr. Crumpacker response to Senator Lankford’s question appears in the Appendix on page 

95. 

with each recommendation, and I believe, as I recall, they concurred with all of them. And then we told GAO which office within 

FEMA or elsewhere is going to take the action, what are they going 

to do and when is it going to be done. And, generally speaking, 

when we respond to any audit report, GAO or OIG, our rules of engagement, if you will, within DHS are that you have an estimated 

completion date, and it is generally OK to have that up to 12 

months from the date the report is issued. If it is going to go beyond 12 months, we ask the program officials to provide us interim 

milestones, which we track and monitor. 

On the Disaster Relief Fund administrative costs, that was also 

a duplication/overlap issue that came out this year, in 2015, and 

so that is new for us in the duplication/overlap, and that is a work 

still in progress. We could certainly get back to you with details1

on what is being done to address that. 

Senator LANKFORD. Is that an assumption that that is a 2-year 

project then? As you mentioned, it is 4 years that you consider it 

open, but for you, you really try to get this done in 2 years. 

Mr. CRUMPACKER. On the recommendations-related audit reports 

our goal is to close them all within 24 months of issuance. On the 

duplication and overlap, those are not recommendations per se. We 

call them ‘‘actions.’’ We track and monitor those separately. Many 

of those actions are the same as the recommendations in the underlying supporting audit reports, but I would have to look at those 

specifically. 

Senator LANKFORD. And when you have other agencies engaged 

in this, and this is what Gene Dodaro was mentioning before about 

when it is multi-agency it gets tougher, what happens? Give us an 

example of a multi-agency issue that you will have, and how does 

the process work with OMB to be able to help resolve the issues 

where there is duplication between agencies or there is overlap 

there. 

Mr. CRUMPACKER. So I would not be able to speak to what might 

or might not go on at OMB. Typically, that would be handled 

by—— 

Senator LANKFORD. I am just talking from your side of it, what 

communication you receive from OMB and how that works and 

how they coordinate with you. 

Mr. CRUMPACKER. And that communication would typically go directly to the program officials. 

Senator LANKFORD. OK. 

Mr. CRUMPACKER. Our office is not involved in that. 

Senator LANKFORD. So you work directly with GAO and with the 

OIG, but not necessarily with OMB, in implementing some of their 

recommendations if it is multi-agency. 

Mr. CRUMPACKER. That is correct. What we do with regard to a 

nexus to OMB is that we do track and monitor and ensure the accomplishment of the 60-day letters that are supposed to be sent to 

OMB and the Congress, and so we ensure that those are going in 

in a timely manner. DHS, as you can see in the written statement, 

I think it was 2008. It took us, quite frankly, 18 and a half months 
22 

to get a 60-day letter out. The last 2 or 3 years, we have been down 

to 62, 63 days. 2016 is going to be the year that for the first time 

ever we get down below that 60-day—— 

Senator LANKFORD. Fifty-nine days. [Laughter.] 

Mr. CRUMPACKER. Yes, sir. 

Senator LANKFORD. Can I ask another one lingering—and, Senator Portman, just jump in any time. We are on our second round, 

and it is a more open conversation here. But one other question 

just about Fast and Furious. Mr. Horowitz, you brought that up. 

Obviously, that is a long, lingering issue with a lot of recommendations that are now sitting out there. It is 6 years at this point on 

Fast and Furious. Tell me where that status is, recommendations, 

and the implementation of that. 

Mr. HOROWITZ. So while the issues for Fast and Furious were 

back in the 2009–10 period, our report was 2012. So we are finishing up our follow up review of where those recommendations remain 3 years later so that we can decide whether they are now 

closed—whether they can be closed. And we are pretty near finalizing that and getting it here to the Hill, I think, very soon. And 

that is one of the ways, by the way, that we prioritize. We do not 

internally prioritize our open recommendations. We usually issue 

an aging report in essence to this Committee and to the leadership. 

We prioritize by doing follow ups on the most significant issues 

that we have and doing a review within 2 or 3 years usually to see 

where that is, a more thorough follow up review than perhaps just 

getting their paperwork, and reviewing what the Department is 

submitting to us. We are actually out there interviewing people 

and talking to people. 

Senator LANKFORD. OK. Senator Portman. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR PORTMAN 

Senator PORTMAN. Well, first, thanks very much to both of you 

for holding the hearing and, more importantly, this Subcommittee 

has been more active than perhaps Subcommittees have been in 

the past on the issue of oversight and specifically how you take the 

IG work and the GAO work and track it and implement it as appropriate. So I appreciate them spending the time and effort on 

this. 

