Source: http://gaonet.gov/products/GAO-15-404SP
Timestamp: 2017-05-29 23:00:59
Document Index: 525331837

Matched Legal Cases: ['§ 601', '§ 44940', '§ 44923', '§ 44940', '§ 44940', '§ 601', '§ 21', '§ 712', '§ 352', '§\n352']

U.S. GAO - 2015 Annual Report Additional Opportunities to Reduce Fragmentation, Overlap, and Duplication and Achieve Other Financial Benefits	Skip Navigation
VIDEO: Comptroller General Testifies to U.S. Senate on GAO's 2015 Duplication ReportIn his April 14, 2015 testimony to the U.S. Senate, Comptroller General Gene Dodaro introduces GAO's 2015 Duplication and Cost Savings Report.
VIDEO: Comptroller General Testifies to U.S. House on GAO's 2015 Duplication ReportIn his April 14, 2015 testimony to the U.S. House of Representatives, Comptroller General Gene Dodaro introduces GAO's 2015 Duplication and Cost Savings Report.
IntroductionLetterReport at a GlanceSection I: Fragmentation, Overlap &
DuplicationSection II: Cost Savings & Revenue
EnhancementObjectives, Scope, and MethodologyAbbreviationsFootnotes
IntroductionThis fifth annual report for 2015 identifies 24 areas
where agencies may be able to achieve greater efficiencies or
effectiveness. Within these 24 areas, we identify 66 actions
that the executive branch and Congress could take to reduce
fragmentation, overlap, or duplication, as well as other cost
savings or revenue enhancement opportunities.
LetterApril 14, 2015Congressional AddresseesThe gap between federal revenue and spending has created a
long-term fiscal imbalance.1 Absent fiscal
policy changes, this imbalance leads to continuous growth in
federal debt that is unsustainable. Addressing this imbalance
will require long-term changes to both spending and revenue,
which will likely require difficult fiscal policy decisions.
Significant action to mitigate this imbalance must be taken soon
to minimize the disruption to individuals and the economy.In the near term, executive branch agencies and Congress
can act to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of government
programs and activities. Opportunities to take action exist in
areas where federal programs or activities are fragmented,
overlapping, or duplicative. To bring these opportunities to
light, Congress included a provision in statute for GAO to
identify and report annually to Congress on federal programs,
agencies, offices, and initiatives—either within
departments or government-wide—that have duplicative goals
or activities.2 As part of this work, we
also identify additional opportunities to achieve greater
efficiency and effectiveness that result in cost savings or
enhanced revenue collection.In our first four annual reports issued from 2011 through
2014, we presented 188 areas where opportunities existed for
executive branch agencies or Congress to reduce, eliminate, or
better manage fragmentation, overlap, or duplication; achieve
cost savings; or enhance revenue.3 Figure 1
outlines the definitions we use for fragmentation, overlap, and
duplication for this work. In these first four reports, we
identified approximately 440 actions that executive branch
agencies and Congress could take to address the opportunities for
greater efficiency and effectiveness that we identified.Figure 1: Definitions of Fragmentation,
Overlap, and Duplication
This report is our fifth in the series, and it identifies
additional areas where a broad range of federal agencies may be
able to achieve greater efficiency or effectiveness. For each
area, we suggest actions that the executive branch or Congress
could take to reduce, eliminate, or better manage fragmentation,
overlap, or duplication, or achieve other financial benefits. In
addition to identifying new areas, we have continued to monitor
the progress executive branch agencies and Congress have made in
addressing the areas we previously identified. In 2013, we
launched GAO’s Action
Tracker, a publicly accessible website that allows
executive branch agencies, Congress, and the public to track the
progress the government is making in addressing the issues we
have identified. We plan to add areas and suggested actions
identified in future reports to GAO’s Action
Tracker and periodically update the status of all
identified areas and activities.Section I of this report presents new areas in which we
found evidence that fragmentation, overlap, or duplication exists
among federal programs or activities. Although 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, the instances of fragmentation,
overlap, or duplication we describe in Section I occur in areas
where multiple programs and activities may be creating
inefficiencies. Section II describes new areas where the federal
government may achieve cost savings or enhance revenue
collections. This report is based upon work GAO previously
conducted in accordance with generally accepted government
auditing standards or GAO’s quality assurance
framework.4 See appendix II for more
information on our scope and methodology.New Opportunities Exist to Improve Efficiency
and Effectiveness Identified across the Federal
GovernmentIn this report, we present 66 actions that the executive
branch or Congress could take to improve efficiency and
effectiveness across 24 areas that span a broad range of
government missions and functions. We suggest 20 actions to
address 12 new areas in which we found evidence of fragmentation,
overlap, or duplication in government missions such as
agriculture, defense, health, homeland security, information
technology, international affairs, and science and the
environment. In addition, we present 46 opportunities for
executive branch agencies or Congress to take actions to reduce
the cost of government operations or enhance revenue collections
for the U.S. Treasury across 12 areas of government.20 Suggested Actions to Address New Evidence of
Fragmentation, Overlap, or Duplication in 12
AreasWe consider programs or activities to be fragmented when
more than one federal agency (or more than one organization
within an agency) is involved in the same broad area of national
need, which may result in inefficiencies in how the government
delivers services, including the following example:
Oversight: Oversight of consumer product
safety involves at least 20 federal agencies, including the
Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC), resulting in
fragmented oversight across agencies. Although agencies
reported that the involvement of multiple agencies with
various expertise can help ensure more comprehensive
oversight by addressing a range of safety concerns, they
also noted that fragmentation can result in unclear roles
and potential regulatory gaps. In addition, we found that
although the agencies we reviewed for a November 2014
report collaborated on a variety of issues, they also
reported that they face challenges when they work
collaboratively. These challenges include staying informed
about the regulatory activities of other agencies,
coordinating on jurisdictional issues, and considering
options to share data rather than purchasing the same data
under multiple contracts.Although a number of agencies have an oversight role in
consumer product safety, no single entity has the expertise or
authority to address the full scope of product safety activities.
Moreover, some oversight agencies are independent regulatory
agencies and not subject to the Office of Management and
Budget’s (OMB) interagency planning process and review of
draft rules within the executive branch. In past work, GAO has
noted that interagency mechanisms or strategies to coordinate
programs that address crosscutting issues may reduce potentially
duplicative, overlapping, and fragmented efforts. To strengthen
coordination and achieve greater efficiency in oversight across
consumer product safety agencies more broadly, we suggested that
Congress consider establishing a formal comprehensive oversight
mechanism for consumer product safety agencies to address
crosscutting issues as well as inefficiencies related to
fragmentation and overlap such as communication and coordination
challenges and jurisdictional questions between agencies.
Mechanisms could include, for example, formalizing relationships
and agreements among consumer product safety agencies or
establishing a task force or interagency work group. CPSC, the
Department of Homeland Security (DHS), the Department of Housing
and Urban Development, and the Department of Commerce’s
National Institute of Standards and Technology agreed with
GAO’s matter for congressional consideration, while the
remaining agencies neither agreed nor disagreed.Fragmentation can also be a harbinger for overlap or
duplication. Overlap occurs when multiple agencies or programs
have similar goals, engage in similar activities or strategies to
achieve them, or target similar beneficiaries. We found overlap
among federal programs or initiatives in a variety of areas,
Nonemergency Medical
Transportation: Forty-two programs across
six different federal departments provide nonemergency
medical transportation (NEMT) to individuals who cannot
provide their own transportation due to age, disability, or
income constraints.5 For example,
NEMT programs at both Medicaid, within the Department of
Health and Human Services (HHS), and the Department of
Veterans Affairs (VA) have similar goals (to help their
respective beneficiaries access medical services), serve
potentially similar beneficiaries (those individuals who
have disabilities, are low income, or are elderly), and
engage in similar activities (providing NEMT transportation
directly or indirectly).We found a number of challenges to coordination for
these programs. For example, Medicaid and VA largely do not
participate in NEMT coordination activities in the states
we visited, in part because both programs are designed to
serve their own populations of eligible beneficiaries. We
also found that using certain coordination
strategies—in particular, cost or ride
sharing—could increase the risk of Medicaid funds
being spent for individuals who do not qualify for Medicaid
benefits. Without proper controls, cost or ride sharing
with other non-Medicaid programs could allow for improper
payments for individuals who do not qualify for Medicaid.
