*HomeU.S. Government Accountability Office*
Menu

      close


          
          
                          	
				
				
	
	
					Reports & Testimonies
									
																				
				
				
	
	
								Reports & Testimonies
													
																												
																						
							
																Recommendations Database
							
																												
																						
							
																Month in Review
							
																												
																						
							
																Order Copies
							
																												
																						
							
																Restricted Reports
							
																												
																						
							
																View Topics
							
																												
																						
							
																View Agencies
							
																												
																						
							
																Bid Protests & Appropriations Law
									
																				
				
				
	
	
								Bid Protests & Appropriations Law
													
																												
																						
							
																Bid Protests
							
																												
																						
							
																Appropriations Law
							
																												
																						
							
																Federal Vacancies Reform Act
							
																												
																						
							
																Other Legal
							
																												
																						
							
																About
									
																				
				
				
	
	
								About
													
																												
																						
							
																What GAO Does
							
																												
																						
							
																U.S. Comptroller General
							
																												
																						
							
																Careers
							
																												
																						
							
																Contact UsFor Congress
                                
                          
        
                Press Center
                                
                          
        
                Careers
                                
                          
        
                BlogSearch Breadcrumb
        Home
                            Reports & Testimonies
                            2020 Annual Report: Additional Opportunities To Reduce Fragmentation, Overlap, and Duplication and Achieve Billions In Financial Benefits
    2020 Annual report:
                          Additional Opportunities to Reduce Fragmentation, Overlap, and Duplication and Achieve Billions in Financial Benefits **GAO-20-440SP**
        Published: May 19, 2020. Publicly Released: May 19, 2020.Jump To:
    Jump ToElder Abuse
          Services for Older Adults
          State and Local-Level Drivers and Trends
          State and Local Fiscal Projections
          Federal Borrowing
          Managing the Debt
          Summary of Funding Provisions
          Auditing the Government's Books
          Unpacking the Financial Report
          Highlights
          Recommendations
          Background
          About This Work
          About This Work
          Trends
          About the Center
          Why It's High Risk
          What Remains To Be Done
          Key Reports
          Newest COVID-Related Reports
          AI Use Cases
          Flood Insurance
          Past Pandemic-Related Reports
          CARES Act Oversight Reports
          All COVID-19 Reports
          Report Suspected Fraud
          Subjects
          How to Get Notified
          Past Reports
          Public Health Threats
          Explore the FY 2022 and 2023 Funds
          Lessons Learned
          Agency Reports
          Recent Reports
          Recommendations
          Supplemental Material
          Full Report
          Additional Data
          View Decision
          Downloads
          Previously Identified Actions
          Related Pages
          Associated Agencies
          Tough Choices and Opportunities Ahead
          Americas Fiscal Future Key Areas
          Retirement Security Key Areas
          Current List
          About The High Risk List
          Area Ratings
          Previous High Risk Products
          Search Federal Vacancies
          Past Federal Vacancies
          Violation Letters
          About the Yellow Book
          Advisory Council
          Related Resources
          Comment Letters
          Related Publications
          Contacts and Resources
          Major Issues Facing the Nation
          Meeting Strategic Challenges
          Additional Resources
          Resources
          GAO Contacts
          Mission Teams
          Operations and Staff Offices
          Organization Chart
          Why a Career at GAO?
          Am I Qualified?
          Company Culture
          Reasonable Accommodations
          Video Gallery
          Paid Internships
          Student Volunteers
          Professional Development Program
          Advancement
          Executive Candidate Program
          Summer Associates
          Externships
          Benefits
          Contacts
                    Fast Facts
              Each year, GAO identifies and reports on federal agency programs with fragmented, overlapping, or duplicative goals or activities and ways to reduce costs or enhance revenue.

Our 10th annual report identifies 168 new actions that Congress and agencies could take to improve operations. For example, the U.S. Navy could save billions of dollars by improving how it acquires and sustains its ships.

Agencies have made significant progress fully or partially addressing many of the over 900 actions we identified in the past decade—leading to about $429 billion in financial benefits. Addressing remaining actions could save tens of billions more dollars.