I think this is a time when we should all be doubling down on 

how to make government work more efficiently. We have this 

unsustainable debt and deficit, and one place to have some savings 

is, of course, with regard to more efficient government. And so I 

rely on the GAO reports and the IG reports and the Permanent 

Subcommittee on Investigations. As you know, that is one of our 

great sources of information. But there are some broader things 

that I think can and should be done by the full Committee, too, and 

so this is a great way for us to understand whether we are tracking 

this or not. 

I am sorry I got here a little late. There is a lot going on right 

now with the omnibus and the extenders package, and I was in a 

meeting on that extenders issue. 

I guess my question would be more generally about the process. 

My understanding is that when you all at GAO, Gene, issue a report that the agency head has a requirement to send that report 
23 

to us within a certain period of time and that you have indicated 

you might look at that process, and I do not know how my colleagues Senator Heitkamp and Senator Lankford feel about this, 

but it seems to me there could be a more transparent way for us 

to get those reports and to get some agency reaction to those reports. But maybe you have already talked about this this morning. 

If you have, I apologize, but what is your proposal about how to 

make that system work better? 

Mr. DODARO. Well, first of all, I would like to look to see whether 

the agencies are responding in a timely manner 60 days or not. I 

am not sure we have a systemic picture across government on that 

issue. We talked about making sure the letters now go to the authorizing committees as well as the oversight and the appropriation 

committees, so that is a change I would propose that we make in 

the future. 

Second would be the transparency you mentioned. I want to 

evaluate the quality of their responses whether the agencies are actually giving good responses to the Congress. I also want to then 

evaluate standard practices in GAO for reviewing those letters we 

will then engage in a dialogue with the committees regarding their 

perspective on the agency response letter. 

So I think we could perhaps look at ways where this could be 

more transparent—— 

Senator PORTMAN. Are you undertaking that process already to 

look at the system and see whether it is working? 

Mr. DODARO. We have not started yet. I plan to start—quite 

frankly, the genesis of this hearing prompted me to think about it. 

Senator PORTMAN. OK. 

Mr. DODARO. So I would credit this hearing as a means of getting 

us started on that process. 

Senator PORTMAN. I for one would like to encourage you to do it, 

and I am sure that Chairman Lankford and Ranking Member 

Heitkamp would also like to be part of that. But I think that is 

really an interesting opportunity for us to at least get the good 

work that is being done used in a more effective way, to put it in 

the agency’s hands to have to react to it and to get it to us in a 

way that makes more sense to actually follow through and hold 

people accountable. 

The other question I would have, I guess, is just what your relationship is like with your departments. Mr. Crumpacker, you 

talked a little about how your relationship with your DHS senior 

officials is positive. There is a transparent relationship; they look 

to you to provide them information. Is that accurate? Do you feel 

like you have a good relationship? 

Mr. CRUMPACKER. Absolutely, yes, sir. I have a good relationship 

within the Department with senior leadership at all levels, and I 

have a good relationship outside of the Department with both GAO 

and the OIG. As an example, with GAO, we have a quarterly coordination senior leadership meeting that has happened—I cannot 

remember when it started, at least 6 years ago. Every quarter we 

meet with George Scott, the Managing Director for Homeland Security and Justice Issues, on the DHS side. That meeting is chaired 

by the Under Secretary for Management and the General Counsel. 

So that is the type of ongoing engagement, an example of the type 
24 

of ongoing engagement that we have to maintain and continue to 

build our relationships. 

Senator PORTMAN. Would the IG agree with you? 

Mr. CRUMPACKER. Yes, sir. As a matter of fact, in my written 

statement there is a quote from Mr. Roth where he recently told 

me that—if I could just turn to it, he said: ‘‘That your office even 

exists is a testament that DHS has a mature and constructive attitude toward what we do.’’ So I do believe he would agree. 

Senator PORTMAN. All right. Now let us turn to Mr. Horowitz. Do 

you think your office enjoys a similar relationship with the Department of Justice leadership? 

Mr. HOROWITZ. I do. We have had traditionally a very strong relationship with the Department’s Justice Management Division, 

who is responsible for following these up. I think one of the things 

that we have done to effect more change at the Department is 

within the last 2 years send to the Attorney General and the Deputy Attorney General, as well as to the Congress, our complete list 

of open recommendations, because what we were finding is, among 

the dozens of components at the Justice Department, some were 

being more responsive than others. And the Justice Management 

Division, no matter how much they wanted to help, they are one 

of those components among many and having the leadership involved could perhaps move this process along further. And the Deputy Attorney General’s office has been very helpful in that regard 

and just this month has put now in place a new system, a mechanism, and is advising the components across the Department to 

work with Justice Management Division auditors to move these 

along. So that has been helpful, and we are hoping to see more 

movement now. 