Because Medicaid and VA are important to NEMT, as they
provide services to potentially over 90 million
individuals, greater interagency cooperation is needed to
enhance services to transportation-disadvantaged
individuals. An interagency coordinating council was
developed to enhance federal, state, and local coordination
activities, and it has taken some actions to address human
service-transportation program coordination. However, the
council has provided limited leadership and has not
convened since 2008. For example, the council has not
issued key guidance documents that could promote
coordination, including an updated strategic plan.To improve efficiency, we recommended that the
Department of Transportation, which chairs the interagency
coordinating council, should take steps to enhance
coordination among the programs that provide NEMT. In
response to this recommendation, DOT agreed that more work
is needed to increase coordination activities with all HHS
agencies, especially the Centers for Medicare &
Medicaid Services (CMS). DOT also said the Federal Transit
Administration is asking its technical assistance centers
to assist in developing responses to NEMT
challenges.In other aspects of our work, we found evidence of
duplication, which occurs when two or more agencies or programs
are engaged in the same activities or provide the same services
to the same beneficiaries. We found duplication among federal
programs or initiatives in a variety of areas, including the
DOD US Family Health Plan:
The US Family Health Plan (USFHP)—a statutorily
required component of the Department of Defense’s
(DOD) Military Health System—duplicates the same
TRICARE Prime benefit that is offered to military
beneficiaries by DOD managed care support
contractors.6 The USFHP was initially
incorporated into the Military Health System in 1982 when
Congress enacted legislation transferring ownership of
certain U.S. Public Health Service hospitals to specific
health care providers, referred to as designated providers
under the program. During the implementation of the TRICARE
program in the 1990s, Congress required the designated
providers to offer the TRICARE Prime benefit to their
enrollees in accordance with the National Defense
Authorization Act (NDAA) for Fiscal Year 1997. Today, the
USFHP remains a health care option required by statute to
be available to eligible beneficiaries in certain
locations, despite TRICARE’s national presence
through the managed care support contractors. However, the
USFHP has largely remained unchanged, and its role has not
since been reassessed within the Military Health
System.DOD contracts with managed care support contractors to
administer TRICARE Prime—TRICARE’s managed care
option—in three regions in the United States (North, South,
and West). Separately, TRICARE Prime is offered through the USFHP
by designated providers in certain locations within the same
three TRICARE regions that are served by a managed care support
contractor. Thus, the USFHP offers military beneficiaries the
same TRICARE Prime benefit that is offered by the managed care
support contractors across much of the same geographic service
areas and through many of the same providers. As a result, DOD
has incurred added costs by paying the USFHP designated providers
to simultaneously administer the same TRICARE Prime benefit to
the same population of eligible beneficiaries in many of the same
locations as the managed care support contractors. To eliminate
this duplication within DOD’s health system and potentially
save millions of dollars, we suggested that Congress terminate
the statutorily required USFHP.
EPA’s and FDA’s Laboratory
Inspections: The Environmental Protection
Agency (EPA) and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA)
within HHS may be duplicating each other’s work by
inspecting the same laboratories. Although EPA and FDA
entered into an interagency agreement to collaborate on
laboratory inspections in 1984, the agreement was not
renewed in 2004 and formal communication ended by 2007. We
found in May 2014 that they do not regularly communicate
about scheduled inspections or share results from completed
inspections.7 For example, one
laboratory in Maryland was inspected by both EPA and FDA
eight times from fiscal year 2005 to fiscal year 2012. A
representative from this laboratory told us that some of
the information in the laboratory’s toxicology
studies FDA officials examined during a 2011 inspection
could have been shared with EPA officials. By not
collaborating and communicating regularly, EPA and FDA may
be missing opportunities to improve efficiency and
effectiveness. For example, if EPA knew in advance that a
laboratory was recently inspected by FDA, EPA inspectors
could use FDA’s inspection results to inform their
decision regarding whether to conduct their own inspection.
Moreover, information-sharing between agencies could help
them leverage limited resources, because each agency can
only inspect a certain number of laboratories each
year.To avoid potentially duplicative inspections and use
limited resources more efficiently, we recommended that EPA and
FDA take actions to regularly collaborate and share information
on laboratory inspections through a formal written agreement such
as a memorandum of understanding that outlines how the two
agencies plan to regularly collaborate and share information on
inspections. In response to our recommendation, EPA agreed to
work with FDA to develop written procedures that outline how EPA
and FDA plan to collaborate and share information on laboratory
inspections. However, EPA stated that it did not agree that a
formal memorandum of understanding between the two agencies was
necessary. We agree and note that we did not prescribe the type
of agreement the agencies should undertake and offered a
memorandum of understanding as one example. FDA agreed with our
recommendation but reiterated that there are legitimate reasons
why some laboratory inspections may be conducted by both agencies
at a single laboratory within a short period of time.46 New Actions to Reduce Costs or Enhance
Revenues Identified in 12 AreasWe suggest 46 actions that the executive branch and
Congress can take to reduce the cost of government operations and
enhance revenue collections for the U.S. Treasury in 12 areas.
Examples of these actions include rescinding unobligated funds,
re-examining the appropriate size of the Strategic Petroleum
Reserve, modifying the way Medicare pays certain cancer
hospitals, and increasing tax revenue collections.
Rescinding unobligated
funds: Congress may wish to consider
permanently rescinding the entire $1.6 billion balance of
the U.S. Enrichment Corporation (USEC) Fund, a revolving
fund in the U.S. Treasury. As part of a 2001 GAO legal
opinion, we determined that the USEC Fund was available for
two purposes, which have been fulfilled: (1) environmental
clean-up expenses associated with the disposition of
depleted uranium at two specific facilities and (2)
expenses of USEC privatization. Regarding the first
authorized purpose, the construction of intended facilities
associated with the disposition of depleted uranium has
been completed. Regarding the second authorized purpose,
USEC privatization was completed in 1998 when ownership of
USEC was transferred to private investors. In an April 2014
report to Congress, the Department of Energy’s (DOE)
National Nuclear Security Administration stated that the
USEC Fund was one of two sources of funding that it was
exploring to finance research, development, and
demonstration of national nuclear security-related
enrichment technologies. However, this is not one of the
authorized purposes of the USEC Fund. Transparency in
budget materials is important for informing congressional
decisions, and DOE’s efforts to utilize USEC Fund
monies instead of general fund appropriations diminish that
transparency. The House of Representatives included
language to permanently rescind the USEC Fund in H.R. 4923,
Appropriations Act, which passed the House on July 10,
2014. However, the rescission was not included in Public
Law 113-235, Consolidated and Further Continuing
Appropriations Act, 2015. As of March 2015, legislation
containing a similar rescission had not been introduced in
the 114th Congress.Re-examining the appropriate size of the
Strategic Petroleum Reserve: DOE should
assess the appropriate size of the Strategic Petroleum
Reserve (SPR) to determine whether excess crude oil could
be sold to fund other national priorities. The United
States holds the SPR so that it can release oil to the
market during supply disruptions to protect the U.S.
economy from damage. After decades of generally falling
U.S. crude oil production, technological advances have
contributed to increasing U.S. production. Monthly crude
oil production has increased by almost 68 percent from 2008
through April 2014, and increases in production in 2012 and
2013 were the largest annual increases since the beginning
of U.S. commercial crude oil production in 1859, according
to the Energy Information Administration
(EIA).8As of September 2014, the reserve had 106 days of imports,
which DOE estimated was valued at about $45 billion as of
December 2014. As a member of the International Energy Agency,
the United States is required to maintain public and private
reserves of at least 90 days of net imports and to release these
reserves and reduce demand during oil supply disruptions. We
found in September 2014 that DOE had taken steps to assess
aspects of the SPR but had not recently reexamined its size.
Without such a reexamination, DOE cannot be assured that the SPR
is holding an appropriate amount of crude oil. If, for example,
DOE found that 90 days of imports was an appropriate size for the
SPR, it could sell crude oil worth $6.7 billion and use the
proceeds to fund other national priorities. In addition, by
reducing the SPR to 90 days, DOE may be able to reduce its
operating costs by about $25 million per
year.9 DOE concurred with our
recommendation, stating that a broad, long-range review of the
SPR is needed and that it has initiated a process for conducting
a comprehensive reexamination of the appropriate size of the
Modifying the way Medicare pays certain
cancer hospitals: To better control Medicare
spending and generate cost savings of almost $500 million
per year, Congress should consider changing
Medicare’s payment methods for certain cancer
hospitals. Medicare pays the majority of hospitals using an
approach known as the inpatient and outpatient prospective
payment systems (PPS). Under a PPS, hospitals are paid a
predetermined amount based on the clinical classification
of each service they provide to beneficiaries. Beginning in
1983, in response to concern that certain cancer hospitals
would experience payment reductions under such a system,
Congress required the establishment of criteria under which
11 cancer hospitals are currently exempted from the
inpatient PPS and receive payment adjustments under the
outpatient PPS. Since these cancer hospitals were first
established in the early 1980s, cancer care and
Medicare’s payment system have changed significantly.
