Government Efficiency and 

Effectiveness: 

Opportunities for 

Improvement and 

Considerations for 

Restructuring 

Statement of Patricia A. Dalton

Chief Operating Officer

Testimony 

Before the Committee on Homeland 

Security and Governmental Affairs, 

U.S. Senate

For Release on Delivery 

Expected at 10:00 a.m. EDT

Wednesday, March 21, 2012

GAO-12-454T

United States Government Accountability Office

GAO
 

Page 1 GAO-12-454T 

Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member Collins, and Members of the Committee:

Thank you for the opportunity to discuss the need to reexamine the 

structures and operations of the federal government. You also asked that 

we address the “Reforming and Consolidating Government Act of 2012” 

(S. 2129), first proposed by the President and introduced in the Senate by 

Chairman Lieberman and Senator Warner. We also present our recent 

work highlighting the existence of duplication, overlap, and fragmentation

across the federal government.1

The federal government faces an array of challenges and opportunities to 

enhance performance, ensure accountability, and position the nation for 

the future. A number of overarching trends, such as fiscal sustainability 

and debt challenges, demographic and societal changes, developments 

in science and technology, diffuse security threats, global 

interdependence, and the rapid expansion of collaborative networks, 

underscore the need for a fundamental reconsideration of the role, 

operations, and structure of the federal government for the 21st century.

My testimony today is based on our work on government reorganization, 

transformation, and management issues as well as our recently issued 

reports that identify additional opportunities and progress made to 

improve the efficiency and effectiveness of government. Specifically, it 

addresses: 

• issues related to reexamining the structure of the federal 

government and its operations, including the President’s request 

that Congress grant authority to reorganize the executive branch 

agencies; 

• federal programs or functional areas where unnecessary 

duplication, overlap, or fragmentation exists as well as 

opportunities for potential cost savings or enhanced revenues 

identified in our 2012 annual report; and 

 

1

See GAO, 2012 Annual Report: Opportunities to Reduce Duplication, Overlap and 

Fragmentation, Achieve Savings, and Enhance Revenue, GAO-12-342SP (Washington, 

D.C.: Feb. 28, 2012) and Follow-up on 2011 Report: Status of Actions Taken to Reduce 

Duplication, Overlap, and Fragmentation, Save Tax Dollars, and Enhance Revenue, 

GAO-12-453SP (Washington, D.C.: Feb. 28, 2012).

 
 

Page 2 GAO-12-454T 

• the status of actions taken by Congress and the executive branch 

to address the issues we identified in 2011. 

We conducted our work in accordance with generally accepted 

government auditing standards or with our quality assurance framework, 

as appropriate.

On February 17th, Chairman Lieberman and Senator Warner introduced 

S. 2129, entitled “Reforming and Consolidating Government Act of 2012”, 

a bill renewing the Presidential authority to propose government 

organizational changes and obtain congressional approval through an 

expedited process. From 1932 to 1984, Congress provided the President 

with some form of reorganization authority.2 S. 2129 renews most of the 

statutory framework3

Unlike the 1984 version of the law, under S. 2129, the President would be 

permitted to propose the creation of a new department (or renaming of an 

existing department), the abolishment or transfer of an executive 

department, or the consolidation of two or more departments. There are 

currently fifteen departments, including the Department of State and the 

Department of Homeland Security.

as it existed before the authority lapsed in 1984.

However, S. 2129 proposes noteworthy changes, both in terms of

eliminating restrictions on the scope of a President’s plan and placing 

additional requirements on such plans.

4

 

2

Ronald C. Moe, Congressional Research Service, The President’s Reorganization 

Authority: Review and Analysis (Washington, D.C.: Mar. 8, 2001). 

Additionally, the President would be 

3

The Presidential reorganization authority is codified at chapter 9 of title 5 of the United 

States Code.

4

See 5 U.S.C. § 101 for a list of all executive departments. 

Reexamining Federal 

Government 

Structures and 

Operations

Reforming and 

Consolidating Government 

Act of 2012 (S. 2129) 

Would Renew and Expand 

President’s Authority to 

Propose Restructurings
 

Page 3 GAO-12-454T 

permitted to propose the creation of a new agency, a restriction which 

was included by the 1984 amendment of this authority.5

The reorganization authority proposed under this bill would permit the 

President, as in the 1984 version of the law, to prepare and submit to 

Congress reorganization plans that call for the (1) transfer of an agency 

or some of its functions to another agency,6

The bill also renews most of the restrictions which have been imposed 

over time on the President’s authority to reorganize. Such restrictions 

prohibit plans which (1) abolish or transfer an independent regulatory 

agency or all its functions, (2) consolidate two or more independent 

regulatory agencies or all their functions, (3) continue an agency or 

function beyond the period authorized by law, (4) authorize an agency to 

exercise a function not expressly authorized by law, (5) increase the term 

of an office beyond the period authorized by law, (6) deal with more than 

one logically consistent subject matter, or (7) abolish enforcement 

functions or programs established by statute. A President’s submission of 

plans is restricted to no more than three plans pending before Congress 

at any time. Finally, the authority imposes a limit on the duration of the 

authority, which in this case is two years from enactment.

(2) abolishment of all or some 

functions of an agency, (3) consolidation of an agency or its functions or 

parts of an agency or some of its functions with another agency or part of 

another agency, (4) consolidation of part of an agency or some of its 

functions with another part of the same agency, or (5) authorization of an 

officer to delegate his or her functions.

S. 2129 would impose an additional requirement that any plan permitted 

to go into effect must be an efficiency-enhancing plan as determined by 

the Office of Management and Budget (OMB). In order for a plan to be 

considered an efficiency-enhancing plan, the Director of OMB must 

determine that such plan will result in, or is likely to result in, either a 

decrease in the number of agencies or cost savings in performing the 

functions that are the subject of the plan. Therefore, this provision would 

allow for a consolidation that decreases the number of agencies by, for 

 

5

Reorganization Act Amendments of 1984, Pub. L. No. 98-614, 98 Stat. 3192 

(Nov. 8, 1984).

6

As commonly understood, an “agency” can be a component of a department or a freestanding entity (for example, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration). 
 

Page 4 GAO-12-454T 

example, combining two agencies into one, but does not require that the 

consolidation result in cost savings.

Also consistent with prior law, under S. 2129 the President’s submission 

of a reorganization plan to Congress must include an estimate of any 

reduction or increase in expenditures realized as a result of the 

reorganizations included in the plan as well as an implementation section 

that describes in detail (1) actions necessary or planned to complete the 

reorganization, (2) the anticipated nature and substance of any orders, 

directives, and other administrative and operational actions which are 

expected to be required, (3) preliminary actions which have been taken in 

the implementation process, and (4) a projected timetable for completion 

of the implementation process.

Finally, S. 2129 renews the expedited congressional approval process as 

that process was modified in 1984. The 1984 amendments to the 

reorganization authority eliminated the procedure that allowed a 

President’s plan to go into effect unless either house acted by passing a 

motion of disapproval within a fixed period of time. Under the 1984 

amendments, a plan could become effective only if approved by both 

houses of Congress through a joint resolution (approved by the 

President) within 90 days after the plan is submitted to Congress.7 This 

change addressed constitutional concerns with the one-house legislative 

veto,8

Under this expedited process, recommendations from the Senate 

Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs and the 

House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform to the full 

Senate and House must be made within 75 days and consideration of the 

resolution in both houses must be within 90 days from submission of the 

plan.

and set a higher bar for success and in essence gave Congress a 

stronger role than under past reorganization authorities.

9

 

7

Days are calculated by calendar days of continuous session of Congress.

Consideration is limited to an up or down vote, no amendment to a 

plan may be considered. The President is permitted to amend or modify 

8

Immigration and Naturalization Service v. Chadha, 462 U.S. 919 (1983), holding the onehouse legislative veto unconstitutional. 

9

This 75 day period begins once a resolution of approval has been introduced in the 

House and the Senate. A resolution must be introduced the first day of session following 

submission of a plan. 
 

Page 5 GAO-12-454T 

the plan at anytime within the first 60 days after submission. Any such 

change to a plan during this period does not impact the deadlines for 

congressional consideration. The authority to modify a plan allows the 

President to address any problems identified or concerns expressed 

during the pendency of a plan before Congress since a plan cannot be 

changed by Congress through a joint resolution.

Presidents have used reorganization authorities to submit more than 100 

plans to Congress, proposing a variety of changes from minor 

reorganizations to major ones.10

• creation of the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, 

proposed by President Eisenhower in 1953 to improve the 

administration of health, education, and social security functions by 

elevating these functions to the departmental level;

Examples of approved Presidential plans 

include:

• creation of the Office of Management and Budget, proposed by 

President Nixon in 1970, in part, to place greater emphasis on the 

evaluation of program performance, particularly in programs that 

cross agency lines, and to expand efforts to improve interagency 

cooperation;

• creation of the Environmental Protection Agency, proposed by 

President Nixon in 1970 to consolidate the federal government’s 

environment-related activities in order to ensure the effective 

protection, development, and enhancement of the environment; and

• creation of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, proposed 

by President Carter in 1978 to improve federal emergency 

management and assistance by consolidating federal emergency 

preparedness, mitigation, and response activities.

President Carter was the last President to use this general grant of 

reorganization authority. During the Reagan Administration, the 

reorganization authority was only in place briefly at the beginning of his 

 

10Henry B. Hogue, Congressional Research Service, Executive Branch Reorganization 

Initiatives During the 112th Congress: A Brief Overview (Washington, D.C.: Feb. 13, 

2012). 

Use of Prior Reorganization 

Authorities
 

Page 6 GAO-12-454T 

first term until it lapsed, and then was reauthorized for less than two 

months in 1984 at the end of his first term. The authority has not been 

granted since then.11 Although there was expressed interest during the 

108th Congress in renewing this authority, from both the Administration 

and members of Congress, no such reauthorization was forthcoming.12

A major issue for consideration for today’s hearing is the question of 

whether and how to change Congress’ normal deliberative process for 

reviewing and shaping executive branch reorganization proposals. 

Expedited reorganization authority can enable the President to propose 

reorganizations that are intended to increase the efficiency and 

effectiveness with which the government can meet existing and emerging 

challenges. However, all key players should be engaged in discussions 

about reorganizing government: the President, Congress, and other 

parties with vested interests, including state and local governments, the 

private sector, and citizens. It is important to ensure a consensus on 

identified problems and needs, and to be sure that the solutions our 

government legislates and implements can effectively remedy the 

problems we face in a timely manner. Fixing the wrong problems, or even 

worse, fixing the right problems poorly, could cause more harm than 

good.

It is imperative that Congress and the administration form an effective 

working relationship on restructuring initiatives. Any systemic changes to 

federal structures and functions must be approved by Congress and 

implemented by the executive branch, so each has a stake in the 

outcome. In this regard, an administration seeking expedited approval of 

complex government reorganization proposals could enhance its 

 

11In 1995, the President was authorized to prepare and transmit to congress a 

reorganization plan pursuant to this reorganization authority for reorganizing the surface 

transportation activities of the Department of Transportation and the relationship of the 

Saint Lawrence Seaway Development Corporation to the Department. Pub. L. No. 104-50, 

§ 335, 109 Stat. 436 (Nov. 15, 1995).

12Toward a Logical Governing Structure: Restoring Executive Reorganization Authority; 

Hearing Before House Committee on Government Reform, 108th Cong. (2003). Moreover, 

during consideration of the reform of the intelligence community, the House passed 

version of the bill included a reauthorization of the Presidential reorganization authority 

which was limited to reorganization plans involving enumerated intelligence units. See, 

9/11 Recommendations Implementation Act, H.R. 10, 108th Cong. § 5021 (2003). This 

provision was not enacted.

Balancing the Role of 

Congress and the 

Executive Branch in 

Developing Restructuring 

Proposals
 

Page 7 GAO-12-454T 

prospects for success by reaching out to Congress beforehand to ensure 

that congressional concerns are identified, solutions are developed, and 

general agreement is reached. The normal legislative process, which by 

design takes time to encourage thorough debate, helps to ensure that any 

related actions are carefully considered and have broad support. 

Therefore, Congress may wish to consider whether 90 days is a sufficient 

amount of time for Congress to review proposals and conduct its due 

diligence.

Even more importantly, all segments of the public that must regularly deal 

with their government—individuals, private sector organizations, states, 

and local governments—must be confident that the changes that are put 

in place have been thoroughly considered and that the decisions made 

today will make sense tomorrow. Excluding any key player increases the 

risk of sub-optimization or failure. Congressional deliberative processes 

serve the vital function of both gaining input from a variety of clientele and 

stakeholders affected by any changes and providing an important 

constitutional check and counterbalance to the executive branch.

Only Congress can decide whether it wishes to limit its powers and role in 

government reorganizations. In certain circumstances, Congress may 

deem limitations appropriate; however, care should be taken regarding the 

nature, timing, and scope of any related changes. Lessons can be learned 

from prior approaches to granting reorganization authority to the President. 

As discussed below, prior successful reorganization initiatives reinforce the 

importance of maintaining a balance between executive and legislative 

roles in undertaking significant organizational changes. Safeguards are 

needed to ensure congressional input and concurrence on the goals as 

well as overall reorganization proposals.

Throughout the 20th century, efforts to structure the federal government 

to address the economic and political concerns of the time met with 

varying degrees of success. The first Hoover Commission,13

 

13The commission’s formal name was the Commission on Organization of the Executive 

Branch. Its membership: Former President Herbert Hoover, Dean Acheson, Sen. George 

Aiken, Rep. Clarence Brown, Arthur Flemming, James A. Forrestal, Joseph P. Kennedy, 

Rep. Carter Manasco, Sen. John L. McClellan, George Mead, James K. Pollock, and 

James Rowe.

which lasted 

from 1947 to 1949, is considered by many to have been the most 

successful of government restructuring efforts. The membership was 

Successful Government 

Reorganizations Balanced 

Executive and Legislative 

Roles
 

Page 8 GAO-12-454T 

bipartisan, including members of the administration and both houses of 

Congress. Half its members were from outside government. The 

commission had a clear vision, making reorganization proposals that 

promoted what they referred to as “greater rationality” in the organization 

and operation of government agencies and enhanced the president’s role 

as the manager of the government—principles that were understood and 

accepted by both the White House and Congress.14 Former President 

Hoover himself guided the creation of a citizens’ committee to build public 

support for the commission’s work. More than 70 percent of the first 

Hoover Commission’s recommendations were implemented, including 26 

out of 35 reorganization plans. According to a 1982 history of the Hoover 

Commissions “the ease with which most of the reorganization plans 

became effective reflected two factors: the existence of a consensus that 

the President ought to be given deference and assistance by Congress in 

meeting his managerial responsibilities and the fact that most of the 

reorganization plans were pretty straightforward proposals of an 

organizational character.”15

By contrast, the second Hoover Commission, referred to as Hoover II, 

which lasted from 1953 to 1954, examined policy areas with the goal of 

cutting government programs. However, Hoover II lacked the support of 

the President, who preferred to use his own advisory group16 in managing 

the government. It also lacked the support of Congress and the public, 

neither of which, according to CRS, cared to cut the government at a time 

when federally run programs were generally held in high esteem and 

considered efficient and beneficial.17

 

14Ronald C. Moe, The Hoover Commissions Revisited (Boulder, Colorado: Westview 

Press, 1982), 2.