Senator PORTMAN. How about your access to sensitive information? You have expressed concern in the past of not having access 

to everything that you would like in terms of sensitive issues. 

Mr. HOROWITZ. There remain issues in not only the Justice Department but across all IG offices following up on the Office of 

Legal Counsel opinion that interpreted the IG statute, looked at 

the IG statute, and it is unclear at this point whether the provision 

in Section 6(a) of the IG Act regarding all records and access to all 

records for IGs indeed authorizes us to have access to all records 

in the hundreds, if not thousands of statutes that have limitations 

on them on access. 

In connection with our work, we do not have independent access 

anymore to grand jury, wiretap, or credit information at the Department. The Department decides whether as a legal matter we 

are entitled to those records, and that is not consistent with, in our 

view, independent oversight. 

Senator PORTMAN. Would you be willing to give us your recommendations as to how the statute could be clarified? 

Mr. HOROWITZ. I would, and I would say, Senator, that the proposal that I think is pending to address this on the IG Empowerment Act, which this Committee already approved, would add the 

language that I think would resolve the issue for us. We are hopeful that is, in fact, the language that is adopted by—— 

Senator PORTMAN. That would solve the problem, you think, in 

the Empowerment Act? 
25 

Mr. HOROWITZ. That would solve the problem. It would make 

clear that unless Congress explicitly said IGs should not get certain 

records, the default is Congress intended the IGs to get the records. 

Right now we are operating essentially on the reverse proposition. 

Senator PORTMAN. And, Gene, is there any legislative help that 

you think you need in order to make this system work better of 

transmitting reports to this Committee and to the Congress? 

Mr. DODARO. I think that the recommendations I made earlier 

about making sure the reports go to the authorizing committees is 

the one I would cite right now. 

Senator PORTMAN. Does that require statutory change, do you 

think? 

Mr. DODARO. Yes. In the meantime, what we can do is make sure 

when we get them, we give them to the authorizing committees. 

But that is not an efficient way to do it. It would be better if the 

agencies did it as well. 

Senator PORTMAN. With their input, preferably. 

Mr. DODARO. Yes. 

Senator PORTMAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Senator HEITKAMP. Can I just run down—I have been trying to 

keep a kind of running list of ideas and issues here as we look at 

adding this kind of good governance piece, and you are absolutely 

a foundational need for good government. There is no doubt about 

it. But if nobody wants to build on that, we do not get the results 

that we need. 

So we are talking, Gene, about the 60-day letters. You are going 

to look to see if there is a quality response kind of indication, or 

if they are just—the night before it is due, throwing something together as opposed to actually having a plan for implementation. 

Then legislation on authorizing committees, looking at transparency, increasing the transparency of the 60-day letters. And 

then taking a look at standard practices on how you deal with 

them. And some of those are administrative, and some of those are 

legislative, and we will have to sort through that. 

We have the IG Empowerment Act that absolutely needs to be 

done if the IGs are going to be our partners that they need to be. 

We have heard today a specific problem with the Department of 

Health and Human Services, access to the database for cross-referencing any kind of fraud or failure to basically do the doublecheck that we need to do to make sure that people are not getting 

paid who are not statutorily qualified to be paid. 

Then looking at the additional resources, and that is something 

that we need to share with our colleagues. Senator Tester is on Appropriations. Senator Lankford is on Appropriations. That is helpful to bring that message back. 

But I honestly believe that as we have seen the benefit of this 

collaboration across agencies that GAO is able to bring as a result 

of their centralized mission, that we need to do something like 

that—maybe not centralize the IGs, but definitely create a database and create the resources that we need. And then, obviously, 

the authorizing committee. 

What did I miss here? 

Mr. DODARO. No, I think you got everything. The human resource base, the new hire database—— 
26 

Senator HEITKAMP. Yes. 

Mr. DODARO. But that is a pretty good list. I do not think you 

missed anything. 

Senator HEITKAMP. The one thing I want to talk a little bit about 

is, as we now go into tax season again, the problems that we have 

with the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) database and with inappropriate refunds. Everybody wants to get their refund quickly. 