Advances in techniques and drugs have increased treatment
options and allowed for more localized delivery of care.
Along with these developments, the primary setting for
cancer care has shifted from the inpatient setting to the
outpatient setting. In addition, Medicare’s current
payment system better recognizes the resource intensity of
hospital care than the system put in place in 1983.While most hospitals are paid a predetermined amount based
on the clinical classification of each service they provide to
beneficiaries, Medicare generally pays these 11 cancer hospitals
based on their reported costs, providing little incentive for
efficiency. We found that if beneficiaries who received care at
the 11 cancer hospitals had received inpatient and outpatient
services at nearby PPS teaching hospitals, Medicare might have
realized substantial savings in 2012. Specifically, we estimated
inpatient savings of about $166 million; we calculated outpatient
savings of about $303 million if forgone payment adjustments were
returned to the Medicare Trust Fund.10
Until Medicare pays these cancer hospitals in a way that
encourages greater efficiency, Medicare remains at risk for
collections: Our 2015 annual report includes
21 actions that the federal government should take to
potentially enhance tax revenue in the billions of dollars.
Reducing the tax gap—the difference between taxes
owed and taxes paid on time—by 1 percent through
improved collections could increase tax revenues by almost
$4 billion annually. Given that individual income tax
misreporting accounts for the largest portion of the
estimated annual $385 billion net tax gap, even small
changes in IRS’s enforcement programs could result in
hundreds of millions of dollars of increased
revenue.Specifically, we recommended that IRS develop and implement
a strategy to better estimate the extent and nature of
misreporting by partnerships and S corporations and the
effectiveness of partnership examinations in detecting this
misreporting.11 In May 2014, we reported
that IRS does not know the full extent of partnership and S
corporation income misreporting. We estimated a rough order of
magnitude of partnership and S corporation income misreported by
individuals to be $91 billion per year in lost tax revenue for
tax years 2006 through 2009. Further, IRS has limited information
on the effectiveness of its examinations in detecting income
misreporting by partnerships. For example, IRS estimated that 3
percent to 22 percent of identified misreporting by partnerships
was double counted due to income flowing from one partnership to
another or to other related parties. Without reliable information
on the extent of partnership misreporting, or the results of its
partnership examinations, IRS cannot make fully informed
decisions about whether its allocation of enforcement resources
across business types is justified. IRS stated that it had not
fully evaluated our recommendations but said it would consider
all of our recommendations and identify appropriate IRS actions
while keeping resource limitations in mind.In addition to the new areas presented in this year’s
annual report, we identified new actions from recently issued
work that address six issues presented in our 2011-2013 annual
reports. These areas include federal oversight of food safety,
DOD joint basing operations and efficiency, DOD-VA electronic
health records, geospatial investments, tax expenditures, and new
markets tax credit. In particular, in our 2011 annual report, we
reported that federal tax revenue losses for the New Markets Tax
Credit (NMTC) were over $700 million for 2010, according to the
Department of the Treasury (Treasury), and recommended that
Congress consider converting the NMTC to a grant program to
increase the equity that could be placed in low-income businesses
and significantly reduce the $3.8 billion, 5-year revenue cost of
the program. In 2014, we reviewed the financial structures of
NMTC projects and recommended that Treasury issue further
guidance on how other government programs can be combined with
NMTCs; ensure adequate controls to limit the risks of unnecessary
duplication and above-market rates of return; and ensure that
more complete and accurate data are collected on fees and costs,
the equity remaining in the business after 7 years, and loan
performance.12 We will track the status of
these and the other new actions through GAO’s
Action Tracker. See appendix III for a list of the
new actions added to these six areas.Finally, in addition to issues identified in our annual
reports, in our February 2015 high-risk series update, we
identified options to help reduce the risk of tax refund fraud
due to identity theft.13 Identity theft
occurs when an identity thief files a fraudulent tax return using
a legitimate taxpayer’s identifying information and claims
a refund. IRS estimates it paid out $5.8 billion (the exact
number is uncertain) in fraudulent refunds in filing season 2013
due to identity theft. While there are no simple solutions to
combating identity refund fraud, we identified various options
that could help, some of which would require legislative action.
Because some of these options represent a significant change to
the tax system that could likely burden taxpayers and impose
significant costs to IRS for systems changes, it is important for
IRS to assess the relative costs and benefits of the options.
This assessment will help ensure an informed discussion among IRS
and relevant stakeholders—including Congress—on the
best option (or set of options) for preventing identity theft
refund fraud.Executive Branch Agencies and Congress Continue
to Address Actions That Span the Federal
GovernmentIn addition to the new actions identified for this report,
we have continued to monitor the progress that executive branch
agencies or Congress have made in addressing the issues we
identified in our last four reports. In our 2011-2014 annual
reports, we identified approximately 440 actions that the
executive branch and Congress could take to reduce, eliminate, or
better manage fragmentation, overlap, or duplication or achieve
other potential financial benefits.Overall Progress on 2011-2014
ActionsExecutive branch agencies and Congress have made progress
in addressing a number of the actions we previously identified
(fig. 2).14 In total, as of March 6, 2015,
the date we completed our audit work, we found that 169 (37
percent) were addressed, 179 (39 percent) were partially
addressed, and 90 (20 percent) were not
addressed.15 An additional 46 actions have
been assessed as addressed over the past year. These addressed
actions include 13 actions identified in 2011, 14 actions
identified in 2012, 11 actions identified in 2013, and 8
identified in 2014. See appendix IV for a list of all areas and
the status of related actions.Figure 2: Progress in Addressing 2011, 2012,
2013, and 2014 Actions as of the 2014 and 2015 Annual
Note: Actions assessed as
“consolidated or other” are not assessed due to
additional work or other information we considered. Additionally,
2014 actions were not assessed in 2014 since that was the year
that the actions were identified.We estimated that executive branch and congressional
efforts to address suggested actions resulted in roughly $20
billion in financial benefits from fiscal years 2011 through
2014, with another approximately $80 billion in additional
benefits projected to be accrued through
2023.16Table 1 outlines a selection of our addressed actions that
have resulted in or are expected to result in cost savings or
enhanced revenue.Table 1: Selected Addressed Actions with
Associated Cost Savings and Enhanced Revenues,
2011-2014Annual report Addressed actions 2011Domestic Ethanol Production (Area 13): Congress allowed the Volumetric Ethanol Excise Tax Credit to expire at the end of 2011, which eliminated duplicative federal efforts directed at increasing domestic ethanol production and reduced revenue losses by $4.5 billion in fiscal year 2012 and $6.1 billion in fiscal year 2013.2011Farm Program Payments (Area 35): The Agricultural Act of 2014 eliminated direct payments to farmers and should save approximately $4.9 billion annually from fiscal year 2015 through fiscal year 2023, according to CBO.2011Baggage Screening Systems (Area 78): The Transportation Security Administration estimates that the agency saved a cumulative $104.5 million in personnel costs from fiscal years 2011 through 2013 from its efforts to replace or modify older checked baggage screening systems with more efficient in-line systems, as GAO suggested.2012Air Force Food Service (Area 33): In 2011, the Air Force issued a memorandum to the Major Commands directing a review of existing food service contracts. As a result, according to Air Force officials, the Air Force reviewed and renegotiated the food service contracts at eight installations for a total savings of over $2.5 million per year. In addition, according to Air Force officials, all food service contracts were validated again during fiscal year 2012 for additional savings of over $2.2 million per year. Air Force officials said that the Air Force will review contracts annually for areas where costs can be reduced.2012Overseas Defense Posture (Area 37): The United States Forces Korea conducted a series of consultations with the military services to evaluate the costs and benefits associated with tour normalization, as we suggested, and decided not to move forward with the full tour normalization initiative because it was not affordable. DOD’s decision to not move forward with this initiative resulted in a cost avoidance of $3.1 billion from fiscal years 2012 through 2016.2012Passenger Aviation Security Fees (Area 48): The Bipartisan Budget Act of 2013 modifies the passenger security fee from its current per enplanement structure ($2.50 per enplanement with a maximum one-way-trip fee of $5.00) to a structure that increases the passenger security fee to a flat $5.60 per one-way-trip, effective July 1, 2014.a Pursuant to the act, collections under this modified fee structure will contribute to deficit reduction as well as to offsetting TSA’s aviation security costs.b Specifically, the act identifies $12.6 billion in fee collections that, over a 10-year period beginning in fiscal year 2014 and continuing through fiscal year 2023, should contribute to deficit reduction.c Fees collected beyond those identified for deficit reduction are available, consistent with existing law, to offset TSA’s aviation security costs. According to the House of Representatives and Senate Committees on the Budget, and notwithstanding amounts dedicated for deficit reduction, collections under the modified fee structure will offset about 43 percent of aviation security costs, compared to the approximate 30 percent currently offset under the existing fee structure.d2013Combat Uniforms (Area 2): Consistent with our recommendation, the Army chose not to introduce a new family of camouflage uniforms into its inventory, resulting in a cost avoidance of about $4.2 billion over 5 years.Source: GAO. | GAO-15-404SPaSee Pub. L.