More than 60 percent of Hoover II’s 

recommendations were implemented, but these were mostly drawn from 

the commission’s technical recommendations rather than from its major 

ones (such as changing the government’s policies on lending, subsidies, 

15Ronald C. Moe, Congressional Research Service, The President’s Reorganization 

Authority: Review and Analysis (Washington, D.C.: Mar. 8, 2001).

16Called PACGO (the President’s Advisory Council on Government Organization), it was 

chaired by Nelson Rockefeller from 1953-1958. PACGO drafted 14 reorganization plans 

that were presented to the President and accepted by Congress. Ronald C. Moe, 

Reorganizinq the Executive Branch in the Twentieth Century: Landmark Commissions 

(Washington, D.C.: Congressional Research Service, Mar. 19, 1992), 34.

17Moe, 105.
 

Page 9 GAO-12-454T 

and water resources) that would have substantively cut federal 

programs.18

The lesson of the two Hoover Commissions is clear: if plans to reorganize 

government are to move from recommendation to reality, creating a 

consensus for them is essential to the task. In this regard, both the 

process employed and the players involved in making any specific 

reorganization proposals are of critical importance. The success of the 

first Hoover Commission can be tied to the involvement and commitment 

of both Congress and the President. Both the legislative branch and 

executive branches agreed to the goals. With this agreement, a process 

was established that provided for wide spread involvement, including 

citizens, and transparency so that meaningful results could be achieved.

That lesson shows up again in the experience of the Ash Council, which 

convened in 1969-70. Like the first Hoover Commission, the Ash Council 

aimed its recommendations at structural changes to enhance the 

effectiveness of the President as manager of the government. The Ash 

Council proposed organizing government around broad national purposes 

by integrating similar functions under major departments. It proposed that 

four super departments be created economic affairs, community 

development, natural resources, and human services—with State, 

Defense, Treasury, and Justice remaining in place. But the Ash Council 

could not gain the support of Congress. Its recommendations would have 

drastically altered jurisdictions within Congress and the relationships 

between committees and the agencies for which they had oversight 

responsibilities. Congress was not thoroughly clear on the implications of 

the four super departments, was not readily willing to change its own 

structure to parallel the structure proposed by the council, and was not 

eager to substantially strengthen the authority of the presidency.

 

18Summary of the Objectives, Operations, and Results of the Commissions on 

Organization of the Executive Branch of the Government (First and Second Hoover 

Commissions), House Committee on Government Operations (Washington, D.C.: May

1963), 31-33.
 

Page 10 GAO-12-454T 

No matter what plans are made to reorganize the government, fulfilling 

the promise of these plans will depend on their effective implementation. 

The creation of a new organization may vary in terms of size and 

complexity. However, building an effective organization requires 

consistent and sustained leadership from top management to ensure the 

needed transformation of disparate agencies, programs, functions, and 

activities into an integrated organization. To achieve success, the end 

result should not simply be a collection of component units, but the 

transformation to an integrated, high-performance organization. The 

implementation of a new organization is an extremely complex task that 

can take years to accomplish.

In 2002, we convened a forum to identify and discuss useful practices 

and lessons learned from major private and public sector organizational 

mergers, acquisitions, and transformations that federal agencies could 

implement to successfully transform their cultures and a new Department 

of Homeland Security could use to merge its various originating 

components into a unified department.19 The invited participants were

experienced in managing or studying large-scale organizational mergers, 

acquisitions, and transformations. The lessons learned and key practices 

gleaned from the forum provide a useful roadmap for planning the 

implementation of any large scale restructuring. We subsequently issued 

a report on the specific steps organizations can take to implement those 

key practices.20

The research suggests that the failure to adequately address—and often 

even consider—a wide variety of people and cultural issues is at the heart 

of unsuccessful mergers, acquisitions, and transformations. But this does 

not have to be the case. While there is no one right way to manage a 

successful merger, acquisition, or transformation, the experiences of both 

successful and unsuccessful efforts suggest that practices that are key to 

their success include the following.

 

19GAO, Highlights of a GAO Forum: Mergers and Transformation: Lessons Learned for a 

Department of Homeland Security and Other Federal Agencies, GAO-03-293SP

(Washington, D.C.: Nov. 14, 2002). 

20GAO, Results-Oriented Cultures: Implementation Steps to Assist Mergers and 

Organizational Transformations, GAO-03-669 (Washington, D.C. July 2, 2003) provides 

additional information on how to implement transformational change.

Complexity of Government 

Reorganizations Require 

Clear Goals and Careful 

Implementation Planning
 

Page 11 GAO-12-454T 

Key Practices Found in Successful Mergers and Organizational 

Transformations

Ensure top leadership drives the transformation. Leadership must 

set the direction, pace, and tone and provide a clear, consistent 

rationale that brings everyone together behind a single mission.

Establish a clear mission and integrated strategic goals to guide 

the transformation. Together, these define the culture and serve as a 

vehicle for employees to unite and rally around.

Focus on a key set of principles and priorities at the outset of the 

transformation. A clear set of principles and priorities serves as a 

framework to help the organization create a new culture and drive 

employee behaviors.

Set implementation goals and a timeline to build momentum and 

show progress from day one. Goals and a timeline are essential 

because the transformation could take years to complete.

Dedicate an implementation team to manage the transformation 

process. A strong and stable team is important to ensure that the 

transformation receives the needed attention to be sustained and 

successful.

Use the performance management system to define responsibility 

and assure accountability for change. A “line of sight” shows how 

team, unit, and individual performance can contribute to overall 

organizational results.

Establish a communication strategy to create shared expectations 

and report related progress. The strategy must reach out to 

employees, customers, and stakeholders and engage them in a twoway exchange.

Involve employees to obtain their ideas and gain their ownership 

for the transformation. Employee involvement strengthens the 

process and allows them to share their experiences and shape policies.

Build a world-class organization. Building on a vision of improved 

performance, the organization adopts the most efficient, effective, and 

economical personnel, system, and process changes and continually 

seeks to implement best practices.

Source: GAO, Highlights of a GAO Forum: Mergers and Transformation: Lessons Learned for a Department of Homeland Security and 

Other Federal Agencies, GAO-03-293SP (Washington, D.C.: Nov. 14, 2002).
 

Page 12 GAO-12-454T 

The Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) ongoing efforts to build a 

single, unified department illustrate the complexity and challenges of 

reorganizing government agencies. DHS now has more than 200,000 

employees and almost $60 billion in budget authority, and completing its 

transformation into a cohesive department is critical to achieving its 

homeland security missions. DHS has updated and strengthened its 

plans to resolve the department’s management challenges, and has 

demonstrated strong leadership commitment to make improvements in 

these areas. However, much work remains for DHS to implement these 

plans and show sustained progress. We designated the implementation 

and transformation of DHS as high risk because, among other things, 

DHS had to combine 22 agencies, while ensuring no serious 

consequences for U.S. national and economic security. This high-risk 

area includes challenges in DHS’s management functions—financial 

management, human capital, IT, and acquisitions; the effect of those 

challenges on implementing DHS’s missions; and integrating the 

functions. Since the department’s creation in 2003, we have issued over 

1,200 products on DHS’s operations in such areas as transportation 

security and emergency management, among others. These 

management challenges have had a direct impact on DHS’s ability to 

satisfy its missions, such as delivering major acquisitions aimed at 

delivering important mission capabilities on time and within budget. We 

have made over 1,600 recommendations to DHS since its creation 

designed to strengthen the department’s management and operations. 

DHS has implemented many of these recommendations and is in the 

process of implementing others. Furthermore, our 2011 and 2012 reports 

on overlapping and duplicative programs discussed later in this 

statement, identified additional areas where action could be taken to 

reduce overlap and potential unnecessary duplication.

In addition to integrating and strengthening the management of the 

components combined to form DHS, our work across the department has 

identified a number of additional observations that could be useful in 

informing deliberations on other government reorganizations. These 

include ensuring adequate and long-term transition support, identifying 

and addressing legacy issues that existed prior to the reorganization, and 

building and emphasizing partnerships and coordination mechanisms 

both internal and external to the new organization, among others.
 

Page 13 GAO-12-454T 

Given the complex challenges associated with government restructurings, 

it is important to note that S. 2129 would renew the requirement that the 

President submit as part of a reorganization plan a description of what it 

intends to achieve and a plan for implementation. Specifically, the 

President must estimate any reduction or increase in expenditures 

(itemized so far as practicable), and describe any improvements in 

management, delivery of federal services, execution of the laws, and 

increases in efficiency of government operations, which it is expected will 

be realized as a result of the reorganizations included in the plan. The 

implementation section must describe in detail the actions necessary or 

planned to complete the reorganization, the anticipated nature and 

substance of any orders, directives, and other administrative and 

operational actions which are expected to be required for completing or 

implementing the reorganization, and any preliminary actions which have 

been taken in the implementation process. It must also contain a 

projected timetable for completion of the implementation process. These 

requirements are broadly consistent with some of the aforementioned 

practices key to successful organizational transformations. The required 

implementation plan will be most useful to the extent that it covers all of 

the key practices in at least a preliminary form.

This provision, if implemented properly, could provide useful benchmarks 

for Congress to use in deciding whether the plan is feasible, whether the 

Administration has carefully considered the complex implementation 

issues, and if it will produce sufficient benefits to merit the changes being 

proposed.

Congressional involvement is needed not just in the initial design of the 

organization, but in what can turn out to be a lengthy period of 

implementation. Congress has an important role to play—both in its 

legislative and oversight capacities—in establishing, monitoring, and 

maintaining progress to attain the goals envisioned by government 

transformation and reorganization efforts. Sustained oversight by Congress 

is needed to ensure the reorganization is accomplishing its goals and to 

determine whether it needs further refinement. Assessing progress is 

important to ensuring implementation is moving in the right direction.

To ensure effective implementation, along with efficient and effective 

oversight, Congress may need to consider realigning its own structure. 

For example, the legislation which established DHS instructed both 

houses of Congress to review their committee structures in light of the 

reorganization of homeland security responsibilities within the executive 

Reorganization Authority 

Calls For a Description of 

Intended Performance 

Improvements, Estimated 

Savings, and an 

Implementation Plan

Oversight of 

Implementation
 

Page 14 GAO-12-454T 

branch. This led to an expansion of the responsibilities of this committee 

in the Senate, and the formation of the Committee on Homeland Security 

in the House. However, these committees share oversight of DHS with 

many other congressional committees and subcommittees.

Many federal efforts, including those related to protecting food and 

agriculture, providing homeland security, and ensuring a well trained and 

educated workforce, transcend more than one agency, yet agencies face 

a range of challenges and barriers when they attempt to work 

collaboratively. Both Congress and the executive branch have recognized 

this, and in January 2011, the GPRA Modernization Act of 2010 (the Act) 

was enacted, updating the almost two-decades-old Government 

Performance and Results Act. The Act establishes a new framework 

aimed at taking a more crosscutting and integrated approach to focusing 

on results and improving government performance. Effective 

implementation of the Act could play an important role in clarifying desired 

outcomes, addressing program performance spanning multiple 

organizations, and facilitating future actions to reduce unnecessary 

duplication, overlap, and fragmentation.

The Act requires OMB to coordinate with agencies to establish outcomeoriented goals covering a limited number of crosscutting policy areas as 

well as goals to improve management across the federal government, 

and to develop a government-wide performance plan for making progress 

toward achieving those goals. The performance plan is to, among other 

things, identify the agencies and federal activities—including spending 

programs, tax expenditures, and regulations—that contribute to each 

goal, and establish performance indicators to measure overall progress 

toward these goals as well as the individual contribution of the underlying 

agencies and federal activities. The President’s budget for fiscal year 

2013 includes 14 such crosscutting goals, including Science, Technology, 

Engineering, and Math Education, Entrepreneurship and Small 

Businesses, Job Training, Cybersecurity, Information Technology 

Management, Procurement and Acquisition Management, and Real 

Property Management. The Act also requires similar information at the 

agency level. Each agency is to identify the various federal organizations 

and activities—both within and external to the agency—that contribute to 

its goals, and describe how the agency is working with other agencies to 

achieve its goals as well as any relevant crosscutting goals. 

GPRA Modernization Act 

Provides Another Tool to 

Reexamine Government 

Programs and Improve 

Coordination
 

Page 15 GAO-12-454T 

In our series of reports on the topic to date, we have identified a number 

of areas of potential duplication, overlap, or fragmentation, as well as 

opportunities for agencies or Congress to consider taking action that 

could either reduce the cost of government operations or enhance 

revenue collections for the Treasury. For example, our 2012 annual report 

presents 51 areas where programs may be able to achieve greater 

efficiencies or become more effective in providing government services.21

We have also continued to monitor developments in the 81 areas that we 

identified a year ago in the first report we issued in this series.22 Our 2011 

follow-up report describes the extent to which progress has been made to 

address these areas.23 Appendix I presents a summary of our 

assessment of the overall progress made in each of the 81 areas. 

Collectively, our 2011 and 2012 annual reports show that, if the actions 

are implemented, the government could potentially save tens of billions of 

dollars annually.

In our 2012 annual report, we identified a total of 51 areas, including 32 

areas of potential duplication, overlap, or fragmentation, as well as 19 

opportunities for agencies or Congress to consider taking action that 

could either reduce the cost of government operations or enhance 

revenue collections for the Treasury. These areas involve a wide range of 

government missions including agriculture, defense, economic 

development, education, energy, general government, health, homeland 

security, international affairs, science and the environment, and social 

services. Within and across these missions, the 2012 annual report 

touches on virtually all major federal departments and agencies. We 

expanded the scope of our work for this year’s report to focus on areas 

where a mix of federal approaches is used, such as tax expenditures, 

direct spending, and federal grant or loan programs.

 

21GAO, 2012 Annual Report: Opportunities to Reduce Duplication, Overlap and 

Fragmentation, Achieve Savings, and Enhance Revenue, GAO-12-342SP (Washington, 

D.C.: Feb. 28, 2012).

22GAO, Opportunities to Reduce Potential Duplication in Government Programs, Save 

Tax Dollars, and Enhance Revenue, GAO-11-318SP (Washington, D.C.: Mar. 1, 2011).

23GAO, Follow-up on 2011 Report: Status of Actions Taken to Reduce Duplication, 

Overlap, and Fragmentation, Save Tax Dollars, and Enhance Revenue, GAO-12-453SP

(Washington, D.C.: Feb. 28, 2012).