That is the system that we have now designed. As a former tax 

commissioner, if we got your refund within a month, people were 

thrilled. That now would be seen as, my goodness, I want it tomorrow kind of thing. Obviously, that desire to get people back their 

refund has created a situation where we may not be doing the kind 

of double-check that we need to do before those refunds go out. And 

I know that is not the purpose of this hearing, but I am concerned 

as we go into this tax season that we are better prepared than we 

were last tax season to catch fraud and abuse of that refund system. 

Mr. DODARO. This is an area—that fits with this hearing. We 

have open recommendations that require a statutory change by the 

Congress that we think is necessary to fix this problem. 

No. 1, you need to accelerate the dates for W–2 filings. Right now 

the IRS does not get the W–2 information to match, from the employers until April. And by then it is too late. The crooks file early, 

and they are filing using identity theft, and that is a big vulnerability, and IRS is limited in their ability to obtain information to 

prevent it. This would also help in other areas in terms of, wage 

withholding for Social Security to have the W–2 information earlier. So that is No. 1. 

No. 2, we think Congress ought to give IRS the authority to regulate paid tax preparers. A lot of returns are prepared by paid tax 

preparers. IRS has done an analysis. A significant number of those 

returns have inappropriate advice, for example claiming the 

Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC). We did an undercover investigation where we sent people out to 19 paid tax preparers, and in only 

2 cases did we get the correct answer for the situation that we had 

in terms of the filing situation of our undercover teams. And we 

looked at the data that IRS had submitted, and over 60 percent of 

the returns, our estimate is—and they confirmed it—prepared by 

paid tax preparers had errors in them. 

So IRS tried to regulate prepares based on these concerns. This 

is a case where the agency moved quickly on our recommendation, 

but then IRS was sued. And the courts determined they did not 

have the authority to regulate in this are and so Congress needs 

to act in order to—— 

Senator LANKFORD. So the question I would have with that, and 

I have had this conversation with the IRS as well on it, is the carrot-stick approach here. They used the stick heavily. The reverse 

of that is to say you can only do fast returns and be listed as a 

paid preparer that actually has a—who basically gets in the fast 

lane, the HOV lane of returns if you are certified. If you are not 

certified, your returns take a month to get back. If you are certified, it takes a week to get back. Every one of these paid preparers says they can get it turned around fast. They will all go 

through the certification if they get that access to it. 
27 

1Mr. Dodaro response to Senator Lankford’s question appears in the Appendix on page 98. 

Do they have access to do that right now, or would that take legislative action? 

Mr. DODARO. I will have to take a look at it. My initial response, 

pending a more detailed response, would be they would need to 

have legislation in order to do it.1

Senator LANKFORD. OK. 

Mr. DODARO. We looked at Oregon that regulates tax preparers, 

has for a number of years, we did an analysis, and we found that 

you have a 72-percent higher rate of accuracy in tax returns filed 

in Oregon than you do anywhere else in the country. We always 

call our States the ‘‘laboratories of good government.’’ It has been 

proven to be effective in Oregon, and I think the IRS could do it. 

Now, how they exercise the authority and go through due process 

for a carrot-stick approach or a different, maybe tiered approach 

would be up to them. But I think it would be better if the Congress 

gave them the authority and had them develop a proposal for Congress on how they would exercise the new regulatory authority. 

The proposal could include benefits and costs and how to avoid any 

downsides of overregulation. 

Senator PORTMAN. We have a little opportunity in the extenders 

package to do something for enrolled agents, something that has 

been in the mix for, I think 12 years now, and it would help because these enrolled agents do have this expertise and the certification process they have to go through, or they cannot advertise it. 

To me it is crazy. So that is a small way to help. That is not necessarily going to answer all of the questions that you have raised, 

but to have people who have professional certifications in this area 

being able to tell people that if you come to us, you are going to 

get a better, more accurate return in, I think that is helpful. 

Could I ask a question about the Congressional Review Act? 

Again, this may have come up earlier, but it is not directly related 

to these reports, but it is related to GAO. And you know that it 

was for a while true that when a Federal agency sends final rules 

to Congress, they also send them to GAO before the rules can take 

effect, and GAO used to keep track of all those covered rules that 

are being submitted and would notify OMB of any missing rules. 

And in November 2011, my understanding is GAO stopped checking the Federal Register and stopped notifying OMB of these missing rules. According to the Administrative Conference, once GAO 

reduced the check of the Federal Register, stopped doing this process, the number of rules in the GAO database fell sharply. 