10th annual report graphic

10th annual report graphic
Skip to Highlights
Highlights
  What GAO Found

GAO’s 2020 annual report identifies 168 new actions for Congress or executive branch agencies to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of government in 29 new mission areas and 10 existing areas. For example:

The Department of Defense could potentially save **hundreds of millions of dollars annually** by accurately measuring and reducing excess funded, unfinished work at military depots.
	The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services could better ensure that states implement Medicaid provider screening and enrollment requirements, which could potentially save **tens of millions of dollars annually**.
	The Government National Mortgage Association could enhance the efficiency and effectiveness of its operations and risk management and reduce costs or enhance federal revenue by **tens of millions of dollars annually**.
	The Internal Revenue Service should establish a formal collaborative mechanism with the Department of Labor to better manage fragmented efforts and enhance compliance for certain individual retirement accounts that engaged in prohibited transactions, and thereby potentially increase revenues by **millions of dollars**.
	Improved coordination and communication between the Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response and its emergency support agencies—including the Federal Emergency Management Agency and Departments of Defense and Veterans Affairs—could help address fragmentation and ensure the effective provision of public health and medical services during a public health emergency.
	The Department of Education should analyze data and use it to verify borrowers’ income and family size information on Income-Driven Repayment plans to safeguard the hundreds of billions of dollars in federal investment in student loans and potentially save **more than $2 billion**.
	The Internal Revenue Service could increase coordination among its offices to better manage fragmented efforts to ensure the security of taxpayer information held by third-party providers.GAO identified 88 new actions related to 10 existing areas presented in 2011 through 2019 annual reports. For example:

The Department of the Navy could achieve **billions of dollars** in cost savings by improving its acquisition practices and ensuring that ships can be efficiently sustained.
	The Office of Management and Budget could improve oversight of disaster relief funds and address government-wide improper payments, which could result in significant cost savings.
	The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the U.S. Coast Guard could better identify and communicate lessons learned in contracting following a disaster to improve fragmented interagency coordination.Significant progress has been made in addressing many of the 908 actions that GAO identified from 2011 to 2019 to reduce costs, increase revenues, and improve agencies’ operating effectiveness. As of March 2020, Congress and executive branch agencies have fully or partially addressed 79 percent of all actions (721 of 908 actions)—57 percent (519 actions) fully addressed and 22 percent (202 actions) partially addressed. This has resulted in approximately $429 billion in financial benefits. About $393 billion of these benefits accrued between 2010 and 2019, and $36 billion are projected to accrue in future years. This is an increase of $166 billion from GAO’s 2019 annual report. These are rough estimates based on a variety of sources that considered different time periods and utilized different data sources, assumptions, and methodologies.

Total Reported Financial Benefits of $429 Billion, as of March 2020



Note: The aggregated potential financial benefits reported here should not be considered an exact total.

While Congress and executive branch agencies have made progress toward addressing actions that GAO has identified since 2011, further steps are needed. GAO estimates that tens of billions of additional dollars could be saved should Congress and executive branch agencies fully address the remaining 467 open actions, including the new ones identified in 2020. Addressing the remaining actions could lead to other benefits as well, such as increased public safety, and more effective delivery of services. For example:

Examples of Areas with Open Actions with Potential Financial and Non-Financial Benefits

**Area name and description**                                          *(year-number links to Action Tracker)*
			**Mission**
			**Potential benefits**
			(Source when financial)**DOE’s Treatment of Hanford’s Low Activity Waste** (2018-17): The Department of Energy may be able to reduce certain risks and adopt alternative approaches to treating a portion of its low-activity radioactive waste.
			Energy
			**Tens of billions**
			(GAO)**Advanced Technology Vehicles Manufacturing Loan Program** (2014-13): Unless the Department of Energy can demonstrate demand for new Advanced Technology Vehicles Manufacturing loans and viable applications, Congress may wish to consider rescinding all or part of the remaining credit subsidy appropriations.
			Energy
			**$4.3 billion**
			(DOE)**Federal Shared Services** (2019-05): The Office of Management and Budget and the General Services Administration could better position themselves to achieve their cost savings goals and reduce inefficient overlap and duplication by strengthening their implementation of selected federal shared service reform efforts.
			General government
			**$2 billion over 10 years**
			(OMB)**Medicare Payments by Place of Service** (2016-30): Medicare could have cost savings if Congress were to equalize the rates Medicare pays for certain health care services, which often vary depending on where the service is performed.
			Health
			**Billions annually**
			(MedPAC and Bipartisan Policy Center)**Identity Theft Refund Fraud** (2016-22): The Internal Revenue Service could improve the agency’s efforts to prevent refund fraud associated with identity theft.
			General government
			**Billions**
			(GAO)**DOD Oversight of Foreign Reimbursements** (2020-27): By implementing a process to monitor orders and resolve outstanding reimbursements, the Department of Defense could recover overdue repayments for sales made to foreign partners.
			International affairs
			**Millions**
			(GAO)**VA Long-Term Care Fragmentation** (2020-11): The Department of Veterans Affairs should implement a consistent approach to better manage long-term care programs at the Veterans Affairs Medical Center level and improve access to the right care for veterans.
			Health
			Better long-term care for veterans**Federal Research** (2019-15): Implementing leading practices for collaboration to better manage fragmentation could help agencies improve their research efforts to maintain U.S. competitiveness in quantum computing and synthetic biology.
			Science and the environment
			Maintain U.S. competitiveness in the global economySource: GAO. | GAO-20-440SP