Reducing Duplication, 

Overlap, and 

Fragmentation Can 

Improve Government 

Efficiency and 

Effectiveness

2012 Annual Report 

Identified 51 

Opportunity Areas
 

Page 16 GAO-12-454T 

We summarized 32 areas where government missions are fragmented 

across multiple agencies or programs; agencies, offices, or initiatives may 

have similar or overlapping objectives or may provide similar services to 

similar populations or target similar users; and when two or more 

agencies or programs are engaged in the same activities or provide the 

same services to the same beneficiaries (see table 1). We found 

instances where multiple government programs or activities have led to 

inefficiencies, and we determined that greater efficiencies or effectiveness 

might be achievable.

Table 1: Duplication, Overlap, and Fragmentation Areas Identified

Mission Areas identified

Agriculture 1. Protection of Food and Agriculture: Centrally coordinated oversight is needed to ensure nine 

federal agencies effectively and efficiently implement the nation’s fragmented policy to defend the 

food and agriculture systems against potential terrorist attacks and major disasters. 

Defense 2. Electronic Warfare: Identifying opportunities to consolidate Department of Defense airborne 

electronic attack programs could reduce overlap in the department’s multiple efforts to develop 

new capabilities and improve the department’s return on its multibillion-dollar acquisition 

investments. 

3. Unmanned Aircraft Systems: Ineffective acquisition practices and collaboration efforts in the 

Department of Defense unmanned aircraft systems portfolio creates overlap and the potential for 

duplication among a number of current programs and systems. 

4. Counter-Improvised Explosive Device Efforts: The Department of Defense continues to risk 

duplication in its multibillion-dollar counter-improvised explosive device efforts because it does not 

have a comprehensive database of its projects and initiatives.

5. Defense Language and Culture Training: The Department of Defense needs a more integrated 

approach to reduce fragmentation in training approaches and overlap in the content of training 

products acquired by the military services and other organizations. 

6. Stabilization, Reconstruction, and Humanitarian Assistance Efforts: Improving the 

Department of Defense’s evaluations of stabilization, reconstruction, and humanitarian assistance 

efforts, and addressing coordination challenges with the Department of State and the U.S. 

Agency for International Development, could reduce overlapping efforts and result in the more 

efficient use of taxpayer dollars. 

Economic development 7. Support for Entrepreneurs: Overlap and fragmentation among the economic development 

programs that support entrepreneurial efforts require the Office of Management and Budget and 

other agencies to better evaluate the programs and explore opportunities for program 

restructuring, which may include consolidation, within and across agencies. 

8. Surface Freight Transportation: Fragmented federal programs and funding structures are not 

maximizing the efficient movement of freight. 

Energy 9. Department of Energy Contractor Support Costs: The Department of Energy should assess 

whether further opportunities could be taken to streamline support functions, estimated to cost 

over $5 billion, at its contractor-managed laboratory and nuclear production and testing sites, in 

light of contractors’ historically fragmented approach to providing these functions. 

10. Nuclear Nonproliferation: Comprehensive review needed to address strategic planning 

limitations and potential fragmentation and overlap concerns among programs combating nuclear 

smuggling overseas. 
 

Page 17 GAO-12-454T 

Mission Areas identified

General government 11. Personnel Background Investigations: The Office of Management and Budget should take 

action to prevent agencies from making potentially duplicative investments in electronic case 

management and adjudication systems.

12. Cybersecurity Human Capital: Governmentwide initiatives to enhance the cybersecurity 

workforce in the federal government need better structure, planning, guidance, and coordination 

to reduce duplication.

13. Spectrum Management: Enhanced coordination of federal agencies’ efforts to manage radio 

frequency spectrum and an examination of incentive mechanisms to foster more efficient 

spectrum use may aid regulators’ attempts to jointly respond to competing demands for spectrum 

while identifying valuable spectrum that could be auctioned for commercial use, thereby 

generating revenues for the U.S. Treasury. 

Health 14. Health Research Funding: The National Institutes of Health, Department of Defense, and 

Department of Veterans Affairs can improve sharing of information to help avoid the potential for 

unnecessary duplication. 

15. Military and Veterans Health Care: The Departments of Defense and Veterans Affairs need to 

improve integration across care coordination and case management programs to reduce 

duplication and better assist servicemembers, veterans, and their families. 

Homeland security/Law 

enforcement

16. Department of Justice Grants: The Department of Justice could improve how it targets nearly 

$3.9 billion to reduce the risk of potential unnecessary duplication across the more than 11,000 

grant awards it makes annually. 

17. Homeland Security Grants: The Department of Homeland Security needs better project 

information and coordination among four overlapping grant programs. 

18. Federal Facility Risk Assessments: Agencies are making duplicate payments for facility risk 

assessments by completing their own assessments, while also paying the Department of 

Homeland Security for assessments that the department is not performing. 

Information technology 19. Information Technology Investment Management: The Office of Management and Budget, and 

the Departments of Defense and Energy need to address potentially duplicative information 

technology investments to avoid investing in unnecessary systems.

International affairs 20. Overseas Administrative Services: U.S. government agencies could lower the administrative 

cost of their operations overseas by increasing participation in the International Cooperative 

Administrative Support Services system and by reducing reliance on American officials overseas 

to provide these services. 

21. Training to Identify Fraudulent Travel Documents: Establishing a formal coordination 

mechanism could help reduce duplicative activities among seven different entities that are 

involved in training foreign officials to identify fraudulent travel documents. 

Science and the 

environment

22. Coordination of Space System Organizations: Fragmented leadership has led to program 

challenges and potential duplication in developing multibillion-dollar space systems. 

23. Space Launch Contract Costs: Increased collaboration between the Department of Defense 

and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration could reduce launch contracting 

duplication. 

24. Diesel Emissions: Fourteen grant and loan programs at the Department of Energy, Department 

of Transportation, and the Environmental Protection Agency, and three tax expenditures fund 

activities that have the effect of reducing mobile source diesel emissions; enhanced collaboration 

and performance measurement could improve these fragmented and overlapping programs. 

25. Environmental Laboratories: The Environmental Protection Agency needs to revise its overall 

approach to managing its 37 laboratories to address potential overlap and fragmentation and 

more fully leverage its limited resources. 
 

Page 18 GAO-12-454T 

Mission Areas identified

26. Green Building: To evaluate the potential for overlap or fragmentation among federal green 

building initiatives, the Department of Housing and Urban Development, the Department of 

Energy, and the Environmental Protection Agency should lead other federal agencies in 

collaborating on assessing their investments in more than 90 initiatives to foster green building in 

the nonfederal sector. 

Social services 27. Social Security Benefit Coordination: Benefit offsets for related programs help reduce the 

potential for overlapping payments but pose administrative challenges. 

28. Housing Assistance: Examining the benefits and costs of housing programs and tax 

expenditures that address the same or similar populations or areas, and potentially consolidating 

them, could help mitigate overlap and fragmentation and decrease costs. 

Training, employment, and 

education

29. Early Learning and Child Care: The Departments of Education and Health and Human Services 

should extend their coordination efforts to other federal agencies with early learning and child 

care programs to mitigate the effects of program fragmentation, simplify children’s access to 

these services, collect the data necessary to coordinate operation of these programs, and identify 

and minimize any unwarranted overlap and potential duplication. 

30. Employment for People with Disabilities: Better coordination among 50 programs in nine 

federal agencies that support employment for people with disabilities could help mitigate program 

fragmentation and overlap, and reduce the potential for duplication or other inefficiencies. 

31. Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics Education: Strategic planning is needed 

to better manage overlapping programs across multiple agencies. 

32. Financial Literacy: Overlap among financial literacy activities makes coordination and 

clarification of roles and responsibilities essential, and suggests potential benefits of 

consolidation. 

Source: GAO-12-342SP. 

Overlap and fragmentation among government programs or activities can 

be harbingers of unnecessary duplication. In many cases, the existence 

of unnecessary duplication, overlap, or fragmentation can be difficult to 

determine with precision due to a lack of data on programs and activities. 

Where information has not been available that would provide conclusive 

evidence of duplication, overlap, or fragmentation, we often refer to 

“potential duplication” and, where appropriate, we suggest actions that 

agencies or Congress could take to either reduce that potential or to 

make programmatic data more reliable or transparent. In some instances 

of duplication, overlap, or fragmentation, it may be appropriate for multiple 

agencies or entities to be involved in the same programmatic or policy 

area due to the nature or magnitude of the federal effort. For issues 

where information is being reported on for the first time in the 2012 

annual report, we sought comments from the agencies involved, and 

incorporated those comments as appropriate.

Among the 32 areas highlighted in our 2012 annual report are the 

following examples of opportunities for agencies or Congress to consider 
 

Page 19 GAO-12-454T 

taking action to reduce unnecessary duplication, overlap, or 

fragmentation.

• Unmanned Aircraft Systems: The Department of Defense (DOD) 

estimates that the cost of current Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) 

acquisition programs and related systems will exceed $37.5 billion in 

fiscal years 2012 through 2016. The elements of DOD’s planned UAS 

portfolio include unmanned aircraft, payloads (subsystems and equipment 

on a UAS configured to accomplish specific missions), and ground control 

stations (equipment used to handle multiple mission aspects such as 

system command and control). We have found that ineffective acquisition 

practices and collaboration efforts in DOD’s UAS portfolio creates overlap 

and the potential for duplication among a number of current programs and 

systems. We have also highlighted the need for DOD to consider 

commonality in UAS—using the same or interchangeable subsystems 

and components in more than one subsystem to improve interoperability 

of systems—to reduce the likelihood of redundancies in UAS capabilities.

Military service-driven requirements—rather than an effective 

departmentwide strategy—have led to overlap in DOD’s UAS capabilities, 

resulting in many programs and systems being pursued that have similar 

flight characteristics and mission requirements. Illustrative of the overlap, 

the Department of the Navy (Navy) plans to spend more than $3 billion to 

develop the Broad Area Maritime Surveillance UAS, rather than the 

already fielded Air Force Global Hawk system on which it was based. 

According to the Navy, its unique requirements necessitate modifications 

to the Global Hawk airframe, payload interfaces, and ground control 

station. However, the Navy program office was not able to provide 

quantitative analysis to justify the variant. According to program officials, 

no analysis was conducted to determine the cost effectiveness of 

developing the Broad Area Maritime Surveillance UAS to meet the Navy’s 

requirements versus buying more Global Hawks.

The potential for overlap also exists among UAS subsystems and 

components, such as sensor payloads and ground control stations. DOD 

expects to spend about $9 billion to buy 42 UAS sensor payloads through 

fiscal year 2016. While the fact that some multiservice payloads are being 

developed shows the potential for collaboration, the service-centric 

requirements process still creates the potential for overlap, including 29 

sensors in our review. Further, we identified overlap and potential 

duplication among 10 of 13 ground control stations that DOD plans to 

acquire at a cost of about $3 billion through fiscal year 2016. According to 

a cognizant DOD official, the associated software is about 90 percent 
 

Page 20 GAO-12-454T 

duplicative because similar software is developed for each ground control 

station. DOD has created a UAS control segment working group, which is 

chartered to increase interoperability and enable software re-use and 

open systems. This could allow for greater efficiency, less redundancy, 

and lower costs, while potentially reducing levels of contractor proprietary 

data that cannot be shared across UAS programs. However, existing 

ground control stations already have their own architecture and migration 

to a new service-oriented architecture will not happen until at least 2015, 

almost 6 years after it began.

DOD plans to significantly expand the UAS portfolio through 2040, 

including five new systems in the planning stages that are expected to 

become formal programs in the near future. While DOD has 

acknowledged that many UAS systems were acquired inefficiently and 

has begun to take steps to improve outcomes as it expands these 

capabilities over the next several years, the department faces challenges 

in its ability to improve efficiency and reduce the potential for overlap and 

duplication as it buys UAS capabilities. For example, the Army and Navy 

are planning to spend approximately $1.6 billion to acquire separate 

systems that are likely to have similar capabilities to meet upcoming 

cargo and surveillance requirements. DOD officials state that current 

requirements do not preclude a joint program to meet these needs, but 

the Army and Navy have not yet determined whether such an approach 

will be used.

To reduce the likelihood of overlap and potential duplication in its UAS 

portfolio, we have made several prior recommendations to DOD which 

have not been fully implemented. While DOD generally agreed with our 

recommendations, the overlap in current UAS programs, as well as the 

continued potential in future programs, shows that DOD must still do 

more to implement them. In particular, we have recommended that DOD 

(1) re-evaluate whether a single entity would be better positioned to 

integrate all crosscutting efforts to improve the management and 

operation of UAS; (2) consider an objective, independent examination of 

current UAS portfolio requirements and the methods for acquiring future 

unmanned aircraft; and (3) direct the military services to identify specific 

areas where commonality can be achieved. We believe the potential for 

savings is significant and with DOD’s renewed commitment to UAS for 

meeting new strategic requirements, all the more imperative.

• Housing assistance: In fiscal year 2010, the federal government incurred 

about $170 billion in obligations for housing-related programs and 

estimated revenue forgone for tax expenditures of which tax expenditures 
 

Page 21 GAO-12-454T 

represent $132 billion (about 78 percent). Support for homeownership in 

the current economic climate has expanded dramatically with nearly all 

mortgage originations having direct or indirect federal assistance. The 

Department of the Treasury (Treasury) and the Board of Governors of the 

Federal Reserve System together invested more than $1.67 trillion in 

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the government-sponsored enterprises, 

which issue and guarantee mortgage-backed securities. Examining the 

benefits and costs of housing programs and tax expenditures that 

address the same or similar populations or areas, and potentially 

consolidating them, could help mitigate overlap and fragmentation and 

decrease costs.

We identified 20 different entities that administer 160 programs, tax 

expenditures, and other tools that supported homeownership and rental 

housing in fiscal year 2010. In addition, we identified 39 programs, tax 

expenditures, and other tools that provide assistance for buying, selling, 

or financing a home and eight programs and tax expenditures that 

provide assistance to rental property owners. We found overlap in 

products offered and markets served by the Department of Agriculture’s 

(USDA) Rural Housing Service (RHS) and the Department of Housing 

and Urban Development’s (HUD) Federal Housing Administration (FHA), 

among others. In September 2000 and again as part of our ongoing work, 

we questioned the need for maintaining separate programs for rural 

areas. In September 2000, we recommended that Congress consider 

requiring USDA and HUD to examine the benefits and costs of merging 

programs, such as USDA’s and HUD’s single-family guaranteed loan and 

multifamily portfolio management programs.24

While USDA and HUD have raised concerns about merging programs, 

our recent work has shown increased evidence of overlap and that some 

RHS and FHA programs can be consolidated. For example, the two 

agencies overlap in products offered (mortgage credit and rental 

assistance), functions performed (portfolio management and 

preservation), and geographic areas served. Specifically, RHS and HUD 

guarantee single-family and multifamily loans, as well as offer rental 

subsidies using similar income eligibility criteria. And, both agencies have 

been working to maintain and preserve existing multifamily portfolios. 

Although RHS may offer its products only in rural areas, it is not always 

 

24GAO, Rural Housing: Options for Optimizing the Federal Role in Rural Housing 

Development, GAO/RCED-00-241 (Washington, D.C.: Sept. 15, 2000).
 