Can you explain why GAO stopped keeping track of rules being 

submitted to Congress and whether you think it would be worthwhile to endeavor to resume that? 

Mr. DODARO. We are still carrying out our statutory responsibilities. I will have to get back to you with an answer on that. I know 

this has come up before. I have looked into it. I was satisfied that 

we had a good reason but I cannot remember it off the top of my 

head. And I do not have anybody here who can give me an answer 

to that. But I will get you an answer by the end of the day. 

Senator PORTMAN. Well, that would be helpful. When I was at 

OMB, it was done, and I am told, again, by the Administrative 
28 

Conference folks that that is no longer the case. So we would love 

to hear from you on that. 

Mr. DODARO. Sure. 

Senator PORTMAN. Another potential legislative activity we could 

undertake here to help to get a better sense of what the rules are 

and just more transparency to Congress. 

Mr. DODARO. And as I am recalling it now, I think it is a resource issue as well. So we will let you know about that as well. 

Senator PORTMAN. All right. Thank you. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Senator LANKFORD. Mr. Horowitz, could I ask you a question just 

about people and what I have found in visiting with many of the 

agencies and the individuals who work in the agencies? They are 

some of the most frustrated people about the work of the agency 

because they see the bureaucracy and they see the inefficiencies, 

and it seems like they have very few places to be able to get that 

out. Can you talk a little bit about whistleblowers and their own 

protection and then the opportunity for not just whistleblowers but 

just suggestions and ideas? And are the IGs watching for that and 

watching for how are good ideas rising out of the employees in 

these agencies? Is that something they regularly check? And if so, 

how are we managing some of the whistleblowers and some of the 

ideas and suggestions? 

Mr. HOROWITZ. We do follow that, and one of the actions that IGs 

took in light of the Whistleblower Act adopted 2 years ago by Congress, the whistleblowers enhancements—— 

Senator LANKFORD. Right. We had additional protections that we 

had a markup on yesterday dealing with the same thing. 

Mr. HOROWITZ. And we all have now ombudsmen throughout the 

OIG community. We have created in CIGIE a working group 

among the ombuds to get together to talk about the commonality 

of issues that we face across the IG community on whistleblower 

issues. We have been very engaged with the Office of Special Counsel (OSC) to make sure we understand what they are seeing, because they obviously have the best picture into retaliation issues 

that come to whistleblowers, and it is something that I have done 

particularly within my own agency, the Justice Department, to 

make sure that we are being, as an OIG, more responsive and appropriately responsive to whistleblowers and that we get training 

across the Justice Department on whistleblower issues. 

We have authority on the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) 

whistleblower retaliation. That comes to us as an OIG. It does not 

go to OSC. So we have a special interest in these issues for that 

reason. One of the messages that I have certainly tried to get out— 

I know my colleagues in the IG community have tried to get out— 

is that we have 14,000 staff throughout the 72 OIGs. We know a 

lot about what is going on in the agencies we oversee. But the real 

eyes and ears of the organization are the people who work day in, 

day out at the agency. They know far more than we ever will know, 

and they are the ones we need to come to us with issues they are 

seeing if they are not getting resolved by their supervisors, their 

managers, their boss’ bosses, and we have to have that open door. 

Senator LANKFORD. So how is that relationship? Is that different 

agency to agency? How are the Inspectors General getting out, get-
29 

ting into the cubicles, getting a chance to visit with people, getting 

the feedback and ideas in that relationship? Is this a piece of paper 

in the break room that says if there is a suggestion here is where 

to call? Or is this an actual relationship that is out there being 

built? 

Mr. HOROWITZ. It varies across the 72 IGs. As we have seen in 

the newspaper reports, various agencies have had issues with how 

they have dealt with whistleblower issues, and those have played 

out publicly. One of the things we have tried to do—and I know 

other IGs are doing and working with the Office of Special Counsel, 

for example—is getting certified pursuant to Section 2302, working 

with the agencies to get them certified pursuant to Section 2302, 

which is essentially an educational effort, to make sure managers 

and staff understand their rights, understand what they are supposed to do when an employee wants to come forward, and what 

they are not supposed to do when an employee comes forward. And 

study after study on these issues shows that what employees, whistleblowers, want to see is some responsiveness to their concerns 

and that they almost inevitably stay within their chain of commands first. 

Coming to us as an OIG is usually an extraordinary step for 

somebody. They want to see change occur within their organization 

and within their own working group. And so we as IGs have to be 

sensitive to that, and that is something we have worked on, as I 

said, internally, but also getting our message out externally. 