No. 113-67, § 601(b), 127 Stat. 1165, 1187 (2013), amending
49 U.S.C. § 44940(c).bIn
addition, the first $250 million in fees collected each fiscal
year are, consistent with existing law, to be deposited in the
Aviation Security Capital Fund for use in supporting aviation
security-related airport capital improvement projects or for
other purposes specified in statute. See 49 U.S.C.§§ 44923(h),
44940(i). cSee 49
U.S.C. § 44940(i) (identifying, among other things, the
specific amount to be credited as offsetting receipts and
deposited in the general fund of the U.S. Treasury each fiscal
year, 2014 through 2023).dThe
Bipartisan Budget Act further revoked TSA’s authority to
collect the Aviation Security Infrastructure Security Fee, which
TSA had been collecting from air carriers pursuant 49 U.S.C.
§ 44940(a)(2). See Pub. L. No. 113-67, § 601(a), 127
Stat. at 1187.The following examples illustrate progress made by
executive branch agencies and Congress in addressing our
identified actions over the last 5 years.
Production: In our 2011 annual report, we
stated that the ethanol tax credit would cost about $5
billion in forgone revenues in 2011 and that Congress could
reduce annual revenue losses by addressing duplicative
federal efforts directed at increasing domestic ethanol
production. To reduce these revenue losses, we suggested
that Congress consider whether revisions to the ethanol tax
credit were needed and suggested options to consider,
including allowing the credit for the volumetric ethanol
excise tax (for fuel blenders that purchase and blend
ethanol with gasoline) to expire at the end of 2011.
Congress allowed the tax credit to expire at the end of
2011.Farm Program Payments: We
reported in our 2011 annual report that Congress could save
up to $5 billion annually by reducing or eliminating direct
payments to farmers. These are fixed annual payments based
on a farm’s history of crop production. Farmers
received them regardless of whether they grew crops and
even in years of record income. Direct payments were
expected to be transitional when first authorized in 1996,
but subsequent farm bills continued these
payments.17 Congress passed the
Agricultural Act of 2014, which eliminated direct payments
to farmers and should save approximately $4.9 billion
annually from fiscal year 2015 through fiscal year 2023,
according to the Congressional Budget Office.Combat Uniforms: In our
2013 annual report, we found that DOD’s fragmented
approach could lead to increased risk on the battlefield
for military personnel and increased development and
acquisition costs. In response, DOD developed and issued
guidance on joint criteria to help ensure that future
service-specific uniforms will provide equivalent levels of
performance and protection. In addition, a provision in the
established as policy that the Secretary of Defense shall
eliminate the development and fielding of service-specific
combat and camouflage utility uniforms in order to adopt
and field common uniforms for specific environments to be
used by all members of the armed
forces.18 Most recently, the Army
chose not to introduce a new family of camouflage uniforms
into its inventory, in part, because of this legislation,
resulting in a cost avoidance of about $4.2 billion over 5
years.Overseas Defense Posture:
In our 2012 annual report, we suggested the Secretary of
Defense should direct appropriate organizations within DOD
to complete a business case analysis, including an
evaluation of alternative courses of action, for the
strategic objectives that have to this point driven the
decision to implement tour normalization in South
Korea—that is, a DOD initiative to transform its
defense posture in South Korea. DOD subsequently evaluated
the costs and benefits and decided not to move forward with
the full tour normalization initiative because it was not
affordable. DOD’s decision to not move forward with
this initiative resulted in a cost avoidance of $3.1
billion from fiscal years 2012 through 2016. In addition,
DOD fully addressed our recommended actions to develop
comprehensive cost information and re-examine alternatives
to planned initiatives. For example, the data that DOD
reports to Congress now reflect all cost categories for new
or ongoing funded posture initiatives in support of
enduring operations that, according to DOD officials, have
been approved by the Secretary of Defense. To further
facilitate congressional oversight of plans to realign U.S.
defense posture in the Pacific, DOD made corrective actions
for mitigating financial risks and better defining future
requirements, as we recommended. As a result of these
actions, DOD decision makers will have additional fiscal
context in which to review posture plans and requirements,
and congressional committees should have a better
understanding of the potential funding requirements
associated with DOD budget requests. Employment and Training:
Congress and executive branch agencies have also taken
actions to help address the proliferation of certain
employment programs and improve the delivery of benefits.
Specifically, in June 2012, we reported on 45 programs
administered by nine federal agencies that supported
employment for people with disabilities and found these
programs were fragmented and often provided similar
services to similar populations.19
The Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act, enacted in
July 2014, eliminated three programs that supported
employment for people with disabilities, including the
Veterans’ Workforce Investment Program, administered
by the Department of Labor, and the Migrant and Seasonal
Farmworker Program and Projects with Industry, administered
by the Department of Education.20 In
addition, OMB worked with executive agencies to propose
consolidating or eliminating two other programs, although
Congress did not take action and both programs continued to
receive funding. The Workforce Innovation and Opportunity
Act also helped to promote efficiencies for some of the 47
employment and training programs that support a broader
population (including people with and without
disabilities), which we reported on in 2011. In particular,
this law requires states to develop a unified state plan
that covers all designated core programs in order to
receive certain funding. As a result, states’
implementation of the requirement may enable them to
increase administrative efficiencies in employment and
training programs—a key objective of our prior
recommendations.Leadership Attention Needed to Continue
Progress on Remaining ActionsAlthough Congress and executive branch agencies have made
progress toward addressing the actions we have identified,
further steps are needed to fully address the remaining actions,
as shown in table 2. More specifically, 57 percent of the actions
addressed to executive branch agencies and 66 percent of the
actions addressed to Congress identified in our 2011-2014 reports
remain partially or not addressed.21Table 2: Status of 2011-2014 Actions Directed
to Congress and the Executive Branch, as of March 6,
2015Executive BranchaCongressbGrand totalsbStatusNumber of actionsPercentageNumber of actionsPercentageTotal number of actionsOverall percentageAddressed14939%2027%16937%Partially addressed16844111517939Not addressed521438519020Consolidated or other15457204Source: GAO. | GAO-15-404SPNote: Actions assessed as
additional work or other information we considered. See appendix
II for more information on how we assess the status of
actions.aExecutive
branch agencies took steps that addressed four actions directed
to Congress.bCongress
took steps that fully addressed one action and partially
addressed another action directed to executive branch
agencies.As our work has shown, committed leadership is needed to
overcome the many barriers to working across agency boundaries,
such as agencies’ concerns about protecting jurisdiction
over missions and control over resources or incompatible
procedures, processes, data, and computer systems. Without
increased or renewed leadership focus, opportunities will be
missed to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of programs
and save taxpayers’ dollars. As figure 3 shows, we have
directed actions to all 15 cabinet-level executive departments
and at least 17 other federal entities. A substantial number of
our actions are directed to the three departments that make up 55
percent of federal obligations in fiscal year 2014—DOD,
Treasury, and HHS. Specifically, we have directed 126 actions to
DOD, 89 actions to Treasury, and 60 actions to HHS.Figure 3: Fiscal Year 2014 Obligations and
Number of Actions by Agency
Notes: Individual actions
are counted multiple times, when they are directed to more than
one federal department or agency. Percentages are rounded to the
nearest whole percent for items greater than 1
percent.aU.S. Postal
Service obligations are primarily funded by postal revenues,
although the U.S. Postal Service receives minimal appropriations
for overseas voting and mail for the blind. Additionally, the
U.S. Postal Service has a maximum $15 billion in borrowing
authority.bTreasury’s
percentage of fiscal year 2014 obligations includes interest on
the national debt.cThe
judicial branch represented 0.2 percent of federal obligations in
fiscal year 2014.dActions
have also been directed to agencies and other federal entities
that each represented less than 0.2 percent of federal
obligations in fiscal year 2014.The following are examples of areas where additional
leadership attention could potentially promote progress.Reducing Contract Spending through Strategic
SourcingIn our 2013 annual report, we reported that federal
agencies could achieve significant cost savings annually by
expanding and improving their use of strategic sourcing—a
contracting process that moves away from numerous individual
procurement actions to a broader aggregated approach. In
particular, DOD, DHS, DOE, and VA accounted for 80 percent of the
$537 billion in federal procurement spending in fiscal year 2011,
but reported managing about 5 percent, or $25.8 billion, through
strategic sourcing efforts. In contrast, leading commercial firms
leverage buying power by strategically managing 90 percent of
their spending—achieving savings of 10 percent or more of
total procurements costs. While strategic sourcing may not be
suitable for all procurement spending, we reported that a
reduction of 1 percent from procurement spending at these
agencies would equate to over $4 billion in savings annually.