Page 22 GAO-12-454T 

the insurer of choice in those areas. For example, in fiscal year 2009 FHA 

insured over eight times as many single-family loans in economically 

distressed rural counties as RHS guaranteed. And, many RHS loan 

guarantees financed properties near urban areas—56 percent of singlefamily guarantees made in fiscal year 2009 were in metropolitan counties.

Regarding consolidation, we found that RHS relies on more in-house staff 

to oversee its single-family and multifamily loan portfolio of about $93 

billion than HUD relies on to manage its single-family and multifamily loan 

portfolio of more than $1 trillion, largely because of differences in how the 

programs are administered. RHS has a decentralized structure of about 

500 field offices that was set up to interact directly with borrowers. RHS 

relies on over 1,600 full-time equivalent staff to process and service its 

direct single-family loans and grants. While RHS limits its direct loans to 

low income households and its guaranteed loans to moderate income 

households, FHA has no income limits and does not offer a comparable 

direct loan program. HUD operates about 80 field offices and primarily 

interacts through lenders, nonprofits, and other intermediaries. RHS and 

FHA programs both utilize FHA-approved lenders and underwriting 

processes based on FHA’s scorecard—an automated tool that evaluates 

new mortgage loans. RHS has about 530 full-time equivalent staff to 

process its single-family guaranteed loans. FHA relies on lenders to 

process its loans. Although FHA insures far more mortgages than RHS 

guarantees, FHA has just over 1,000 full-time equivalent staff to oversee 

lenders and appraisers and contractors that manage foreclosed 

properties. While the number of RHS field offices decreased by about 40 

percent since 2000, its decentralized field structure continues to reflect 

the era in which it was established—the 1930s, when geography and 

technology greatly limited communication and transportation. These 

limitations have diminished and HUD programs can be used in all areas 

of the country.

We first recommended in September 2000 —and have followed up since 

then—that Congress consider requiring USDA and HUD to examine the 

benefits and costs of merging those programs that serve similar markets 

and provide similar products, and require these same agencies to explore 

merging their single family insured lending and multifamily portfolio 

management programs. At that time, USDA stated that some of the 

suggestions made in our report to improve the effectiveness of current 

programs may better serve rural areas. However, USDA also stated that 

the gap in housing affordability between rural and urban areas, as well as 

the importance of rural housing programs to the Department’s broader 

Rural Development mission area, would make merging RHS’s programs 
 

Page 23 GAO-12-454T 

with HUD’s programs unfeasible and detrimental to rural America. HUD 

also stated that it believes any opportunity to improve the delivery of rural 

housing services should be explored, but stated that the differences 

between RHS’s and FHA’s single-family programs are sizable and that 

without legislative changes to product terms, efforts to merge the 

programs would likely result in a more cumbersome rather than a more 

efficient delivery system. HUD added that it had been working with USDA 

in a mutual exchange of information on best practices and would explore 

possible avenues of coordination.

The agencies have been working to align certain requirements of the 

various multifamily housing programs. In addition, in February 2011, the 

Administration reported to Congress that it would establish a task force to 

evaluate the potential for coordinating or consolidating the housing loan 

programs of HUD, USDA, and the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA). 

According to HUD, a benchmarking effort associated with the task force 

was recently begun. Our ongoing work considers options for consolidating 

these programs and we expect to make additional related 

recommendations.

Furthermore, Treasury and the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) provide 

numerous types of housing assistance through tax expenditures. 

Although often necessary to meet federal priorities, some tax 

expenditures can contribute to mission fragmentation and program 

overlap that, in turn, can create service gaps, additional costs, and the 

potential for duplication. For example, to qualify for a historic preservation 

tax credit, rehabilitation must preserve historic character, which may 

conflict with states’ efforts to produce energy-efficient, low-income 

properties with tax credits, and could increase project costs.

We recommended in September 2005 and reiterated in March 2011 that 

coordinated reviews of tax expenditures with related spending programs 

could help policymakers reduce overlap and inconsistencies and direct 

scarce resources to the most-effective or least-costly methods to deliver 

federal support.25

 

25See GAO, Government Performance and Accountability: Tax Expenditures Represent a 

Substantial Federal Commitment and Need to Be Reexamined, 

Specifically, we recommended that the Director of 

OMB, in consultation with the Secretary of the Treasury, develop and 

implement a framework for conducting performance reviews of tax 

GAO-05-690

(Washington, D.C.: Sept. 23, 2005) and GAO-11-318SP. 
 

Page 24 GAO-12-454T 

expenditures. OMB, citing methodological and conceptual issues, 

disagreed with our 2005 recommendations. To date, OMB had not used 

its budget and performance review processes to systematically review tax 

expenditures and promote integrated reviews of related tax and spending 

programs. However, in its fiscal year 2012 budget guidance, OMB 

instructed agencies, where appropriate, to analyze how to better integrate 

tax and spending policies with similar objectives and goals. The GPRA 

Modernization Act of 2010 also envisions such an approach for selected 

cross-cutting areas. Such an analysis could help identify redundancies.

• Military and veterans health care: We found that DOD and VA need to 

improve integration across care coordination and case management 

programs to reduce duplication and better assist servicemembers, 

veterans, and their families. DOD and VA have care coordination26 and 

case management27

 

26According to the National Coalition on Care Coordination, care coordination is a clientcentered, assessment-based interdisciplinary approach to integrating health care and 

social support services in which an individual’s needs and preferences are assessed, a 

comprehensive care plan is developed, and services are managed and monitored by an 

identified care coordinator. 

programs that are intended to provide continuity of 

care for wounded, ill, and injured servicemembers and veterans. DOD 

and VA established the Wounded, Ill, and Injured Senior Oversight 

Committee (Senior Oversight Committee) to address identified problems 

in providing care to wounded, ill, and injured servicemembers as well as 

veterans. Under the purview of this committee, the departments 

developed the Federal Recovery Coordination Program (FRCP), a joint 

program administered by VA that was designed to coordinate clinical and 

nonclinical services for “severely” wounded, ill, and injured 

servicemembers—who are most likely to be medically separated from the 

military—across DOD, VA, other federal agencies, states, and the private 

sector. Separately, the Recovery Coordination Program (RCP) was 

established in response to the National Defense Authorization Act for 

Fiscal Year 2008 to improve the care, management, and transition of 

recovering servicemembers. It is a DOD-specific program that was 

designed to provide nonclinical care coordination to “seriously” wounded, 

ill, and injured servicemembers, who may return to active duty unlike 

those categorized as “severely” wounded, ill, or injured. The RCP is 

27According to the Case Management Society of America, case management is defined 

as a collaborative process of assessment, planning, facilitation, and advocacy for options 

and services to meet an individual’s health needs through communication and available 

resources to promote quality, cost-effective outcomes.
 

Page 25 GAO-12-454T 

implemented separately by each of the military services, most of which 

have implemented the RCP within their existing wounded warrior 

programs.28

As a result of these multiple efforts, many recovering servicemembers 

and veterans are enrolled in more than one care coordination or case 

management program, and they may have multiple care coordinators and 

case managers, potentially duplicating agencies’ efforts and reducing the 

effectiveness and efficiency of the assistance they provide. For example, 

recovering servicemembers and veterans who have a care coordinator 

also may be enrolled in one or more of the multiple DOD or VA programs 

that provide case management services to “seriously” and “severely” 

wounded, ill, and injured servicemembers, veterans, and their families. 

These programs include the military services’ wounded warrior programs 

and VA’s Operation Enduring Freedom/Operation Iraqi Freedom Care 

Management Program, among others.

We found that inadequate information exchange and poor coordination 

between these programs have resulted in not only duplication of effort, 

but confusion and frustration for enrollees, particularly when case 

managers and care coordinators duplicate or contradict one another’s 

efforts. For example, an FRCP coordinator told us that in one instance 

there were five case managers working on the same life insurance issue 

for an individual. In another example, an FRCP coordinator and an RCP 

coordinator were not aware the other was involved in coordinating care 

for the same servicemember and had unknowingly established conflicting 

recovery goals for this individual. In this case, a servicemember with 

multiple amputations was advised by his FRCP coordinator to separate 

from the military in order to receive needed services from VA, whereas 

his RCP coordinator set a goal of remaining on active duty. These 

conflicting goals caused considerable confusion for this servicemember 

and his family.

DOD and VA have been unsuccessful in jointly developing options for 

improved collaboration and potential integration of the FRCP and RCP care 

coordination programs, although they have made a number of attempts to 

 

28The Navy, Air Force, and Marine Corps have all implemented the RCP within their 

existing wounded warrior programs. The Army and the U.S. Special Operations Command 

provide services that meet the requirements of the RCP, although they did not specifically 

implement this program.
 

Page 26 GAO-12-454T 

do so. Despite the identification of various options, no final decisions to 

revamp, merge, or eliminate programs have been agreed upon.

The need for better collaboration and integration extends beyond the 

FRCP and RCP to also encompass other DOD and VA case 

management programs, such as DOD’s wounded warrior programs that 

also serve seriously and severely wounded, ill, and injured 

servicemembers and veterans. In October 2011, we recommended that 

the Secretaries of Defense and Veterans Affairs direct the co-chairs of the 

Senior Oversight Committee to expeditiously develop and implement a 

plan to strengthen functional integration across all DOD and VA care 

coordination and case management programs that serve recovering 

servicemembers, veterans, and their families, including—but not limited 

to—the FRCP and RCP.29

• Information technology investment management: OMB reported that in 

fiscal year 2011, there were approximately 7,200 information technology 

(IT) investments totaling at least $79 billion. OMB provides guidance to 

agencies on how to report on their IT investments and requires agencies 

to identify each investment by a single functional category and subcategory. These categorizations are intended to enable OMB and others 

to analyze investments with similar functions, as well as identify and 

analyze potentially duplicative investments across agencies. We found 

that DOD and the Department of Energy (DOE) need to address 

potentially duplicative IT investments to avoid investing in unnecessary 

systems.

DOD and VA provided technical comments on 

the report, but neither specifically commented on our recommendation. 

We plan to track the extent to which progress has been made to address 

our recommendation.

In February 2012, we completed a review that examined the 3 largest 

categories of IT investments within DOD, DOE, and the Department of 

Homeland Security (DHS) and found that although the departments use 

various investment review processes to identify duplicative investments, 

37 of our sample of 810 investments were potentially duplicative at DOD 

 

29GAO, DOD and VA Health Care: Action Needed to Strengthen Integration across Care 

Coordination and Case Management Programs, GAO-12-129T (Washington, D.C.: 

Oct. 6, 2011).
 

Page 27 GAO-12-454T 

and DOE.30

In addition, while we did not identify any potentially duplicative 

investments at DHS within our sample, DHS officials have independently 

identified several duplicative investments and systems. DHS has plans to 

further consolidate systems within these investments by 2014, which it 

expects to produce approximately $41 million in cost savings. DHS 

officials have also identified 38 additional systems that they have 

determined to be duplicative.

These investments account for about $1.2 billion in IT 

spending for fiscal years 2007 through 2012 for these two agencies. We 

found that DOD and DOE had recently initiated specific plans to address 

potential duplication in many of the investments we identified—such as 

plans to consolidate or eliminate systems—but these initiatives had not 

yet led to the consolidation or elimination of duplicative investments or 

functionality.

Further complicating agencies’ ability to identify and eliminate duplicative 

investments is that investments are, in certain cases, misclassified by 

function. For example, one of DHS’s Federal Emergency Management 

Agency (FEMA) investments was initially categorized within the Employee 

Performance Management sub-function, but DHS agreed that this 

investment should be assigned to the Human Resources Development 

sub-function. Proper categorization is necessary in order to analyze and 

identify duplicative IT investments, both within and across agencies.

In February 2012, we recommended that the Secretaries of DOD and DOE 

direct their Chief Information Officers to utilize existing transparency 

mechanisms to report on the results of their efforts to identify and eliminate, 

where appropriate, each potentially duplicative investment that we 

identified, as well as any other duplicative investments. The agencies 

agreed with our recommendation. We also recommended that DOD, DOE, 

and DHS correct the miscategorizations of the investments we identified 

and ensure that investments are correctly categorized in agency 

submissions, which would enhance the agencies’ ability to identify 

opportunities to consolidate or eliminate duplicative investments. DOD and 

DHS agreed with our recommendation, but DOE disagreed that two of the 

four investments we identified were miscategorized, explaining that its 

 

30GAO, Information Technology: Departments of Defense and Energy Need to Address 

Potentially Duplicative Investments, GAO-12-241 (Washington, D.C.: Feb. 17, 2012).
 

Page 28 GAO-12-454T 

categorizations reflect funding considerations. However, OMB guidance 

indicates that investments should be classified according to their intended 

purpose. Consequently, we believe the recommendation is warranted.

• Department of Homeland Security grants: From fiscal years 2002 through 

2011, FEMA, under DHS, allocated about $20.3 billion to grant recipients 

through four specific programs (the State Homeland Security Program, 

Urban Areas Security Initiative, Port Security Grant Program, and Transit 

Security Grant Program) to enhance the capacity of states, localities, and 

other entities, such as ports or transit agencies, to prevent, respond to, 

and recover from a terrorism incident. We found that DHS needs better 

project information and coordination to identify and mitigate potential 

unnecessary duplication among four overlapping grant programs.

In February 2012, we identified multiple factors that contributed to the risk 

of FEMA potentially funding unnecessarily duplicative projects across 

these four grant programs. These factors include overlap among grant 

recipients, goals, and geographic locations, combined with differing levels 

of information that FEMA had available regarding grant projects and 

recipients.31 We also reported that FEMA lacked a process to coordinate

application reviews across the four grant programs and grant applications 

were reviewed separately by program and were not compared across 

each other to determine where possible unnecessary duplication may 

occur. Specifically, FEMA’s Homeland Security Grant Program branch 

administered the Urban Areas Security Initiative and State Homeland 

Security Program while the Transportation Infrastructure Security branch 

administered the Port Security Grant Program and Transit Security Grant 

Program. We and the DHS Inspector General have concluded that 

coordinating the review of grant projects internally would give FEMA more 

complete information about applications across the four grant programs, 

which could help FEMA identify and mitigate the risk of unnecessary 

duplication across grant applications.32

We also identified actions FEMA could take to identify and mitigate any 

unnecessary duplication in these programs, such as collecting more 

 

31GAO, Homeland Security: DHS Needs Better Project Information and Coordination 

among Four Overlapping Grant Programs, GAO-12-303 (Washington, D.C.: 

Feb. 28, 2012).

32Department of Homeland Security Office of Inspector General, Efficacy of DHS Grant 

Programs, OIG-1069 (Washington, D.C.: Mar. 22, 2010).
 

Page 29 GAO-12-454T 

complete project information as well as exploring opportunities to 

enhance FEMA’s internal coordination and administration of the 

programs. We suggested that Congress may wish to consider requiring 

DHS to report on the results of its efforts to identify and prevent 

duplication within and across the four grant programs, and consider these 

results when making future funding decisions for these programs.

• Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math education programs: 

Federal agencies obligated $3.1 billion in fiscal year 2010 on Science, 

Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) education programs. 

These programs can serve an important role both by helping to prepare 

students and teachers for careers in STEM fields and by enhancing the 

nation’s global competitiveness. In addition to the federal effort, state and 

local governments, universities and colleges, and the private sector have 

also developed programs that provide opportunities for students to pursue 

STEM education and occupations. Recently, both Congress and the 

administration have called for a more strategic and effective approach to 

the federal government’s investment in STEM education. For example, 

Congress directed the Office of Science and Technology Policy, within 

the Executive Office of the President, to establish a committee under its 

component National Science and Technology Council to, among other 

things, develop a 5-year governmentwide STEM education strategic plan 

and identify areas of duplication among federal programs.33

In January 2012, we reported that 173 of the 209 (83 percent) STEM 

education programs administered by 13 federal agencies overlapped to 

some degree with at least 1 other program in that they offered similar 

services to target groups—such as K-12 students, postsecondary 

students, K-12 teachers, and college faculty and staff—to achieve similar 

objectives.

We found 

that strategic planning is needed to better manage overlapping programs 

across multiple agencies.

34

 

33Pub. L. No. 111-358, § 101, 124 Stat. 3982, 3984 (2011).

These overlapping programs largely resulted from federal 

efforts to both create and expand programs across many agencies in an 

effort to improve STEM education and increase the number of students 

going into related fields. Overlapping programs can lead to individuals 

and institutions being eligible for similar services in similar STEM fields 

34GAO, Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics Education: Strategic 

Planning Needed to Better Manage Overlapping Programs across Multiple Agencies, 

GAO-12-108 (Washington, D.C.: Jan. 20, 2012). 
 

Page 30 GAO-12-454T 

offered through multiple programs. For example, 177 of the 209 programs 

(85 percent) were primarily intended to serve two or more target groups. 

Overlap can frustrate federal officials’ efforts to administer programs in a 

comprehensive manner, limit the ability of decision makers to determine 

which programs are most cost-effective, and ultimately increase program 

administrative costs.

Even when programs overlap, the services they provide and the 

populations they serve may differ in meaningful ways and would therefore 

not necessarily be duplicative. There may be important differences 

between the specific STEM field of focus and the program’s stated goals. 

For example, we identified 31 programs that provided scholarships or 

fellowships to doctoral students in the field of physics. However, one 

program’s goal was to increase environmental literacy related to estuaries 

and coastal watersheds while another program focused on supporting 

education in nuclear science, engineering, and related trades. In addition, 

programs may be primarily intended to serve different specific populations 

within a given target group. Of the 34 programs providing services to K-12 

students in the field of technology, 10 are primarily intended to serve 

specific underrepresented, minority, or disadvantaged groups and 2 are 

limited geographically to individual cities or universities.

However, little is known about the effectiveness of federal STEM 

education programs. Since 2005, when we first reported on this issue, we 

have found that the majority of programs have not conducted 

comprehensive evaluations of how well their programs are working. 

Agency and program officials would benefit from guidance and 

information sharing within and across agencies about what is working and 

how to best evaluate programs. This would not only help to improve 

individual program performance, but could also inform agency- and 

governmentwide decisions about which programs should continue to be 

funded. Furthermore, although the National Science and Technology 

Council is in the process of developing a governmentwide strategic plan 

for STEM education, we found that agencies have not used outcome 

measures for STEM programs in a way that is clearly reflected in their 

own performance plans and performance reports—key strategic planning 

documents. The absence of clear links between the programs and 

agencies’ planning documents may hinder decision makers’ ability to 

assess how agencies’ STEM efforts contribute to agencywide 

performance goals and the overall federal STEM effort.

We reported in January 2012 that numerous opportunities exist to 

improve the planning for STEM programs. For example, we 
 

Page 31 GAO-12-454T 

recommended that the National Science and Technology Council develop 

guidance for how agencies can better incorporate governmentwide STEM 

education strategic plan goals and their STEM education efforts into their 

respective performance plans and reports, as well as determining the 

types of evaluations that may be feasible and appropriate for different 

types of STEM education programs. We also recommended that the 

National Science and Technology Council work with agencies, through 

the strategic planning process, to identify STEM education programs that 

might be candidates for consolidation or elimination. OMB stated that our 

recommendations are critical to improving the provision of STEM 

education across the federal government. In separate comments, the 

Office of Science and Technology Policy said its own analysis of STEM 

education programs identified no duplicative programs and where it 

identified overlapping programs it found that some program 

characteristics differed. As an illustration, the Office of Science and 

Technology Policy explained that there could be two STEM education 

programs, one that worked with inner city children in New York City and 

another with rural children in North Dakota. We agree that it may be 

important to serve both of these populations, but it is not clear that two 

separate administrative structures are necessary to ensure both 

populations are served. The Office of Science and Technology Policy said 

it would address our recommendations in the 5-year Federal STEM 

Education Strategic Plan, which will be released in spring 2012. 

Furthermore, the President’s Fiscal Year 2013 budget established STEM 

education programs as one of fourteen cross-agency priority goals. These 

goals are intended to enhance progress in areas needing more crossgovernment collaboration.

• Coordination of space system organizations: U.S. government space 

systems—such as the Global Positioning System (GPS) and spacebased weather systems—provide a wide range of capabilities to a large 

number of users, including the federal government, U.S. businesses and 

citizens, and other countries. Space systems are usually very expensive, 

often costing billions of dollars to acquire. More than $25 billion a year is 

appropriated to agencies for developing space systems. These systems 

typically take a long time to develop, and often consist of multiple 

components, including satellites, ground control stations, terminals, and 

user equipment. Moreover, the nation’s satellites are put into orbit by 

rockets that can cost more than $100 million per launch. We have found 

that costs of space programs tend to increase significantly from initial cost 

estimates. A variety of agencies, such as the Federal Aviation 

Administration, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, 

and DHS rely on government space systems to execute their missions, 
 

Page 32 GAO-12-454T 

but responsibilities for acquiring space systems are diffused across 

various DOD organizations as well as the intelligence community and the 

National Aeronautics and Space Administration. Fragmented leadership 

has led to program challenges and potential duplication in developing 

multi-billion dollar space systems. In some cases, problems with these 

systems have been so severe that acquisitions were either canceled or 

the needed capabilities were severely delayed.

Fragmented leadership and lack of a single authority in overseeing the 

acquisition of space programs have created challenges for optimally 

acquiring, developing, and deploying new space systems. This 

fragmentation is problematic not only because of a lack of coordination 

that has led to delays in fielding systems, but also because no one person 

or organization is held accountable for balancing governmentwide needs 

against wants, resolving conflicts and ensuring coordination among the 

many organizations involved with space acquisitions, and ensuring that 

resources are directed where they are most needed. For example, we 

reported in April 2009 that the coordination of GPS satellites and user 

equipment segments is not adequately synchronized due to funding shifts 

and diffuse leadership in the program, likely leading to numerous years of 

missed opportunities to utilize new capabilities.35

DOD has also undertaken a number of initiatives to improve leadership 

over defense space acquisitions, but these actions have not been in place 

long enough to determine whether acquisition outcomes will improve. 

Moreover, the initiatives do not extend to the space activities across the 

government. We and others, including the Commission to Assess United 

States National Security Space Management and Organization, have 

previously recommended a number of changes to the leadership of the 

space community and have consistently reported that a lack of strong, 

centralized leadership has led to inefficiencies and other problems. But 

the question as to what office or leadership structure above the 

DOD has taken some 

steps to better coordinate the GPS segments by creating the Space and 

Intelligence Office within the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for 

Acquisition, Technology, and Logistics and conducting enterprise level 

reviews of the GPS program. However, DOD has not yet established a 

single authority responsible for ensuring that all GPS segments, including 

user equipment, are synchronized to the maximum extent practicable.

 

35GAO, Global Positioning System: Significant Challenges in Sustaining and Upgrading 

Widely Used Capabilities, GAO-09-325 (Washington, D.C.: Apr. 30, 2009). 
 

Page 33 GAO-12-454T 

department level would be effective and appropriate for coordinating all 

U.S. government space programs and setting priorities has not been 

addressed.

We have suggested that OMB work with the National Security Council to 

assess whether a governmentwide oversight body for space acquisitions 

is needed. OMB agreed that coordinating space activities across the U.S. 

government has been and continues to be a major challenge, but is 

concerned that our recommendation would add an extra layer of space 

bureaucracy on top of ongoing coordination efforts as well as additional 

costs and possible confusion regarding roles and authorities among the 

existing mechanisms. We believe that the recommendation is sufficiently 

flexible to allow for an implementation approach that would address these 

concerns.

• Defense Language and Culture Training: DOD has emphasized the 

importance of developing language skills and knowledge of foreign 

cultures within its forces to meet the needs of current and future military 

operations and it has invested millions of dollars to provide language and 

culture training to thousands of servicemembers, including those 

deploying to ongoing operations. For example, we estimated that DOD 

invested about $266 million for fiscal years 2005 through 2011 to provide 

general purpose forces with training support, such as classroom 

instruction, computer-based training, and training aids. We found that 

DOD has not developed an integrated approach to reduce fragmentation 

in the military services’ language and culture training approaches and 

overlap in the content of training products acquired by the military 

services and other organizations.

In May 2011, we reported that language and culture training within DOD 

is not provided through a single department- or servicewide program, but 

rather multiple DOD organizations oversee the development and 

acquisition of language and culture training and related products and 

deliver training.36

 

36GAO, Military Training: Additional Actions Needed to Improve Planning and 

Coordination of Army and Marine Corps Language and Culture Training, 

We recommended that the Office of the Under 

Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness establish internal 

mechanisms to assist the department in reaching consensus with the 

military services and other DOD entities on training priorities, synchronize 

GAO-11-456

(Washington, D.C.: May 26, 2011). 
 

Page 34 GAO-12-454T 

the development of service- and departmentwide plans with the budget 

process, and guide efforts to monitor progress. DOD agreed with our 

recommendation.

We also found that the military services have not fully coordinated efforts to 

develop and acquire language and culture training products. As a result, 

the services have acquired overlapping and potentially duplicative 

products, such as reference materials containing country- or region-specific 

cultural information and computer software or web-based training programs 

that can be used within a distributed learning training environment. To 

illustrate, we analyzed 18 DOD language and culture training products and 

found that the content overlapped to some extent with at least one other 

training product. For Afghan languages, DOD invested in at least five 

products that were intended to build basic foreign language skills or specific 

language skills needed to perform military tasks.

We suggested that the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for 

Personnel and Readiness and the military services designate 

organizational responsibility and a supporting process to inventory and 

evaluate existing language and culture products and plans for additional 

investments, eliminate any unnecessary overlap and duplication, and 

adjust resources accordingly, as well as take steps to develop and 

contract for new products that can be used by more than one military 

service. DOD agreed that departmentwide coordination efforts could be 

improved and noted that our analysis would be useful in targeting specific 

areas for improvement.

• Federal facility risk assessments: Federal facilities continue to be 

vulnerable to terrorist attacks and other acts of violence, as evidenced by 

the 2010 attacks on the IRS building in Austin, Texas, and the federal 

courthouse in Las Vegas, Nevada, which resulted in loss of life. DHS’s 

Federal Protective Service (FPS) is the primary federal agency 

responsible for providing physical security and law enforcement 

services—including conducting risk assessments—for the approximately 

9,000 federal facilities under the control and custody of the General 

Services Administration. We found that agencies are making duplicate 

payments for facility risk assessments by completing their own 

assessments, while also paying DHS for assessments that the 

department is not performing.

We reported in June 2008 and also have recently found that multiple 

federal agencies are expending additional resources to assess their own 

facilities; although, according to an FPS official, the agency received $236 
 

Page 35 GAO-12-454T 

million from federal agencies for risk assessments and other security 

services in fiscal year 2011.37

FPS’s planned risk assessment tool is intended to provide FPS with the 

capability to assess risks at federal facilities based on threat, vulnerability,

and consequence; and track countermeasures to mitigate those risks, but 

it is unclear if the tool will help minimize duplication. According to an 

official, FPS planned to use its Risk Assessment and Management 

Program to complete assessments of about 700 federal facilities in fiscal 

year 2010 and 2,500 facilities in fiscal year 2011. However, as we 

reported in July 2011, FPS experienced cost overruns, schedule delays, 

and operational issues with developing this program and as a result the 

agency could not use it to complete risk assessments.

For example, an IRS official stated that IRS 

completed risk assessments based on concerns about risks unique to its 

mission for approximately 65 facilities that it also paid FPS to assess. 

Additionally, Environmental Protection Agency officials said that the 

agency has conducted its own assessments based on concerns with the 

quality and thoroughness of FPS’s assessments. These assessments are 

conducted by teams of contractors and agency employees, cost an 

estimated $6,000, and can take a few days to a week to complete.

38

We identified several steps that DHS could take to address duplication in 

FPS’s risk assessments. For example, in July 2011 we recommended 

that DHS develop interim solutions for completing risk assessments while 

addressing challenges with the Risk Assessment and Management 

Program. In addition, in February 2012, we suggested DHS work with 

federal agencies to determine their reasons for duplicating the activities 

included in FPS’s risk assessments and identify measures to reduce this 

duplication. DHS agreed with our July 2011 recommendation and has 

begun taking action to address it, but did not comment on the action we 

identified in February 2012.

We found that 

since November 2009, the agency has only completed four risk 

assessments using its Risk Assessment and Management Program.

 

37GAO, Homeland Security: The Federal Protective Service Faces Several Challenges 

That Hamper Its Ability to Protect Federal Facilities, GAO-08-683 (Washington, D.C.: June 

11, 2008).

38GAO, Federal Protective Service: Actions Needed to Resolve Delays and Inadequate 

Oversight Issues with FPS’s Risk Assessment and Management Program, GAO-11-705R

(Washington, D.C.: July 15, 2011).
 

Page 36 GAO-12-454T 

Our 2012 annual report also summarized 19 areas—beyond those 

directly related to duplication, overlap, or fragmentation—describing other 

opportunities for agencies or Congress to consider taking action that 

could either reduce the cost of government operations or enhance 

revenue collection for the Treasury. These cost saving and revenueenhancing opportunities also span a wide range of federal government 

agencies and mission areas (see table 2).

Table 2: Cost-Saving or Revenue-Enhancing Opportunities Identified

Mission Areas identified

Defense 33. Air Force Food Service: The Air Force has opportunities to achieve millions of dollars in 

cost savings annually by reviewing and renegotiating food service contracts, where 

appropriate, to better align with the needs of installations. 

34. Defense Headquarters: The Department of Defense should review and identify further 

opportunities for consolidating or reducing the size of headquarters organizations. 

35. Defense Real Property: Ensuring the receipt of fair market value for leasing underused 

real property and monitoring administrative costs could help the military services’ 

enhanced use lease programs realize intended financial benefits. 

36. Military Health Care Costs: To help achieve significant projected cost savings and 

other performance goals, DOD needs to complete, implement, and monitor detailed 

plans for each of its approved health care initiatives. 