Senator LANKFORD. And that should be obviously working within 

the chain of command. If the first call is the Equal Employment 

Opportunity Commission (EEOC) or to the IGs or something, this 

suddenly blew up in a hurry, it should be resolved within chain of 

command most of the time. My concern is that for individuals that 

feel frustrated, it is not getting resolved. 

I am going to flip the subject here real quick while we are dealing with personnel issues. This Committee also has the Federal 

workforce as well as multiple other areas. The issue of probation 

in the Federal workforce has been one that IGs have looked at over 

and over again. Administrative leave has been one of those issues 

that there have been multiple issues on how to be able to handle 

this. Any new recommendations or ideas dealing with probationary 

periods or administrative leave that have come up? 

Mr. HOROWITZ. We have actually been working with some of the 

members recently. We are putting together a bill on this and communicating some of the issues we have seen, and I agree with you. 

One of the things we have tried to do, again, within our own agency is work with the Justice Department to try and ensure that they 

have information and understand when someone truly needs to be 

on administrative leave or perhaps just needs to be reassigned 

while we finish our work. And we are learning that is an experience we have across the IG community that we are sitting with 

Members of Congress right now as they are putting together a bill 

to address some of these concerns, and Senator Grassley in particular has been involved in that effort. I know a number of other 

members have as well. 

Senator LANKFORD. OK. Thank you. 
30 

Senator HEITKAMP. Going back, James was talking about, the 

carrot and the stick. Let us talk a little bit about the carrot, which 

is, how do we reward agencies who can find cost savings so that 

they can actually kind of reward employees. I am curious, Gene, 

have you seen any agencies that have run a very good—tell us 

what your efficiency idea is and we will implement it and, kind of 

a good reward system for Federal employees to basically participate 

in cost savings. 

Mr. DODARO. I would have to go back and check. I know we have 

looked over the years at various efforts including gain-sharing 

ideas, and they always ran into methodological problems in justifying the savings, having good data to justify any rewards, and 

then how the allocations would be done. But I know that there 

needs to be better incentives, because a lot of agencies will say, 

well, if we save the money, we do not get to keep any of it, and 

so what is the incentive? 

And so I will go back and give you a thorough answer on this 

and understand a little bit, but I know enough to know and feel 

confident of telling you it is not where it needs to be. 

Senator HEITKAMP. Right. 

My point is we can kind of threaten agency heads with, whistleblower and, we are out to get you, or we can provide incentives for 

them to look for the cost savings and for them to actually participate with us in encouraging employees to step up and rewarding 

employees who do step up with great ideas on saving money. I just 

honestly believe that there is a plan out there or there could be a 

plan out there that could reap greater rewards, and more than anyone else, you have that kind of view from a mile high on all these 

agencies. And so I would be really curious about, what agency you 

have seen that has done a particularly good job incentivizing employees to participate in cost reduction. 

Finally, I have one question that goes back to workforce and is 

something that you raised early on, Mike, which is this idea of 

cybersecurity. My question is: Do you think that there is adequate 

expertise within agencies—and this is probably for you, too, Gene— 

adequate expertise within agencies on cyber issues—and we say, 

obviously, very high profile instances of data breaches—today that 

protect that Federal database from hacking, that protect, critical 

infrastructure of this country? Do you think we have the employee 

base? 

Mr. HOROWITZ. We just actually did a review of that earlier this 

year on the next-generation cyber initiative that the FBI does. We 

looked at this issue extensively within the FBI, and that was one 

of our most significant findings, is the FBI has lots of vacancies in 

these very critical positions for the reasons we now see in the news 

as to how important it is to have the right staff. Pay is an issue. 

Recruitment and other issues arise in getting top-notch talent to 

fill those jobs, and we found lots of vacancies and made recommendations regarding that. 

Senator HEITKAMP. I know we are running a little bit over, but 

I am curious what you think the three key recommendations are 

to fill that gap. 
31 

Mr. HOROWITZ. Well, one is pay. The FBI simply cannot compete 

on some of these positions, as we learned, with private sector opportunities. 

A second issue which Director Comey has talked about is some 

of the background checks that go on, and that the FBI has to think 

about how they do that for the current graduates and individuals 

they want to recruit for these positions and thinking about how do 

they attract the right talent and get them through, people who can 

get through the background investigation process. 

So those were just a couple of things that we identified as well 

as outreach and greater recruitment efforts. 

Mr. DODARO. Senator, I would just add, if I might—— 

Senator HEITKAMP. You bet. 