However, a lack of clear guidance on metrics for measuring
success has hindered the management of ongoing strategic sourcing
efforts across the federal government. Since our 2013 report, OMB
has made progress by issuing guidance on calculating savings for
government-wide strategic sourcing contracts, and in December
2014 it issued a memorandum on category management that, among
other things, identifies federal spending categories suitable for
strategic sourcing. These categories cover some of the
government’s largest spending categories, including
information technology and professional services. According to
OMB, these categories accounted for $277 billion in fiscal year
2013 federal procurements. This level of spending suggests that
by using smarter buying practices the government could realize
billions of dollars in savings. In addition, the administration
has identified expanded use of high-quality, high-value strategic
sourcing solutions as one of its cross-agency priority goals,
which are a limited set of outcome-oriented, federal priority
goals. However, until OMB sets government-wide goals and
establishes metrics, the government may miss opportunities for
billions in cost savings through strategic sourcing.More Effectively Targeting Defense
ResourcesOur work on defense has highlighted opportunities to
improve efficiencies, reduce costs, and address overlapping and
potentially duplicative services that result from multiple
entities providing the same service, including the following
Combatant Command Headquarters
Costs: Our body of work has raised questions
about whether DOD’s efforts to reduce headquarters
overhead will result in meaningful savings. In 2013, the
Secretary of Defense directed a 20 percent cut in
management headquarters spending throughout DOD, to include
the combatant commands and service component commands. In
June 2014 we found that mission and headquarters-support
costs for the five geographic combatant commands and their
service component commands we reviewed more than doubled
from fiscal years 2007 through 2012, to about $1.7 billion.
We recommended that DOD more systematically evaluate the
sizing and resourcing of its combatant commands. If the
department applied the 20 percent reduction in management
headquarters spending to the entire $1.7 billion DOD used
to operate and support the five geographic combatant
commands in fiscal year 2012, we reported that DOD could
achieve up to an estimated $340 million in annual
savings.Tactical Wheeled Vehicles:
DOD spends billions of dollars each year to procure
tactical wheeled vehicles, which are used to transport
people, weapons, and cargo. Since 2008, GAO has identified
tactical wheeled vehicle procurement as being at risk for
duplication, and in 2009 GAO recommended that DOD develop a
unified acquisition strategy. As of February 2015, DOD no
longer plans to issue a comprehensive Tactical Wheeled
Vehicle Roadmap, originally expected for release in the
spring of 2013. The purpose of the roadmap was to document
agreements and plans between DOD and the military services
and to address our recommendation to reduce the risk of
duplication. According to an official at the Office of the
Logistics, sharp reductions in fleet modernization funds
prompted DOD to no longer use the roadmap approach.
Instead, the department will evaluate each investment
opportunity in terms of future force structure, fleet
composition, best value, affordability, joint capabilities,
and survivability through the joint capabilities
integration development system and acquisition management
system framework. Prior to this decision, DOD had taken
numerous steps to address cost effectiveness and potential
duplication within the tactical wheeled vehicle portfolio,
as we recommended, but it stopped short of developing a
comprehensive tactical wheeled vehicle strategy. Without a
comprehensive roadmap that describes strategies and goals
for the entire tactical wheeled vehicle portfolio, it will
likely be difficult for DOD to ensure risk reduction and
avoid duplication in future acquisitions of tactical
wheeled vehicles, which could drive up acquisition and
support costs. We maintain that a comprehensive strategy
would help DOD manage the risk of duplication and cost
growth.Electronic Warfare: We
reported in 2011 that all four military services in DOD had
been separately developing and acquiring new airborne
electronic attack systems and that spending on new and
updated systems was projected to total more than $17.6
billion during fiscal years 2007–2016. While the
department has taken steps to better inform its investments
in airborne electronic attack capabilities, it has yet to
assess its plans for developing and acquiring two new
expendable jamming decoys to determine if these initiatives
should be merged.22More broadly, we identified multiple weaknesses in the way
DOD acquires weapon systems and the actions that are needed to
address these issues, which we recently highlighted in our
high-risk series update.23 For example,
further progress must be made in tackling the incentives that
drive the acquisition process and its behaviors, applying best
practices, attracting and empowering acquisition personnel,
reinforcing desirable principles at the beginning of programs,
and improving the budget process to allow better alignment of
programs and their risks and needs. Addressing these issues could
help DOD improve the returns on its $1.4 trillion investment in
major weapon systems and find ways to deliver capabilities for
less than it has in the past.More Efficiently Managing Information
Technology InvestmentsThe federal government planned to spend at least $79
billion on information technology (IT) in fiscal year 2015. The
magnitude of these expenditures highlights the importance of
avoiding duplicative investments to better ensure the most
efficient use of resources. Opportunities remain to reduce or
better manage duplication and the cost of government operations
in critical IT areas, many of which require agencies to work
together to improve systems, including the following
Portfolio Management: To better manage
existing IT systems, in March 2012 OMB launched the
PortfolioStat initiative. PortfolioStat requires agencies
to conduct an annual, agency-wide review of their IT
portfolios to reduce commodity IT spending and demonstrate
how their IT investments align with their missions and
business functions, among other things. In 2014, we found
that while the 26 federal agencies required to participate
in PortfolioStat had made progress in implementing
OMB’s initiative, weaknesses existed in
agencies’ implementation of the initiative, such as
limitations in the Chief Information Officer’s
authority. In the President’s Fiscal Year 2016 Budget
submission, the administration proposes to use
PortfolioStat to drive efficiencies in agencies’ IT
programs. As noted in our recent high-risk series update,
we have made more than 60 recommendations to improve OMB
and agencies’ implementation of PortfolioStat and
provide greater assurance that agencies will realize the
nearly $6 billion in savings they estimated they would
achieve through fiscal year
2015.24Federal Data Centers: In
September 2014, we found that consolidating federal data
centers would provide an opportunity to improve government
efficiency and achieve cost savings and avoidances of about
$5.3 billion by fiscal year 2017. Although OMB has taken
steps to identify data center consolidation opportunities
across agencies, weaknesses exist in the execution and
oversight of the consolidation efforts. Specifically, we
reported many agencies are not fully reporting their
planned savings to OMB as required; GAO estimates that the
savings have been underreported to OMB by approximately
$2.2 billion. It will continue to be important for
agencies to complete their inventories and implement their
plans for consolidation to better ensure continued progress
toward OMB’s planned consolidation, optimization, and
cost-savings goals.Information Technology Operations and
Maintenance: Twenty-seven federal agencies
plan to spend about $58 billion—almost three-quarters
of the overall $79 billion budgeted for federal IT in
fiscal year 2015—on the operations and maintenance of
legacy investments. Given the magnitude of these
investments, it is important that agencies effectively
manage them to better ensure the investments (1) continue
to meet agency needs, (2) deliver value, and (3) do not
unnecessarily duplicate or overlap with other investments.