37. Overseas Defense Posture: The Department of Defense could reduce costs of its 

Pacific region presence by developing comprehensive cost information and re-examining 

alternatives to planned initiatives. 

38. Navy’s Information Technology Enterprise Network: Better informed decisions are 

needed to ensure a more cost-effective acquisition approach for the Navy’s Next 

Generation Enterprise Network. 

Economic development 39. Auto Recovery Office: Unless the Secretary of Labor can demonstrate how the Auto 

Recovery Office has uniquely assisted auto communities, Congress may wish to 

consider prohibiting the Department of Labor from spending any of its appropriations on 

the Auto Recovery Office and instead require that the department direct the funds to 

other federal programs that provide funding directly to affected communities. 

Energy 40. Excess Uranium Inventories: Marketing the Department of Energy’s excess uranium 

could provide billions in revenue for the government. 

General government 41. General Services Administration Schedules Contracts Fee Rates: Re-evaluating fee 

rates on the General Services Administration’s Multiple Award Schedules contracts could 

result in significant cost savings governmentwide.

42. U.S. Currency: Legislation replacing the $1 note with a $1 coin would provide a 

significant financial benefit to the government over time.

43. Federal User Fees: Regularly reviewing federal user fees and charges can help 

Congress and federal agencies identify opportunities to address inconsistent federal 

funding approaches and enhance user financing, thereby reducing reliance on general 

fund appropriations.

44. Internal Revenue Service Enforcement Efforts: Enhancing the Internal Revenue 

Service’s enforcement and service capabilities can help reduce the gap between taxes 

owed and paid by collecting billions in tax revenue and facilitating voluntary compliance.
 

Page 37 GAO-12-454T 

Mission Areas identified

Health 45. Medicare Advantage Payment: The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services could 

achieve billions of dollars in additional savings by better adjusting for differences 

between Medicare Advantage plans and traditional Medicare providers in the reporting of 

beneficiary diagnoses. 

46. Medicare and Medicaid Fraud Detection Systems: The Centers for Medicare and 

Medicaid Services needs to ensure widespread use of technology to help detect and 

recover billions of dollars of improper payments of claims and better position itself to 

determine and measure financial and other benefits of its systems. 

Homeland security/Law 

enforcement

47. Border Security: Delaying proposed investments for future acquisitions of border 

surveillance technology until the Department of Homeland Security better defines and 

measures benefits and estimates life-cycle costs could help ensure the most effective 

use of future program funding. 

48. Passenger Aviation Security Fees: Options for adjusting the passenger aviation 

security fee could further offset billions of dollars in civil aviation security costs.

49. Immigration Inspection Fee: The air passenger immigration inspection user fee should 

be reviewed and adjusted to fully recover the cost of the air passenger immigration 

inspection activities conducted by Department of Homeland Security’s U.S. Immigration 

and Customs Enforcement and U.S. Customs and Border Protection rather than using 

general fund appropriations.

International affairs 50. Iraq Security Funding: When considering new funding requests to train and equip Iraqi 

security forces, Congress should consider the government of Iraq’s financial resources, 

which afford it the ability to contribute more toward the cost of Iraq’s security. 

Social services 51. Domestic Disaster Assistance: The Federal Emergency Management Agency could 

reduce the costs to the federal government related to major disasters declared by the 

President by updating the principal indicator on which disaster funding decisions are 

based and better measuring a state’s capacity to respond without federal assistance. 

Source: GAO-12-342SP. 

Examples of opportunities for agencies or Congress to consider taking 

action that could either reduce the cost of government operations or 

enhance revenue collections include:

• Air Force food service: According to Air Force officials, most Air Force 

installations have their own individual contracts for food service, with a 

total cost of approximately $150 million per year for all Air Force 

installations. We found that the Air Force has opportunities to reduce its 

overall food service costs by millions of dollars annually by reviewing food 

service contracts and adjusting them, when appropriate, to better meet 

the needs of its installations, including aligning labor needs with the actual 

number of meals served by the dining facilities.

The Air Force recently undertook an initiative to improve food service at 

six pilot installations, with intentions to eventually expand this initiative to 

more Air Force installations. Among other intended outcomes, Air Force 

officials stated that the first group of pilot installations achieved cost 
 

Page 38 GAO-12-454T 

savings when compared to their previous contracts while also increasing 

hours of operation in the dining facilities and serving an additional 

500,000 meals per year. We compared the estimated amount of food 

service labor at the six pilot installations under prior contracts to the 

projected work schedules under the initiative and found that by adjusting 

staffing levels for contractor staff at dining facilities, the contractor 

reduced the total number of labor hours at five of the six pilot installations 

by 53 percent. For example, at one installation, the number of estimated 

labor hours decreased from approximately 2,042 hours per week to 920. 

For the sixth installation where the labor hours did not decrease, the Air 

Force Audit Agency had recently conducted a review that found that the 

number of food service personnel did not align with workload estimates. 

As a result, the Air Force renegotiated its workload estimates and pay 

rates, resulting in savings of approximately $77,000 annually.

During our review, we discussed the potential opportunity for achieving 

additional savings by reviewing staffing levels at other installations 

outside of the initiative with Air Force officials. As a result, the Air Force 

issued a memorandum directing a review of existing food service 

contracts to determine if the contracts meet current mission needs. The 

memorandum indicated that special attention must be given to whether 

the food service contract workload estimates were properly aligned with 

the actual number of meals served. In July 2011, we recommended that 

the Secretary of the Air Force monitor the actions taken in response to 

the direction to review food service contracts, and take actions, as 

appropriate, to ensure that cost-savings measures are implemented.39

 

39GAO, Defense Management: Actions Needed to Improve Management of Air Force’s 

Food Transformation Initiative, 

According to Air Force officials, eight installations have recently reviewed 

and renegotiated their food service contracts for a total savings of over 

$2.5 million per year. The potential exists for other installations that rely 

on contracts to meet their food service needs to achieve similar financial 

benefits. For example, the Air Force has requested that each of its 

installations conduct a 100 percent review of existing food service 

contracts to determine if their current contract workload estimates meet 

current mission needs or if the contracts require modification. In addition, 

the Office of the Secretary of Defense planned to share the results of the 

Air Force’s review of its food service labor costs to achieve cost savings 

with the other military services.

GAO-11-676 (Washington, D.C.: July 26, 2011).
 

Page 39 GAO-12-454T 

• Navy information technology network: In 2007, the Navy established the 

Next Generation Enterprise Network program (NGEN) to replace and 

improve the Navy Marine Corps Intranet. According to the President’s 

fiscal year 2012 budget request, the NGEN program has spent about 

$434 million on work associated with the transition from the Navy Marine 

Corps Intranet. The Navy estimated that NGEN would cost approximately 

$50 billion to develop, operate, and maintain through fiscal year 2025. We 

found that better informed decisions were needed to ensure a more costeffective acquisition approach for the Navy’s NGEN program.

We reported in March 2011 that the Navy selected an approach that was 

not considered as part of its analysis of alternatives and that it estimated 

would cost at least $4.7 billion more than any of the four assessed 

alternatives.40

To address these weaknesses, we recommended in March 2011 that the 

Navy limit further investment in NGEN until it conducts an immediate 

interim review to reconsider the selected acquisition approach. We also 

identified an additional action that the Navy could take to facilitate 

implementation of the approach resulting from this review by ensuring 

that the NGEN schedule reflects key schedule estimating practices and 

future program reviews and decisions fully reflect the program’s 

performance and exposure to risk. DOD agreed with our recommendation 

to ensure that future NGEN acquisition reviews and decisions fully reflect 

the state of the program’s performance and its exposure to risks. The 

department did not agree with our recommendation to reconsider its 

acquisition approach; however, the Navy is currently in the process of 

reviewing and making changes to the NGEN acquisition strategy. We are 

undertaking work that will assess the extent to which the Navy has 

In addition, we reported that the Navy’s schedule for NGEN 

also did not provide a reliable basis for program execution because it did 

not adequately satisfy key schedule estimating best practices, such as 

establishing the critical path (the sequence of activities that, if delayed, 

impacts the planned completion date of the project) and assigning 

resources to all work activities. We also found that the Navy’s acquisition 

decisions were not always performance- or risk-based. In particular, 

senior executives approved the NGEN program’s continuing progress in 

the face of known performance shortfalls and risks.

 

40GAO, Information Technology: Better Informed Decision Making Needed on Navy’s Next 

Generation Enterprise Network Acquisition, GAO-11-150 (Washington, D.C.: Mar. 11, 

2011).
 

Page 40 GAO-12-454T 

conducted its interim review to reconsider its acquisition approach and 

evaluate the revised strategy.

• DOD health care costs: DOD spends billions of dollars annually on its 

worldwide healthcare system. Currently, health care costs constitute 

nearly 10 percent of DOD’s baseline budget request. For its fiscal year 

2012 budget, according to DOD documentation, DOD received $52.7 

billion41 to provide health care to approximately 9.6 million active duty 

servicemembers, reservists, retirees, and their dependents. DOD 

recognizes that it must address the rate at which health care costs are 

rising and has stated that it intends to continue to develop health care 

initiatives that will improve the quality and standard of care, while 

reducing growth in overall costs.42

DOD’s initiatives consist primarily of changes to clinical and business 

practices in areas ranging from primary care to psychological health to 

purchased care reimbursement practices. Partly in response to our 

ongoing work assessing DOD’s management of its initiatives, the 

department has taken some initial steps toward managing their 

implementation by developing a number of high-level, non-monetary 

metrics and corresponding goals for each strategic initiative, and other 

management tools, such as implementation plans that will include key 

elements such as investment costs and savings estimates. However, 

DOD currently has completed only one implementation plan, which 

contains the one available cost savings estimate among all the initiatives. 

Without completing its plans and incorporating elements such as problem 

definitions, resources needed, goals, performance measures, and cost 

estimates into them, DOD will not be fully aware if these initiatives are 

achieving projected cost savings and other performance goals.

Our ongoing work has found that DOD 

has identified 11 initiatives intended to slow the rise in its health care 

costs, but it has not fully applied results-oriented management practices 

to its efforts or an overall monitoring process, which limits its 

effectiveness in implementing these initiatives and achieving related cost 

savings goals.

 

41DOD’s fiscal year 2012 budget of $52.7 billion for its Unified Medical Budget includes 

$32.5 billion for the Defense Health Program, $8.3 billion for military personnel, $1.1 billion 

for military construction, and $10.8 billion for the Medicare Eligible Retiree Health Care 

Fund. The total excludes overseas contingency operations funds and other transfers. 

42DOD, Quadrennial Defense Review Report, February 2010.
 

Page 41 GAO-12-454T 

In addition, DOD has not completed the implementation of an overall 

monitoring process across its portfolio of initiatives for overseeing the 

initiatives’ progress or identified accountable officials and their roles and 

responsibilities for all of its initiatives. DOD’s 2007 Task Force on the 

Future of Military Health Care noted that the current Military Health 

System does not function as a fully integrated health care system.43

In order to enhance its efforts to manage rising health care costs and 

demonstrate sustained leadership commitment for achieving the 

performance goals of the Military Health System’s strategic initiatives, we 

plan to recommend as part of our ongoing work that DOD complete and 

fully implement detailed implementation plans for each of the approved 

health care initiatives in a manner consistent with results-oriented 

management practices, such as the inclusion of upfront investment costs 

and cost savings estimates; and complete the implementation of an 

overall monitoring process across its portfolio of initiatives for overseeing 

the initiatives’ progress and identifying accountable officials and their 

roles and responsibilities for all of its initiatives. We believe that DOD may

realize projected cost savings and other performance goals by taking 

these actions to help ensure the successful implementation of its cost 

savings initiatives. Given that DOD identified these initiatives as steps to 

slow the rapidly growing costs of its medical program, if implemented 

these initiatives could potentially save DOD millions of dollars. DOD 

generally agreed with our planned recommendations.

For 

example, while the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Health Affairs 

controls the Defense Health Program budget, the services directly 

supervise their medical personnel and manage their military treatment 

facilities. Therefore, as Military Health System leaders develop and 

implement their plans to control rising health care costs, they will need to 

work across multiple authorities and areas of responsibility. Until DOD 

fully implements a military-wide mechanism to monitor progress and 

identify accountable officials, including their roles and responsibilities 

across its portfolio of initiatives, DOD may be hindered in its ability to 

achieve a more cost-efficient military health system.

• Excess uranium inventories: DOE maintains large inventories of depleted 

and natural uranium that it no longer requires for nuclear weapons or fuel 

for naval nuclear propulsion reactors. We reported in March and April 

 

43Defense Health Board, Task Force on the Future of Military Health Care (December 

2007). 
 

Page 42 GAO-12-454T 

2008 and again in June 2011 that under certain conditions, the federal 

government could generate billions of dollars by marketing inventories of 

excess uranium to commercial power plants to use in their reactors.44

Specifically, we identified options that DOE could take to market the 

excess uranium inventories for commercial use. For example, DOE could 

contract to re-enrich inventories of depleted uranium hexafluoride (a byproduct of the uranium enrichment process), consisting of hundreds of 

thousands of metric tons of material that are stored at DOE’s uranium 

enrichment plants. Although DOE would have to pay for processing, the 

resulting re-enriched uranium could be potentially sold if the sales price of 

the uranium exceeded processing costs. DOE could also pursue an 

option of selling the depleted uranium inventory “as-is”. This approach 

would require DOE to obtain the appropriate statutory authority to sell 

depleted uranium in its current unprocessed form. Firms such as nuclear 

power utilities and enrichment companies might find it cost effective to 

purchase the uranium and re-enrich it as a source of nuclear fuel.

If executed in accordance with federal law, DOE sales of natural uranium 

could generate additional revenue for the government. Natural uranium on 

its own cannot fuel nuclear reactors and weapons. Rather, it is shipped to a 

conversion facility, where it is converted for the enrichment process. We 

reported in September 2011 that in 7 transactions executed since 2009 

DOE has, in effect, sold nearly 1,900 metric tons of natural uranium into the 

market, using a contractor as a sales agent, to fund environmental cleanup 

services.45

 

44See GAO, Nuclear Material: DOE Has Several Potential Options for Dealing with 

Depleted Uranium Tails, Each of Which Could Benefit the Government, 

DOE characterized these sales as barter transactions—

exchanges of services (environmental cleanup work) for materials 

(uranium). While DOE received no cash directly from the transactions, it 

allowed its contractor to keep cash from the sales, which DOE would 

otherwise have owed to the United States Treasury. Because federal law 

requires an official or agent of the government receiving money for the 

GAO-08-606R

(Washington, D.C.: Mar. 31, 2008); Nuclear Material: Several Potential Options for 

Dealing with DOE’s Depleted Uranium Tails Could Benefit the Government, GAO-08-613T

(Washington, D.C.: Apr. 3, 2008); and Nuclear Material: DOE’s Depleted Uranium Tails 

Could Be a Source of Revenue for the Government, GAO-11-752T (Washington, D.C.: 

June 13, 2011).