Note: All estimates of potential financial benefits are dependent on various factors, such as whether action is taken and how it is taken. For estimates of potential financial benefits where outside estimates of potential financial benefits were not available, GAO developed the notional estimates, which are intended to provide a sense of the potential magnitude of benefits. Notional estimates have been developed using broad assumptions about potential financial benefits which are rooted in previously identified losses, the overall size of the program, previous experience with similar reforms, and similar rough indicators of potential financial benefits.

Why GAO Did This Study

The federal government has made an unprecedented financial response to the COVID-19 pandemic. At the same time, opportunities exist for achieving billions of dollars in financial savings and improving the efficiency and effectiveness of a wide range of federal programs in other areas.

Congress included a provision in statute for GAO to identify and report on federal programs, agencies, offices, and initiatives—either within departments or government-wide—that have duplicative goals or activities. GAO also identifies areas that are fragmented or overlapping and additional opportunities to achieve cost savings or enhance revenue collection.

This report discusses the new areas identified in GAO’s 2020 annual report—the 10th report in this series; the progress made in addressing actions GAO identified in its 2011 to 2019 reports; and examples of open actions directed to Congress or executive branch agencies.

To identify what actions exist to address these issues, GAO reviewed and updated prior work, including matters for congressional consideration and recommendations for executive action.

For more information, contact Jessica Lucas-Judy at (202) 512-9110 or lucasjudyj@gao.gov or J. Christopher Mihm at (202) 512-6806 or mihmj@gao.gov.

Full Report
    View Full Report Online
              Highlights Page (2 pages)
              Full Report (148 pages)
              Accessible PDF (175 pages)
GAO Contacts
    
      Jessica Lucas-Judy
            
            Director
      
            lucasjudyj@gao.gov
      
            (202) 512-6806
    J. Christopher Mihm
            
            Managing Director
      
            mihmj@gao.gov
      
            (202) 512-6806
Office of Public Affairs
    
      Chuck Young
            
            Managing Director
      
            youngc1@gao.gov
      
            (202) 512-4800
Topics
    
      Government OperationsMilitary forcesSmall businessAgency evaluationsCost savingsCompliance oversightLegislationBudgetary informationResearch and developmentPrivatizationHomeland security
                                                      MultimediaPodcasts
    
      2020 Duplication and Cost Savings Report
    Tuesday, May 19, 2020
      
            Transcript
GAO's logo for Duplication & Cost Savings reports
          Blog Post
              Our plan to save the government tens of billions of dollars through reducing fragmentation, overlap and duplication.
            Tuesday, May 19, 2020
      
            The federal government has made an unprecedented financial response to the COVID-19 (coronavirus)...
          Historic photos.
          Blog Post
              100 Years of Accountability—GAO Products Improve Government Performance
            Thursday, May 6, 2021
      
            In July, GAO celebrates its 100th anniversary! To commemorate our century of service to Congress...
 Receive GAO Updates
  Stay informed as we add new reports & testimonies.

    GAO Logo
      U.S. Government Accountability Office


                                   Column 1
                            Press Center
                              Contact Us
                              Inspector General
                              Restricted Reports
                              Column 2
                            Copyright & Terms of Use
                              Privacy Policy
                              Accessibility
                              Sitemap
                              Column 3
                            FOIA Requests
                              Scam Alerts
                              No FEAR Act Data
                              Health Care Advisory Committees