Accordingly, OMB developed guidance that calls for agencies
to analyze (via operational analysis) whether such
investments are continuing to meet business and customer
needs and are contributing to meeting the agency’s
strategic goals. In our 2013 annual report, we reported
that agencies did not conduct such an analysis on 52 of the
75 major existing information technology investments we
reviewed.25 As a result, there was
increased potential for these information technology
investments in operations and maintenance—totaling
$37 billion in fiscal year 2011—to result in waste
and duplication. To avoid wasteful or duplicative
investments in operations and maintenance, we recommended
that agencies analyze all information technology
investments annually and report the results of their
analyses to OMB. Agencies have made progress in performing
some operational analyses; however, until the agencies
fully implement their policies and ensure complete and
thorough operational analyses are being performed on their
multibillion-dollar operational investments, there is
increased risk that these agencies will not know whether
these investments fully meet their intended objectives,
therefore increasing the potential for waste and
duplication.Geospatial Investments: In
a 2013 report, we found that 31 federal departments and
agencies invested billions of dollars to collect, maintain,
and use geospatial information—information linked to
specific geographic locations that supports many government
functions, such as maintaining roads and responding to
natural disasters. We found that federal agencies had not
effectively implemented policies and procedures that would
help them identify and coordinate geospatial data
acquisitions across the government, resulting in
duplicative investments.In a 2015 report, we reported that federal agencies
had made progress in implementing policies and
procedures.26 However, critical items
remained incomplete, including coordinating activities with
state governments, which also use a variety of geospatial
datasets—including address data and aerial
imagery—to support their missions. We found that a
new initiative to create a national address database could
potentially result in significant savings for federal,
state, and local governments. To foster progress in
developing such a national database, we suggested that
Congress consider assessing existing statutory limitations
on address data. We also recommended that the interagency
coordinating body for geospatial information (1) establish
subcommittees and working groups to assist in furthering a
national address database; and (2) identify discrete steps
to further a national imagery program benefitting
governments at all levels. Finally, we recommended that the
Director of OMB require agencies to report on their efforts
to implement policies and procedures before making new
investments in geospatial data. OMB generally agreed with
this recommendation. In addition, in March 2015, the
Geospatial Data Act of 2015 was introduced and includes
provisions to improve oversight and help reduce duplication
in the management of geospatial data, consistent with our
recommended actions.27 Fully
addressing the actions in our two reports could help reduce
duplicative investments and the risk of missing
opportunities to jointly acquire data, potentially saving
millions of dollars.28
DOD and Department of Veterans Affairs
(VA) Electronic Health Records System: DOD
and VA have abandoned their plans to develop a single
electronic system for health records that both departments
would share. Although the departments’ 2008 study
showed that over 97 percent of inpatient functional
requirements were common to both DOD and VA, they have
decided to pursue separate electronic health record system
modernization efforts. In a February 2014 report, we found
that the departments had based this decision on the
assertion that pursuing separate systems would be less
expensive and faster than the single, shared-system
approach.29 However, the departments
had not supported this assertion with cost and schedule
estimates that compared the separate efforts with estimates
for the single-system approach. As a result, we recommended
that VA and DOD develop and compare the estimated cost and
schedule of their current and previous approaches to
creating an interoperable electronic health record and, if
applicable, provide a rationale for pursuing a more costly
or time-consuming approach. We also recommended that the
departments develop plans for interoperability and ensure
the Interagency Program Office—established by law to
act as a single point of accountability for the
departments’ development of interoperable health
records—has control over needed resources and clearer
lines of authority.30 The departments
generally agreed with our recommendations. Through
continued duplication of efforts, the departments may be
incurring unnecessary system development and operation
costs and missing opportunities to support higher-quality
health care for servicemembers and veterans.The federal information technology acquisition reforms
enacted in December 2014 reinforce a number of the actions that
we have recommended to address IT management issues. For example,
the law containing these reforms codifies federal data center
consolidation, emphasizing annual reporting on cost savings and
detailed metric reporting and OMB’s PortfolioStat process,
focusing on reducing duplication, consolidation, and cost
savings. If effectively implemented, this legislation should
improve the transparency and management of IT acquisitions and
operations across the government.Improving Fiscal Oversight of Medicare and
MedicaidOver the years, we have identified a number of actions that
have the potential for sizable cost savings through improved
fiscal oversight in the Medicare and Medicaid programs. For
example, CMS could save billions of dollars by improving the
accuracy of its payments to Medicare Advantage programs, such as
through methodology adjustments to account for diagnostic coding
differences between Medicare Advantage and traditional
Medicare.31 In addition, we found that
federal spending on Medicaid demonstrations could be reduced by
billions of dollars if HHS were required to improve the process
for reviewing, approving, and making transparent the basis for
spending limits approved for Medicaid
demonstrations.32 In particular, our work
between 2002 and 2014 has shown that HHS approved several
demonstrations without ensuring that they would be budget neutral
to the federal government.To address this issue, we suggested that Congress could
require the Secretary of Health and Human Services to improve the
Medicaid demonstration review process, through steps such as
improving the review criteria, better ensuring that valid methods
are used to demonstrate budget neutrality, and documenting and
making clear the basis for the approved limits. We concluded in
August 2014, that HHS’s approval of $778 million dollars of
hypothetical costs (i.e., expenditures the state could have made
but did not) in the Arkansas demonstration spending limit and the
department’s waiver of its cost-effectiveness requirement
is further evidence of our long-standing concerns that HHS is
approving demonstrations that may not be
budget-neutral.33 HHS’s approval of
the Arkansas demonstration suggests that the Secretary may
continue to approve section 1115 Medicaid demonstrations that
raise federal costs, inconsistent with the department’s
policy of budget neutrality. We maintain that enhancing the
process HHS uses to demonstrate budget neutrality of its
demonstrations could save billions in federal
expenditures.In our February 2015 high-risk series update, we reported
that while CMS had taken positive steps to improve Medicare and
Medicaid oversight in recent years, in several areas, CMS had
still to address some issues and recommendations, and improper
payment rates have remained unacceptably
high.34 We have reported that to achieve
and demonstrate reductions in the amount of Medicare improper
payments, CMS should fully exercise its authority related to
strengthening its provider and supplier enrollment provisions and
address our open recommendations related to prepayment and
postpayment claims review activities. Similarly, in the area of
Medicaid, we have made recommendations targeted at (1) improving
the completeness and reliability of key data needed for ensuring
effective oversight, (2) implementing effective program integrity
processes for managed care, (3) ensuring clear reporting of
overpayment recoveries, and (4) refocusing efforts on program
integrity approaches that are cost-effective. Table 3 summarizes
selected recommendations we have made to reduce improper payments
in these important areas. These recommendations, if effectively
implemented, could improve program management, help reduce
improper payments in these programs, and achieve cost
savings.Table 3: Selected GAO Recommendations To Help
Reduce Medicare and Medicaid Improper Payments and Improve
Program IntegritySelected GAO recommendations on MedicareImproving use of automated edits.a In November 2012, we reported that use of prepayment edits saved Medicare at least $1.76 billion in fiscal year 2010, but savings could have been greater if prepayment edits had been more widely used.bMonitoring postpayment claims reviews. To improve the efficiency and effectiveness of Medicare program integrity efforts, we recommended in July 2014 that CMS reduce differences between contractor postpayment review requirements, when possible, and monitor the database used to track recovery audit activities to ensure that all data were submitted, accurate, and complete.cRemoving Social Security numbers from Medicare cards. The health insurance claims number on Medicare beneficiaries’ cards includes as one component the Social Security number of the beneficiary (or other eligible person, such as a spouse). This introduces risks that the beneficiaries’ personal information could be obtained and used to commit identity theft.d To better position the agency to efficiently and cost-effectively identify, design, develop, and implement a solution to address this issue, we recommended that CMS direct the initiation of an IT project for identifying, developing, and implementing changes that would have to be made to CMS’s affected systems.Implementing actions authorized by the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA). We reported in our February 2015 update to our high-risk series that CMS should fully exercise its PPACA authority related to strengthening its provider and supplier enrollment provisions.e The following summarizes additional open recommendations and procedures authorized by PPACA that CMS should implement to make progress toward fulfilling the four outstanding criteria to remove Medicare improper payments from our high-risk list. CMS should
or revalidating enrollment in Medicare, such as whether the provider or supplier has been subject to a payment suspension from a federal health care program;
• develop performance measures for the Zone Program Integrity Contractors who explicitly link their work to the agency's Medicare FFS program integrity performance measures and improper payment reduction goals; and
• require Medicare administrative contractors to share information about the underlying policies and savings related to their most effective edits.Selected GAO recommendations on MedicaidImproving third-party liability efforts. Congress generally established Medicaid as the health care payer of last resort, meaning that if enrollees have another source of health care coverage—such as private insurance—that source should pay, to the extent of its liability, before Medicaid does. This is referred to as third-party liability. However, there are known challenges to ensuring that Medicaid is the payer of last resort. While CMS has issued guidance to states, we recommended additional actions that could help to improve cost-saving efforts in this area, such as monitoring and sharing information on third-party liability efforts and challenges across all states and providing guidance to states on oversight of third-party liability efforts related to Medicaid managed care plans.fIncreasing oversight of managed care. Most Medicaid beneficiaries are in managed care, and managed care expenditures have been growing at a faster rate than fee-for-service expenditures. In May 2014, we reported that most state and federal program integrity officials we interviewed told us that they did not closely examine managed care payments, focusing on fee-for-service claims instead.g To help improve the efficiency and effectiveness of program integrity efforts, we recommended that CMS require states to conduct audits of payments to and by managed care organizations, update managed care guidance on program integrity practices, and provide states with additional support in overseeing managed care program integrity.Strengthening program integrity. Although CMS has taken positive steps to oversee program integrity efforts in Medicaid, other actions remain, such as improving reporting of key data, strengthening its efforts to calculate return on investment for its program integrity efforts, and using knowledge gained from its comprehensive reviews of states to better focus audit resources and improve recovery of improper payments.Source: GAO. | GAO-15-404SPaTo help
ensure that payments are made properly, CMS uses controls called
edits that are programmed into claims processing systems to
compare claims data with Medicare requirements in order to
approve or deny claims or flag them for further
review.bSee GAO,
Medicare Program Integrity: Greater Prepayment
Control Efforts Could Increase Savings and Better Ensure Proper
Payment, GAO-13-102
(Washington, D.C.: Nov. 13,
2012).cGAO,
Medicare Program Integrity: Increased Oversight and
Guidance Could Improve Effectiveness and Efficiency of
Postpayment Claims Reviews, GAO-14-474
(Washington, D.C.: July 18, 2014). We suggest actions related to
monitoring postpayment claims reviews in this report; see area 7:
Medicare Postpayment Claims Reviews.dSee GAO,
Medicare Information Technology: Centers for Medicare
and Medicaid Services Needs to Pursue a Solution for Removing
Social Security Numbers from Cards, GAO-13-761
(Washington, D.C.: Sept. 10,
2013).eSee GAO,
High-Risk Series: An Update, GAO-15-290
(Washington, D.C.: Feb. 11,
2015).fSee GAO,
Medicaid: Additional Federal Action Needed to Further
Improve Third-Party Liability Efforts, GAO-15-208
(Washington, D.C.: Jan. 28,
2015).gSee GAO,
Medicaid Program Integrity: Increased Oversight
Needed to Ensure Integrity of Growing Managed Care
Expenditures, GAO-14-341
(Washington, D.C.: May 19,
2014).Increasing Tax Revenue
CollectionsOver the last 4 years, our work identified multiple
opportunities for the government to increase revenue collections.