45GAO, Excess Uranium Inventories: Clarifying DOE’s Disposition Options Could Help 

Avoid Further Legal Violations, GAO-11-846 (Washington, D.C.: Sept. 26, 2011).
 

Page 43 GAO-12-454T 

government from any source to deposit the money in the Treasury, we 

found that these transactions violated the miscellaneous receipts statute.

We have reported that congressional action may be needed to overcome 

legal obstacles to the pursuit of certain options for the sale of depleted 

and natural uranium. Specifically, our March 2008 report suggested that 

Congress may wish to explicitly provide direction about whether and how 

DOE may sell or transfer depleted uranium in its current form. Our 

September 2011 report suggested that if Congress sees merit in using 

the proceeds from the barter, transfer, or sale of federal uranium assets 

to pay for environmental cleanup work, it could consider providing DOE 

with explicit authority to barter excess uranium and to retain the proceeds 

from these transactions. We also suggested that Congress could direct 

DOE to sell uranium for cash and make those proceeds available by 

appropriation for environmental cleanup work.

Congress has taken some actions in response to our work. For example, 

the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2012, among other things, requires 

the Secretary of Energy to provide congressional appropriations 

committees with information on the transfer, sale, barter, distribution, or 

other provision of uranium in any form and an estimate of the uranium 

value along with the expected recipient of the material. The Consolidated 

Appropriations Act, 2012 also requires the Secretary to submit a report 

evaluating the economic feasibility of re-enriching depleted uranium.

• Medicare and Medicaid fraud detection systems: We have designated 

Medicare and Medicaid as high-risk programs, in part due to their 

susceptibility to improper payments—estimated to be about $65 billion in 

fiscal year 2011. To integrate data about all types of Medicare and 

Medicaid claims and improve its ability to detect fraud, waste, and abuse 

in these programs, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services 

(CMS) initiated two information technology programs—the Integrated 

Data Repository, which is intended to provide a centralized repository of 

claims data for all Medicare and Medicaid programs, and One Program 

Integrity, a set of tools that enables CMS contractors and staff to access 

and analyze data retrieved from the repository. According to CMS 

officials, the systems are expected to provide financial benefits of more 

than $21 billion by the end of fiscal year 2015. We found that CMS needs 

to ensure widespread use of technology to help detect and recover 

billions of dollars of improper payments of claims and better position itself 

to determine and measure financial and other benefits of its systems.
 

Page 44 GAO-12-454T 

We reported in June 2011 that CMS had developed and begun using both 

systems, but was not yet positioned to identify, measure, or track benefits 

realized from these programs.46

In addition, CMS had not trained its broad community of analysts to use 

the One Program Integrity system because of delays introduced by a 

redesign of initial training plans that were found to be insufficient. 

Specifically, program officials planned for 639 analysts to be using the 

system by the end of fiscal year 2010; however only 41—less than 7 

percent—were actively using it as of October 2010. Because of these 

delays, the initial use of the system was limited to a small number of CMS 

staff and contractors. In updating the status of the training efforts in 

November 2011, although we did not validate these data, CMS officials 

reported that a total of 215 program integrity analysts had been trained 

and were using the system. However, program officials had not finalized 

plans and schedules for training all intended users.

For example, although in use since 2006, 

the Integrated Data Repository did not have Medicaid claims data or 

information from other CMS systems that store and process data related 

to the entry, correction, and adjustment of claims due to funding and other 

technical issues. These data are needed to help analysts prevent 

improper payments. Program officials told us that they had begun 

incorporating these data in September 2011 and planned to make them 

available to program integrity analysts in spring 2012. Regarding 

Medicaid data, agency officials stated that they did not account for 

difficulties associated with integrating data from the various types and 

formats of data stored in disparate state systems or develop reliable 

schedules for its efforts to incorporate these data. In particular, program 

officials did not consider certain risks and obstacles, such as technical 

challenges, as they developed schedules for implementing the Integrated 

Data Repository. Lacking reliable schedules, CMS may face additional 

delays in making available all the data that are needed to support 

enhanced program integrity efforts.

In June 2011, we recommended that CMS take a number of actions to 

help ensure the program’s success toward achieving the billions of dollars 

in financial benefits that program integrity officials projected, such as 

finalizing plans and reliable schedules for incorporating additional data 

 

46GAO, Fraud Detection Systems: Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services Needs to 

Ensure More Widespread Use, GAO-11-475 (Washington, D.C.: June 30, 2011).
 

Page 45 GAO-12-454T 

into the Integrated Data Repository and conducting training for all 

analysts who are intended to use the One Program Integrity system. CMS 

agreed with our recommendations and identified steps the agency is 

taking to implement them. We plan to conduct additional work to 

determine whether CMS has addressed our recommendations and 

identified financial benefits and progress toward meeting agency goals 

resulting from the implementation of its fraud detection systems.

• Medicare Advantage: In fiscal year 2010, the federal government spent 

about $113 billion on the Medicare Advantage program, a private plan 

alternative to the original Medicare program that covers about a quarter of 

Medicare beneficiaries. CMS, the agency that administers Medicare, 

adjusts payments to Medicare Advantage plans based on the health 

status of each plan’s enrollees. The agency could achieve billions of 

dollars in additional savings by better adjusting for differences between 

Medicare Advantage plans and traditional Medicare providers in the 

reporting of beneficiary diagnoses.

CMS calculates a risk score for every beneficiary—a relative measure of 

health status—which is based on a beneficiary’s demographic 

characteristics, such as age and gender, and major medical conditions. 

To obtain information on the medical conditions of beneficiaries in 

traditional Medicare, CMS generally analyzes diagnoses—numerically 

coded by providers into Medicare defined categories—on the claims that 

providers submit for payment. For beneficiaries enrolled in Medicare 

Advantage plans, which do not submit claims, CMS requires plans to 

submit diagnostic codes for each beneficiary. Analysis has shown that 

risk scores are higher for Medicare Advantage beneficiaries than for 

beneficiaries in traditional Medicare with the same characteristics.

Medicare Advantage plans have a financial incentive to ensure that all 

relevant diagnoses are coded, as this can increase beneficiaries’ risk 

scores and, ultimately, payments to the plans. Many traditional Medicare 

providers are paid for services rendered, and providers have less 

incentive to code all relevant diagnoses. Policymakers have expressed 

concern that risk scores for Medicare Advantage beneficiaries have 

grown at a faster rate than those for traditional Medicare, in part because 

of differences in coding diagnoses. In 2005, Congress directed CMS to 

analyze and adjust risk scores for differences in coding practices, and in 

2010, CMS estimated that 3.41 percent of Medicare Advantage risk 

scores were due to differences in diagnostic coding practices. It reduced 

the scores by an equal percentage, thereby saving $2.7 billion.
 

Page 46 GAO-12-454T 

We identified shortcomings in CMS’s method for adjusting Medicare 

Advantage payments to reflect differences in diagnostic coding practices 

between Medicare Advantage and traditional Medicare. CMS did not use 

the most recent risk score data for its estimates; account for the 

increasing annual impact of coding differences over time; or account for 

beneficiary characteristics beyond differences in age and mortality 

between the Medicare Advantage and traditional Medicare populations, 

such as sex, Medicaid enrollment status, and beneficiary residential 

location. We estimated that a revised methodology that addressed these 

shortcomings could have saved Medicare between $1.2 billion and $3.1 

billion in 2010 in addition to the $2.7 billion in savings that CMS’s 3.41 

percent adjustment produced. We expect that savings in future years will 

be greater. In January 2012, we recommended that CMS take action to 

help ensure appropriate payments to Medicare Advantage plans and 

improve the accuracy of the adjustment made for differences in coding 

practices over time.47

• User fees: User fees assign part or all of the costs of federal programs 

and activities—the cost of providing a benefit that is above and beyond 

what is normally available to the general public—to readily identifiable 

users of those programs and activities. Regularly reviewing federal user 

fees and charges can help Congress and federal agencies identify 

opportunities to address inconsistent federal funding approaches and 

enhance user financing, thereby reducing reliance on general fund 

appropriations.

The Department of Health and Human Services 

characterized our results as similar to those obtained by CMS.

The Chief Financial Officers Act of 1990 (CFO Act) requires agencies to 

biennially review their fees and to recommend fee adjustments, as 

appropriate; additionally, OMB Circulars No. A-11 and No. A-25 direct 

agencies to discuss the results of these reviews and any resulting 

proposals, such as adjustments to fee rates, in the CFO annual report 

required by the CFO Act.48

 

47GAO, Medicare Advantage: CMS Should Improve the Accuracy of Risk Score 

Adjustments for Diagnostic Coding Practices,

In 2011, we surveyed the 24 agencies 

covered by the CFO Act on their review of user fees. Twenty-one of the 

23 agencies that responded reported charging more than 3,600 fees and 

GAO-12-51 (Washington, D.C.: 

Jan. 12, 2012).

48Pub. L. No. 101-576 (1990).
 

Page 47 GAO-12-454T 

collecting nearly $64 billion in fiscal year 2010, but agency responses 

indicated varying levels of adherence to the biennial review and reporting 

requirements. The survey responses indicated that for most fees, 

agencies (1) had not discussed fee review results in annual reports, and 

(2) had not reviewed the fees and were inconsistent in their ability to 

provide fee review documentation.

We found specific examples where a comprehensive review of user fees 

could lead to cost savings or enhanced revenues for the government. For 

example, reviewing and adjusting as needed the air passenger 

immigration inspection user fee to fully recover the cost of the air 

passenger immigration inspection activities could reduce general fund 

appropriations for those activities. International air passengers arriving in 

the United States are subject to an immigration inspection to ensure that 

they have legal entry and immigration documents. International air 

passengers pay the immigration inspection fee when they purchase their 

airline tickets, but the rate has not been adjusted since fiscal year 2002. 

In recent years, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and U.S. 

Customs and Border Protection, the agencies responsible for conducting 

inspection activities, have relied on general fund appropriations to help 

fund activities for which these agencies have statutory authority to fund 

with user fees. In fiscal year 2010, this amounted to over $120 million for 

the U.S. Customs and Border Protection alone. In September 2007, we 

recommended that the Secretary of Homeland Security report 

immigration inspection activity costs to ensure fees are divided between 

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and U.S. Customs and 

Border Protection according to their respective immigration inspection 

activity costs and to develop a legislative proposal to adjust the air 

passenger immigration inspection fee if it was found to not recover the 

costs of inspection activities. DHS agreed with our recommendations, but 

some of the recommendations remain unimplemented.49

 

49GAO, Federal User Fees: Key Aspects of International Air Passenger Inspection Fees 

Should Be Addressed Regardless of Whether Fees Are Consolidated, 

In February 

2012, we suggested that Congress may wish to require the Secretary of 

Homeland Security to fully implement these recommendations which 

would serve to help to better align air passenger immigration inspection 

fee revenue with the costs of providing these services and achieve cost 

savings by reducing the reliance on general fund appropriations.

GAO-07-1131

(Washington, D.C.: Sept. 24, 2007).
 

Page 48 GAO-12-454T 

Similarly, we identified options for adjusting the passenger aviation 

security fee, a uniform fee on passengers of U.S. and foreign air carriers 

originating at airports in the United States. Passenger aviation security 

fees collected offset amounts appropriated to the Transportation Security 

Administration for aviation security. In recent years, several options have 

been considered for increasing the passenger aviation security fee. 

However, the fee has not been increased since it was imposed in 

February 2002. We suggested that Congress may wish to consider 

increasing the passenger security fee. Such an increase could further 

offset the need for appropriated funds to support civil aviation security 

costs from about $2 billion to $10 billion over 5 years.

• Tax gap: The financing of the federal government depends largely on the 

IRS’s ability to collect federal taxes every year, which totaled $2.34 trillion 

in 2010. For the most part, taxpayers voluntarily report and pay their 

taxes on time. However the size and persistence of the tax gap—

estimated in 2012 for the 2006 tax year to be a $385 billion difference 

between the taxes owed and taxes IRS ultimately collected for that year—

highlight the need to make progress in improving compliance by those 

taxpayers who do not voluntarily pay what they owe. Given that tax 

noncompliance ranges from simple math errors to willful tax evasion, no 

single approach is likely to fully and cost-effectively address the tax gap. 

A multifaceted approach to improving compliance that includes enhancing 

IRS’s enforcement and service capabilities can help reduce the tax gap.

One approach we have identified is the expansion of third-party 

information reporting, which improves taxpayer compliance and enhances 

IRS’s enforcement capabilities. The tax gap is due predominantly to 

taxpayer underreporting and underpayment of taxes owed. At the same 

time, taxpayers are much more likely to report their income accurately 

when the income is also reported to IRS by a third party. By matching 

information received from third-party payers with what payees report on 

their tax returns, IRS can detect income underreporting, including the 

failure to file a tax return. Expanding information reporting to cover 

payments for services by all owners of rental real estate and to cover 

payments to corporations for services would improve payee compliance. 

The Joint Committee on Taxation estimated revenue increases of $5.9 

billion over a 10-year period for just these two expansions.
 

Page 49 GAO-12-454T 

In our 2011 annual report, we suggested a wide range of actions for 

Congress and the executive branch to consider such as developing 

strategies to better coordinate fragmented efforts, implementing executive 

initiatives to improve oversight and evaluation of overlapping programs, 

considering enactment of legislation to facilitate revenue collection and 

examining opportunities to eliminate potential duplication through 

streamlining, collocating, or consolidating efforts or administrative 

services. For our 2011 follow-up report, we assessed the extent to which 

Congress and the executive branch addressed the 81 areas—including a 

total of 176 actions—to reduce or eliminate unnecessary duplication, 

overlap, or fragmentation or achieve other potential financial benefits.

Our assessment of progress made as of February 10, 2012, found that 4 

(or 5 percent) of the 81 areas GAO identified were addressed; 60 (or 74 

percent) were partially addressed; and 17 (or 21 percent) were not 

addressed. Appendix I presents GAO’s assessment of the overall progress 

made in each area. In updating the actions we identified in the 2011 annual 

report, we asked the agencies involved and the Office of Management and 

Budget (OMB) for their review and incorporated comments as appropriate. 

We applied the following criteria in making these overall assessments for 

the 81 areas. We determined that an area was:

• “addressed” if all actions needed in that area were addressed;

• “partially addressed” if at least one action needed in that area showed 

some progress toward implementation, but not all actions were 

addressed; and

• “not addressed” if none of the actions in that area were addressed.

As of February 10, 2012, the majority of 176 actions needed within the 81 

areas identified by GAO have been partially addressed. Specifically, 23 

(or 13 percent) were addressed;50 99 (or 56 percent) were partially 

addressed; 54 (or 31 percent) were not addressed. We applied the 

following criteria in making these assessments.

 

50In one instance, the legislative action needed required Congress to consider several 

options, including allowing a tax credit to expire. Thus, because Congress did not renew 

the provision, the action was considered addressed.