Mr. DODARO. On the cyber area, there are critical skill gaps, 

clearly, and it is part of the issue. We first put cybersecurity on our 

High-Risk List in 1997. It was the first time that we ever identified 

a high-risk topic across the entire Federal Government as part of 

our high-risk effort. We added critical infrastructure protection in 

2003. We just recently added the need to protect personally identifiable information (PII). People’s skills are part of the problem, but 

also they do not have comprehensive security programs in place 

with good training for employees. A lot of malicious attacks come 

from employees clicking on emails and attachments that they 

should not. 

Hundreds of our open recommendations are on the information 

security area and actions the agencies need to take. That is probably the single largest category of recommendations we make every 

year, because we do this across government along with the IGs. 

And there are just hundreds of these things, very technical things 

that they need to do, where they have not upgraded, they have not 

patched quickly, they need to do continuous monitoring. But the 

people part is important, but it is not the full set of recommendations. 

Senator HEITKAMP. Right, and the first line of defense is cyber 

hygiene. 

Mr. DODARO. Right. 

Senator HEITKAMP. There are things that can happen every day 

that will make us safer, but it is not institutionalized. We just need 

to understand on this Committee the workforce issues, which is 

why I asked the question. 

Senator LANKFORD. I have one final question as well dealing 

with the grants, something, Michael, you brought up earlier about 

the grant issues. Obviously, a large portion of Federal funding is 

shifting toward the grant side of it. How are we doing on oversight, 

both selection of individuals to make sure that our agencies, when 

they are selecting people to receive grants, have good oversight 

with that in the process of it and the results are actually benefiting 

the national security and economic benefit of the Nation? 

Mr. HOROWITZ. I think on the former issue, in terms of how the 

grant-making agencies are scoring and awarding grants, I think we 

have seen a very significant amount of progress and, generally 

speaking, strong movement forward on doing that in a more rigorous way. I think the issue many of the IGs have, including myself, is the back-end issue that you just mentioned, which is how 
32 

are we really analyzing the performance measurements and what 

kind of metrics are we using to undertake that analysis. 

Oftentimes I think we have seen that it is much more of a checkthe-box approach if you said you would treat 500 people, we see 

you sent us reports that show you treated 500 people. Well, the 

next question would be: What happened? 

Senator LANKFORD. Did it help? 

Mr. HOROWITZ. Did it help? What is the outcome? And that is 

where we are not seeing as much rigor as certainly myself and several other IGs think should be occurring. And that is a reason 

why—and in our top management challenges this year and last 

year—we put on there that issue in terms of metrics generally to 

be addressed by the Department. 

Senator LANKFORD. So what can we do as a Congress to be able 

to help with that? Because every year—my office just put out a report, as I mentioned earlier, that lists some of the grants. Obviously, I did not go through all of them, but they are some of the 

grants that you clearly come back and say, How does this help the 

national security of the United States? There was a grant that was 

given last year researching, Do media outlets drive the political climate of the Nation, or does the political climate of the Nation drive 

the media outlets? Why in the world did Federal taxpayers pay for 

that? I understand that might be a good research study for a university to do or for any media organization to do, but I do not see 

how that drives the benefit of the taxpayer to do a political research study like that. That was a study that was done, $375,000 

to study the dating habits of senior adults. Well, I raised the question and said, ‘‘Tell me why the Federal taxpayer needed to pay for 

that particular study.’’ 

What can we do to help on that? Because there are really important research projects that are out there that the Federal taxpayer 

can and should be a part of, but we do not want them to get 

clouted or money to be squandered on things that are not important to the Federal taxpayer when there are other things that are. 

Mr. HOROWITZ. Right. Well, through the appropriation and grantmaking process, Congress puts in all sorts of language about certain measures it wants to see take place and occur, and certainly 

in that legislation, there can be requirements about reporting certain information and certain metrics and having OMB through its 

omnicirculars put requirements in place across the Executive 

Branch would be helpful as well so that it is not agency by agency, 

which is one of the struggles we have as IGs. 

And I will add that in another plug for the IG Empowerment Act 

that this Committee has put forward is an exemption from the 

Computer Matching Act, which would allow us to look at, as IGs, 

across the Federal Government some of the improper payment 

issues that you have been discussing with Gene earlier. That would 

allow us as IGs to stop looking at this simply as department by department, but looking at what grants are our agencies doing. Duplicative grants has been an issue that we have been looking at 

and I know the GAO has been looking at. We struggle to understand and look at the question of not only are there duplicative 

grants within the Justice Department but across Federal agencies. 