For example, in 2014, we identified three actions that Congress
could authorize that could increase tax revenue collections from
delinquent taxpayers by hundreds of millions of dollars over a
5-year period: limiting issuance of passports to applicants,
levying payments to Medicaid providers, and identifying security
clearance applicants.35 For example,
Congress could consider requiring the Secretary of State to
prevent individuals who owe federal taxes from receiving
passports. We found that in fiscal year 2008, passports were
issued to about 16 million individuals; about 1 percent of these
collectively owed more than $5.8 billion in unpaid federal taxes
as of September 30, 2008. According to a 2012 Congressional
Budget Office estimate, the federal government could save about
$500 million over a 5-year period by revoking or denying
passports to those with certain federal tax delinquencies.In addition, in our 2011 annual report, we highlighted the
area of improper payments as having the potential for significant
cost savings and reported on the federal government’s
challenges in determining the full extent to which improper
payments occur and in ensuring appropriate actions are being
taken to reduce them. In addition to Medicare and Medicaid, the
Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) has one of the highest estimates
of improper payments government-wide.36 In
particular, in fiscal year 2014, IRS reported program payments of
$65.2 billion for the EITC. According to IRS, an estimated 27.2
percent, or $17.7 billion, of these program payments were
improper.37 The estimated EITC improper
payment rate has remained relatively unchanged since fiscal year
2003 (the first year IRS was required to report estimates of
these payments to Congress), but the amount of improper EITC
payments has increased from an estimated $10.5 billion in fiscal
year 2003 to nearly $18 billion in fiscal year
2014.38We have highlighted the persistent problems with improper
EITC payments for years, and it is a factor underlying our
continued designation of IRS Enforcement of Tax Laws as a
high-risk area.39 As we have reported,
although the EITC program has been modified a number of times
since its enactment in 1975 to reduce complexity and help improve
the program’s administration, complexity remains a key
factor contributing to improper payments in the program. Among
other things, IRS uses audits to help identify EITC improper
payments, and in June 2014, we reported that about 45 percent of
correspondence audits (audits done by mail) that closed in fiscal
year 2013 focused on EITC issues. However, the effectiveness of
these audits may be limited because of regular backlogs in
responding to taxpayers since 2011 and unclear correspondence
that generates additional work for IRS, such as phone calls to
IRS examiners. These issues impose unnecessary burdens on
taxpayers and costs for IRS. IRS acknowledged these concerns and
the limitations faced in significantly reducing EITC improper
payments using the traditional audit process. Consequently, IRS
has initiated several programs to address EITC improper payments,
such as increasing outreach and education to taxpayers and return
preparers.In addition to these efforts, additional IRS and
legislative actions are likely necessary to make any meaningful
reduction in improper payments. We have recommended a number of
executive branch actions or matters for congressional
consideration that if effectively implemented, could help to
reduce EITC improper payments (table 4).Table 4: Selected GAO Matters and
Recommendations That Could Help Reduce Earned Income Tax Credit
Improper PaymentsRecommendation area RationaleRegulating paid tax preparersIn August 2014, IRS reported that 68 percent of all tax returns claiming the EITC in tax years 2006 and 2007 were prepared by paid tax preparers—most of whom were not subject to any IRS regulation—and that from 43 percent to 50 percent of the returns overclaimed the credit.a Similarly, in our undercover visits to randomly selected tax preparers, a sample that cannot be generalized, we found errors in EITC claims, resulting in significant overstatement of refunds.b Based in part on our recommendation, in 2010, IRS initiated steps to regulate certain preparers through testing and education requirements; however, the courts ruled that IRS lacked such regulatory authority.c In 2014, we suggested that Congress consider granting IRS the authority to regulate paid tax preparers, if it agrees that significant paid preparer errors exist.Accelerating W-2 filing deadlinesIRS estimates that it paid $5.8 billion in fraudulent identity theft refunds during the 2013 filing season.d While we do not know the extent to which improper EITC payments are the result of identity theft, IRS has reported that improper payments are a mix of unintentional mistakes and fraud. IRS issues most refunds months before receiving and matching information returns, such as the W-2 “Wage and Tax Statement,” to tax returns. In August 2014, we recommended that IRS estimate the cost and benefits of options to implement pre-refund matching using W-2 data.e Given that any change could impose burdens on employers and taxpayers as well as create additional costs to IRS for systems and process changes, Congress and other stakeholders need information on this impact to fully assess any potential changes.Broadening math error authorityIRS has statutory authority—called math error authority—to correct certain errors, such as calculation mistakes or omitted or inconsistent entries, during tax return processing of EITC claims. According to the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration, IRS has math error authority to address some erroneous claims, but additional authority to systematically disallow certain erroneous EITC claims with unsupported wages could reduce improper payments.f Treasury has proposed expanding IRS authority to permit it to correct errors in cases where information provided by the taxpayer does not match information in government databases, among other things. Expanding such math error authority—which at various times we have suggested that Congress consider—could help IRS correct additional errors and avoid burdensome audits and taxpayer penalties.Source: GAO. | GAO-15-404SPaInternal
Revenue Service, Compliance Estimates for the Earned Income Tax
Credit Claimed on 2006- 2008 Returns, Publication
5162 (8-2014) (Washington, D.C.: August
2014).bGAO,
Paid Tax Return Preparers: In a Limited Study,
Preparers Made Significant Errors, GAO-14-467T
(Washington, D.C.: Apr. 8, 2014), and Paid Tax
Return Preparers: In a Limited Study, Chain Preparers Made
Significant Errors, GAO-06-563T
(Washington, D.C.: Apr. 4,
2006).cLoving
v. IRS, 917 F. Supp. 2d 67 (D.D.C. 2013),
aff'd 742 F.3d 1013 (D.C. Cir. 2014).
dGAO,
Identity and Tax Fraud: Enhanced Authentication Could
Combat Refund Fraud, but IRS Lacks an Estimate of Costs, Benefits
and Risks, GAO-15-119
(Washington, D.C.: Jan. 20,
2015).eGAO,
Combat the Large, Evolving Threat of Refund Fraud,
GAO-14-633
(Washington, D.C.: Aug. 20,
2014).fTreasury
Inspector General for Tax Administration, Existing
Compliance Processes Will Not Reduce the Billions of Dollars in
Improper Earned Income Tax Credit and Additional Child Tax Credit
Payments.Implementing Benefit
OffsetsWe have also identified opportunities to implement program
benefit offsets, in which certain program benefits for
individuals are reduced in recognition of other benefits
received. Examples include the following:
In our 2011 annual report, we reported that the Social
Security Administration (SSA) needs data from state and
local governments on retirees who receive pensions from
employment not covered under Social Security to better
enforce offsets and ensure benefit fairness. In particular,
SSA needs this information to fairly and accurately apply
the Government Pension Offset, which generally applies to
spouse and survivor benefits, and the Windfall Elimination
Provision, which applies to retired worker benefits. The
Social Security’s Government Pension Offset and
Windfall Elimination Provision takes noncovered employment
into account when calculating Social Security benefits.