Status of Actions Taken to 

Address the Areas 

Identified in 2011 Annual 

Report
 

Page 50 GAO-12-454T 

For legislative branch actions:

• “addressed,” means relevant legislation is enacted and addresses all 

aspects of the action needed;51

• “partially addressed,” means a relevant bill has passed a committee, 

the House or Senate, or relevant legislation has been enacted, but 

only addressed part of the action needed; and

• “not addressed,” means a bill may have been introduced, but did not 

pass out of a committee, or no relevant legislation has been 

introduced.

For executive branch actions:

• “addressed,” means implementation of the action needed has been 

completed;

• “partially addressed,” means the action needed is in development; 

started but not yet completed; and

• “not addressed,” means the administration and/or agencies have 

made minimal or no progress toward implementing the action needed.

In addition to the actions reported above, Congress has held a number of 

hearings and OMB has provided guidance to executive branch agencies 

on areas that we identified that could benefit from increased attention and 

ongoing oversight. Since the issuance of our March 2011 report, we have 

testified numerous times on our first annual report and on specific issues 

highlighted in the report. Further, OMB has instructed agencies to 

consider areas of duplication or overlap identified in our 2011 report and 

by others in their fiscal year 2013 budget submissions and management 

plans. The OMB guidance also advised agencies to take a number of 

other steps to enhance efficiency, such as identifying and including in 

their budget submissions cost-saving efforts that will improve operational 

efficiency and taxpayers’ rate of return, including program integration, 

 

51In situations where the action we identified as needed suggested that Congress should 

let a provision expire, we classified it as “addressed” if Congress permitted such expiration 

to happen.
 

Page 51 GAO-12-454T 

reorganizations within and between agency components, and resource 

realignment to improve public services.

In conclusion Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member Collins, and Members of 

the Committee, options exist for Congress and agencies to reexamine the 

federal government’s structure and operations in order to improve its 

efficiency and effectives. A number of the issues are difficult to address 

and implementing many of the actions identified will take time and 

sustained leadership. This concludes my prepared statement. I would be 

pleased to answer any questions you may have. Thank you.

The information in this statement is based upon work conducted for 

completed GAO products and certain ongoing audits, which were 

conducted in accordance with generally accepted government auditing 

standards or with our Quality Assurance Framework as appropriate. For 

further information on this testimony, please contact Janet St. Laurent, 

Managing Director, Defense Capabilities and Management, who may be 

reached at (202) 512-4300, or StLaurentJ@gao.gov; and Zina Merritt, 

Director, Defense Capabilities and Management, who may be reached at 

(202) 512-4300, or MerrittZ@gao.gov. Specific questions about individual 

issues may be directed to the area contact listed at the end of each area 

summary in the reports. Contact points for our Congressional Relations 

and Public Affairs offices may be found on the last page of this statement.
Appendix I: Overall Progress Made in 

Each of the 81 Areas Identified in GAO’s 2011 

Annual Report 

Page 52 GAO-12-454T 

This appendix presents a summary of GAO’s assessment of the overall 

progress made in each of the 81 areas that we identified in our March 

2011 report1

Table 3: Overall Progress Made in Each of the GAO Identified Areas of Potential Duplication, Overlap, and Fragmentation, as 

of February 10, 2012

in which Congress and the executive branch could take 

actions to reduce or eliminate potential duplication, overlap, and 

fragmentation or achieve other potential financial benefits. For each of the 

34 areas related to duplication, overlap, or fragmentation that GAO 

identified, table 3 presents GAO’s assessment of the overall progress 

made in implementing the actions needed in that area. For each of the 47 

areas where GAO identified cost saving or revenue enhancement 

opportunities, table 4 presents GAO’s assessment of the overall progress 

made in implementing the actions GAO identified.

Mission Areas identified Assessment

Agriculture 1. Fragmented food safety system has caused inconsistent oversight, ineffective 

coordination, and inefficient use of resources ◐

Defense 2. Realigning DOD’s military medical command structures and consolidating 

common functions could increase efficiency and result in projected savings ranging 

from $281 million to $460 million annually

◐

3. Opportunities exist for consolidation and increased efficiencies to maximize 

response to warfighter urgent needs ◐

4. Opportunities exist to avoid unnecessary redundancies and improve the 

coordination of counter-improvised explosive device efforts ◐

5. Opportunities exist to avoid unnecessary redundancies and maximize the efficient 

use of intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance capabilities ◐

6. A departmentwide acquisition strategy could reduce DOD’s risk of costly duplication 

in purchasing Tactical Wheeled Vehicles ◐

7. Improved joint oversight of DOD’s prepositioning programs for equipment and 

supplies may reduce unnecessary duplication ◐

8. DOD’s business systems modernization: opportunities exist for optimizing 

business operations and systems ◐

Economic development 9. The efficiency and effectiveness of fragmented economic development programs

are unclear ◐

10. The federal approach to surface transportation is fragmented, lacks clear goals, 

and is not accountable for results ◐

 

1

GAO, Opportunities to Reduce Potential Duplication in Government Programs, Save Tax 

Dollars, and Enhance Revenue, GAO-11-318SP (Washington, D.C.: Mar. 1, 2011). 

Appendix I: Overall Progress Made in 

Each of the 81 Areas Identified in GAO’s 2011 

Annual Report
Appendix I: Overall Progress Made in 

Each of the 81 Areas Identified in GAO’s 2011 

Annual Report 

Page 53 GAO-12-454T 

Mission Areas identified Assessment

11. Fragmented federal efforts to meet water needs in the U.S.-Mexico border region

have resulted in an administrative burden, redundant activities, and an overall 

inefficient use of resources ○

Energy 12. Resolving conflicting requirements could more effectively achieve federal fleet 

energy goals ○

13. Addressing duplicative federal efforts directed at increasing domestic ethanol 

production could reduce revenue losses by more than $5.7 billion annually ●

General government 14. Enterprise architectures: key mechanisms for identifying potential overlap and 

duplication ◐

15. Consolidating federal data centers provides opportunity to improve government 

efficiency ◐

16. Collecting improved data on interagency contracting to minimize duplication could 

help the government leverage its vast buying power ◐

17. Periodic reviews could help identify ineffective tax expenditures and redundancies 

in related tax and spending programs, potentially reducing revenue losses by billions 

of dollars ○

Health 18. Opportunities exist for DOD and VA to jointly modernize their electronic health 

record systems ◐

19. VA and DOD need to control drug costs and increase joint contracting wherever it 

is cost-effective ◐

20. The Department of Health and Human Services needs an overall strategy to better 

integrate nationwide public health information systems ○

Homeland security/ Law 

enforcement

21. Strategic oversight mechanisms could help integrate fragmented interagency efforts 

to defend against biological threats ◐

22. DHS oversight could help eliminate potential duplicating efforts of interagency 

forums in securing the northern border ○

23. The Department of Justice plans actions to reduce overlap in explosives 

investigations, but monitoring is needed to ensure successful implementation ●

24. The Transportation Security Administration’s (TSA) security assessments on 

commercial trucking companies overlap with those of another agency, but efforts are 

under way to address the overlap

◐

25. DHS could streamline mechanisms for sharing security-related information with 

public transit agencies to help address overlapping information ◐

26. FEMA needs to improve its oversight of grants and establish a framework for 

assessing capabilities to identify gaps and prioritize investments ◐

International affairs 27. Lack of information sharing could create the potential for duplication of efforts 

between U.S. agencies involved in development efforts in Afghanistan ◐

28. Despite restructuring, overlapping roles and functions still exist at the Department of 

State’s Arms Control and Nonproliferation Bureaus ●

Social services 29. Actions needed to reduce administrative overlap among domestic food assistance

programs ○

30. Better coordination of federal homelessness programs may minimize fragmentation 

and overlap ◐
Appendix I: Overall Progress Made in 

Each of the 81 Areas Identified in GAO’s 2011 

Annual Report 

Page 54 GAO-12-454T 

Mission Areas identified Assessment

31. Further steps needed to improve cost-effectiveness and enhance services for 

transportation-disadvantaged persons ◐

Training, employment, 

and education

32. Multiple employment and training programs: providing information on collocating 

services and consolidating administrative structures could promote efficiencies ◐

33. Teacher quality: proliferation of programs complicates federal efforts to invest 

dollars effectively ◐

34. Fragmentation of financial literacy efforts makes coordination essential ◐

Legend: 

● = Addressed, meaning all actions needed in that area were addressed. 

◐ = Partially addressed, meaning at least one action needed in that area showed some progress 

toward implementation, but not all actions were addressed. 

○ = Not addressed, meaning none of the actions needed in that area were addressed. 

Source: GAO analysis.

As noted above, table 4 presents GAO’s assessment of the overall 

progress made in addressing the 47 cost-saving and revenue-enhancing 

areas.

Table 4: Overall Progress Made to Address GAO-Identified Cost-Saving and Revenue-Enhancing Areas, as of 

February 10, 2012

Mission Areas identified Assessment

Agriculture 35. Reducing some farm program payments could result in savings from $800 million 

over 10 years to up to $5 billion annually ○

Defense 36. DOD should assess costs and benefits of overseas military presence options 

before committing to costly personnel realignments and construction plans, thereby 

possibly saving billions of dollars

◐

37. Total compensation approach is needed to manage significant growth in military 

personnel costs ◐

38. Employing best management practices could help DOD save money on its weapon 

systems acquisition programs ◐

39. More efficient management could limit future costs of DOD’s spare parts inventory ◐

40. More comprehensive and complete cost data can help DOD improve the costeffectiveness of sustaining weapon systems ◐

41. Improved corrosion prevention and control practices could help DOD avoid billions 

in unnecessary costs over time ◐

Economic development 42. Revising the essential air service program could improve efficiency ◐

43. Improved design and management of the universal service fund as it expands to 

support broadband could help avoid cost increases for consumers ◐

44. The Corps of Engineers should provide Congress with project-level information on 

unobligated balances ◐
Appendix I: Overall Progress Made in 

Each of the 81 Areas Identified in GAO’s 2011 

Annual Report 

Page 55 GAO-12-454T 

Mission Areas identified Assessment

Energy 45. Improved management of federal oil and gas resources could result in 

approximately $1.8 billion over 10 yearsa ◐

General government 46. Efforts to address governmentwide improper payments could result in significant 

cost savings ◐

47. Promoting competition for the over $500 billion in federal contracts could 

potentially save billions of dollars over time ◐

48. Applying strategic sourcing best practices throughout the federal procurement 

system could saves billions of dollars annually ◐

49. Adherence to new guidance on award fee contracts could improve agencies’ use 

of award fees to produce savings ◐

50. Agencies could realize cost savings of at least $3 billion by continued disposal of 

unneeded federal real property ◐

51. Improved cost analyses used for making federal facility ownership and leasing

decisions could save tens of millions of dollars ◐

52. OMB’s IT Dashboard reportedly has already resulted in $3 billion in savings and 

can further help identify opportunities to invest more efficiently in information 

technology

◐

53. Increasing electronic filing of individual income tax returns could reduce IRS’s 

processing costs and increase revenues by hundreds of millions of dollars ◐

54. Using return on investment information to better target IRS enforcement could 

reduce the tax gap; for example, a 1 percent reduction would increase tax revenues 

by $3.8 billionb ◐

55. Better management of tax debt collection may resolve cases faster with lower IRS 

costs and increase debt collected ◐

56. Broadening IRS’s authority to correct simple tax return errors could facilitate 

correct tax payments and help IRS avoid costly, burdensome audits ○

57. Enhancing mortgage interest information reporting could improve tax compliance ○

58. More information on the types and uses of canceled debt could help IRS limit 

revenue losses of forgiven mortgage debt ◐

59. Better information and outreach could help increase revenues by tens or hundreds 

of millions of dollars annually by addressing overstated real estate tax deductions ◐

60. Revisions to content and use of Form 1098-T could help IRS enforce higher 

education requirements and increase revenues ◐

61. Many options could improve the tax compliance of sole proprietors and begin to 

reduce their $68 billion portion of the tax gap ○

62. IRS could find additional businesses not filing tax returns by using third-party 

data, which show such businesses have billions of dollars in sales ◐

63. Congress and IRS can help S corporations and their shareholders be more tax 

compliant, potentially increasing tax revenues by hundreds of millions of dollars 

each year

◐

64. IRS needs an agencywide approach for addressing tax evasion among the at least 1 

million networks of businesses and related entities ◐

65. Opportunities exist to improve the targeting of the $6 billion research tax credit and 

reduce forgone revenue ○
Appendix I: Overall Progress Made in 

Each of the 81 Areas Identified in GAO’s 2011 

Annual Report 

Page 56 GAO-12-454T 

Mission Areas identified Assessment

66. Converting the new markets tax credit to a grant program may increase program 

efficiency and significantly reduce the $3.8 billion 5-year revenue cost of the 

program

○

67. Limiting the tax-exempt status of certain governmental bonds could yield revenue ○

68. Adjusting civil tax penalties for inflation potentially could increase revenues by tens 

of millions of dollars per year, not counting any revenues that may result from

maintaining the penalties’ deterrent effect

◐

69. IRS may be able to systematically identify nonresident aliens reporting unallowed 

tax deductions or credits ●

70. Tracking undisbursed balances in expired grant accounts could facilitate the 

reallocation of scarce resources or the return of funding to the Treasury ○

Health 71. Preventing billions in Medicaid improper payments requires sustained attention 

and action by CMS ◐

72. Federal oversight over Medicaid supplemental payments needs improvement, 

which could lead to substantial cost savings ○

73. Better targeting of Medicare’s claims review could reduce improper payments ◐

74. Potential savings in Medicare’s payment for health care ◐

Homeland security/ Law 

enforcement

75. DHS’s management of acquisitions could be strengthened to reduce cost 

overruns and schedule and performance shortfalls ◐

76. Improvements in managing research and development could help reduce 

inefficiencies and costs for homeland security ◐

77. Validation of TSA’s behavior-based screening program is needed to justify 

funding or expansion ◐

78. More efficient baggage screening systems could result in about $470 million in 

reduced TSA personnel costs over the next 5 years ◐

79. Clarifying availability of certain customs fee collections could produce a one-time 

savings of $640 million ◐

Income security 80. Social Security needs data on pensions from noncovered earnings to better 

enforce offsets and ensure benefit fairness, estimated to result in $2.4-$2.9 billion 

savings over 10 years ○

International affairs 81. Congress could pursue several options to improve collection of antidumping and 

countervailing duties ○

Legend: 

● = Addressed, meaning all actions needed in that area were addressed. 

◐ = Partially addressed, meaning at least one action needed in that area showed some progress 

toward implementation, but not all actions were addressed. 

○ = Not addressed, meaning none of the actions needed in that area were addressed. 

Source: GAO analysis.

a

The Department of the Interior, Bureau of Land Management, updated the anticipated revenues from 

$1.75 billion to $1.8 billion in its fiscal year 2012 budget justification. 

b

The net tax gap was updated in 2012 and estimated to be $385 billion for the 2006 tax year. Thus, a 

1 percent reduction would increase tax revenues by $3.8 billion. 

(351709)
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