And one of the things that we would be advanced on by the IG Em-
33 

powerment Act is being able to perhaps share that data more regularly with each other. 

Senator HEITKAMP. Can I add to this discussion something that is on the other end, which is, $20,000, we are going to help you, 

do some outreach with kids who might be runaways, and you end 

up costing that agency $5,000 in audit costs. So at some point, we 

have both ends of the spectrum, not enough, but then also, this 

kind of check-the-box accountability that leads to very high administrative costs on grants. 

I would recommend that you take a look at what that accountability, especially the financial accountability piece, make recommendations to us and to other folks about, we asked for that, 

it is a check-the-box thing; it is not significant. We get that occasionally something might slip through the cracks and we end up 

paying something we should not. But we are creating a multibillion-dollar industry on the audit side with very little protection to 

the taxpayer. 

I would just lay that on top of James’ accountability on one end. 

Let us take a look at whether we are driving up administrative 

costs and actually resulting in inefficiencies through accountability 

measures that do not add to the security and safety of the Federal 

Treasury. 

Mr. DODARO. First, on the point that you are making, there are 

inefficiencies not only in the audit process but in the application 

process and the whole delivery system. We have a very complicated, expensive intergovernmental delivery system in the 

United States that I think needs to be reexamined and roles and 

responsibilities clarified. The Federal Government is on an 

unsustainable long-term fiscal path. State and local governments 

are under a lot of fiscal stress as well for a lot of the same reasons. 

I do not have empirical information yet to support this, but my instincts tell me that we cannot support the complicated intergovernmental delivery system in the future in the same manner and expect to get a good result at the end. 

With regard to the issue you raise, Senator Lankford, I believe 

we need a paradigm shift. Right now programs get funded year 

after year without having to demonstrate that they had a positive 

result on anything. And when we go in and look at overlap and duplication, we find many programs that have never been evaluated. 

So there is really not any empirical information to say that the investment that we have made is working very effectively. And it is 

up to the auditors to prove that the program is not doing something, you have to really prove that it is not doing anything for it 

to ever get stopped. This is in contrast to having positive assurance 

that the program was really successful in achieving its objectives 

and having good, independent evaluation results to say if we continue to fund this program, we will get good results. 

I think that that it is totally backward in the way it is now. Unless that changes, you are not going to get a different outcome. 

Senator LANKFORD. I would absolutely agree, and this hearing is 

not about legislation because we do not try to come with a pre-set 

piece on this. This is about trying to bring openness on it, but there 

are several pieces that do come up. The IG Empowerment Act has 

come up over and over again, which this Committee has already 
34 

worked through. The Taxpayers Right-to-Know, that bill which 

does transparency and also evaluates the metrics, that paradigm 

shift that you talked about, that is currently working through the 

Senate right now. And in the Grant Act, which has also been 

thrown around here, trying to provide some basic transparency in 

how we do grants, those are pieces that are currently in process of 

working through the Senate. 

So our hope is that we can actually get some solutions on top of 

some of these big issues, but I appreciate it very much. Any other 

final comments? 

Senator HEITKAMP. No. Just once again thank you so much, and, 

I hope this has been a good discussion for you as well as for us and 

gives you some ideas of what we are looking at. 

I just really believe that this collaboration and partnership between this Committee and particularly this Subcommittee and you 

guys talking back and forth, I hope you find that that is a useful 

use of your time, because we really take seriously what you tell us 

and the need to move these ideas forward if we are going to be responsive to the taxpayers. 

Mr. DODARO. I just want to say I really appreciate from GAO’s 

perspective this hearing and the time and attention that you are 

giving to this subject. It is very important for our organization and 

our people to know that our work is valued and that we have this 

support. And there is no way that these recommendations will get 

implemented effectively without executive agency cooperation and 

congressional oversight. 

So it is imperative. We will dialogue with you as much as you 

want in order to make this a better government. 

Senator LANKFORD. Well, just for the American people, I would 

say from last year about $74 billion in thanks back to GAO and 

what they have done for the IG and for so much work that has 

been done to be able to protect the taxpayer and Federal employees 

and folks around the country. 

Thank you again. The hearing record will remain open until 5 

p.m., Monday, December 28, for anyone who over Christmas wants 

to be able to put together their submission statements and questions for the record. [Laughter.] 

With that, gentlemen, thank you very much. This hearing is adjourned. 

[Whereupon, at 11:47 a.m., the Subcommittee was adjourned.] 
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