While information on receipt of pensions from noncovered
employment is available for federal pension benefits from
the federal Office of Personnel Management (OPM), it is not
available to SSA for many state and local pension benefits.
The President’s Fiscal Year 2016 Budget submission
re-proposed legislation that would require state and local
governments to provide information on their noncovered
pension payments to SSA so that the agency can apply the
Government Pension Offset and Windfall Elimination
Provision. The proposal includes funds for administrative
expenses, with a portion available to states to develop a
mechanism to provide this information. Also, we continue to
suggest that Congress consider giving IRS the authority to
collect the information that the SSA needs to administer
these offsets. Providing information on the receipt of
state and local noncovered pension benefits to SSA could
help the agency more accurately and fairly administer the
Provision and could result in an estimated $2.4
billion–6.5 billion in savings over 10 years if
enforced both retrospectively and prospectively. If Social
Security only enforced the offsets prospectively, the
overall savings would be less as it would not reduce
benefits already received.Disability and Unemployment
Benefits: In our 2014 annual report, we
found that 117,000 individuals received concurrent cash
benefit payments, in fiscal year 2010, from the Disability
Insurance and Unemployment Insurance programs totaling more
than $850 million because current law does not preclude the
receipt of overlapping benefits. Individuals may be
eligible for benefit payments from both Disability
Insurance and Unemployment Insurance due to differences in
the eligibility requirements; however, in such cases, the
federal government is replacing a portion of lost earnings
not once, but twice. The President’s Fiscal Year 2016
Budget submission proposes to eliminate these overlapping
benefits, and during the 113th Congress, bills had been
introduced in both the U.S. House of Representatives and
the Senate containing language to reduce Disability
Insurance payments to individuals for the months they
collect Unemployment Insurance benefits. According to the
Congressional Budget Office (CBO), this action could save
$1.2 billion over 10 years in the Social Security
Disability Insurance program. Congress should consider
passing legislation to offset Disability Insurance benefit
payments for any Unemployment Insurance benefit payments
received in the same period.Table 5 highlights some of our suggested actions within
these and other areas that have significant potential
cost-savings or revenue-enhancement opportunities, according to
estimates from GAO, executive branch agencies, the Congressional
Budget Office, or the Joint Committee on Taxation.Table 5: Selected Areas with Associated
Cost-Savings and Revenue-Enhancement Opportunities Identified in
Our 2011-2014 Annual ReportsAnnual reportAreas identified Defense and Contracting2011Tactical Wheeled Vehicles (Area 6): A department-wide acquisition strategy could reduce the Department of Defense’s (DOD) risk of costly duplication in purchasing Tactical Wheeled Vehicles. Reducing the number of joint light tactical vehicles DOD procures could result in billions of dollars in cost savings.2011Weapon Systems Acquisition (Area 38): Employing best management practices could help DOD achieve significant cost savings on the $1.4 trillion (fiscal year 2015 dollars) it expects to invest in the development and procurement of its portfolio of 78 major defense acquisition programs2014Combatant Command Headquarters Costs (Area 12): If the department applied the 20 percent reduction in management headquarters spending to the $1.7 billion DOD used to operate and support the five geographic combatant commands in fiscal year 2012, DOD could potentially achieve up to an estimated $340 million in annual savings.2013Agencies’ Use of Strategic Sourcing (Area 23): Selected agencies could better leverage their buying power and achieve additional savings by directing more procurement spending to existing strategically sourced contracts and further expanding strategic sourcing practices to their highest-spending procurement categories—savings of 1 percent from selected agencies’ procurement spending alone would equate to over $4 billion.2013Joint Basing (Area 20): A plan to achieve the efficiencies and cost savings envisioned from joint bases, coupled with a reevaluation of associated goals and guidance, could lead to greater consolidation of installation services at joint bases and better position DOD to achieve its identified goals.2012Military Health Care Costs (Area 36): 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.2011Military Personnel Costs (Area 37): A total compensation approach would be needed to manage military personnel costs—which grew 31 percent from fiscal year 2001 to fiscal year 2014.Information Technology2014Information Technology Investment Portfolio Management (Area 24): The Office of Management and Budget and multiple agencies could help the federal government realize billions of dollars in savings by taking steps to better implement PortfolioStat, a process to help agencies manage their information technology (IT) investments.2014Federal Data Centers (Area 15): Consolidating federal data centers would provide an opportunity to improve government efficiency and achieve cost savings and avoidances of about $5.3 billion by fiscal year 2017.2014Information Technology Operations and Maintenance (Area 30): Strengthening oversight of key federal agencies’ major IT investments in operations and maintenance would provide an opportunity for savings on billions in IT investments.2011Enterprise Architecture (Area 14): Well-defined and implemented enterprise architectures in federal agencies can lead to consolidation and reuse of shared services and elimination of antiquated and redundant mission operations, which can result in significant cost savings. For example, the Department of the Interior demonstrated that it had used enterprise architecture to modernize agency IT operations and avoid costs through enterprise software license agreements and hardware procurement consolidation, resulting in financial savings of at least $80 million. In addition, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) will achieve savings and cost avoidance of over $150 million during fiscal years 2011–2015 by leveraging its enterprise architecture to improve its telecommunications infrastructure.Energy and Agriculture2011Oil and Gas Resources(Area 45): Improved management of federal oil and gas resources could result in approximately $2 billion in additional revenue over 10 years.2014Advanced Technology Vehicles Manufacturing Loan Program (Area 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 $4.2 billion in credit subsidy appropriations.2013Crop Insurance (Area 19): To achieve up to nearly $2 billion per year in cost savings in the crop insurance program, Congress could consider limiting the subsidy for premiums that are provided on behalf of individual farmers, reducing the subsidy, or some combination of limiting and reducing these subsidies.Health Care2014Medicaid Demonstration Waivers (Area 21): Federal spending on Medicaid demonstrations could be reduced if HHS were required to improve the process for reviewing, approving, and making transparent the basis for spending limits approved for Medicaid demonstrations. We estimated the federal share of savings could have been up to $21 billion over 5 years for two states’ recent demonstrations that we reviewed.2012Medicare and Medicaid Fraud Detection Systems (Area 46): The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services would need to ensure widespread use of its fraud detection systems to better position itself to determine and measure progress toward achieving the $21 billion in financial benefits that the agency projected as a result of implementing these systems.Taxes and Fees2014Collection of Unpaid Federal Taxes (Area 15): The federal government could increase tax revenue collections by $500 million over a 5-year time period, according to a 2012 Congressional Budget Office estimate, by identifying and taking actions to limit issuance of passports to applicants with unpaid federal taxes.2013Tobacco Taxes (Area 31): Federal revenue losses ranged from as much as $615 million to $1.1 billion between April 2009 and 2011 because manufacturers and consumers substituted higher-taxed smoking tobacco products with similar lower-taxed products. To address future revenue losses, Congress should consider modifying tobacco tax rates to eliminate significant tax differentials between similar products.2011Simple Tax Return Errors (Area 56): Congress could grant the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) broader authority, with appropriate safeguards against misuse of that authority, to correct math errors during tax return processing. In March 2015, the Joint Committee on Taxation estimated that this change could result in $166 million in savings over 10 years, similar to last year’s scoring.2013Agricultural Quarantine Inspection Fees (Area 18): The United States Department of Agriculture’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service could have achieved as much as $325 million in savings (based on fiscal year 2011 data, as reported) by more fully aligning fees with program costs; although the savings would be recurring, the amount would depend on the cost-collections gap in a given fiscal year and would result in a reduced reliance on U.S. Customs and Border Protection’s annual Salaries and Expenses appropriations used for agricultural inspection services.2012Immigration Inspection Fee (Area 49): The user fee for immigration inspection of air and sea passengers should be reviewed and adjusted to fully recover the cost of the air and sea passenger immigration inspection activities conducted by the Department of Homeland Security’s U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and U.S. Customs and Border Protection rather than relying on general fund appropriations; in 2012 this could have resulted in reduced reliance on general fund appropriations used for inspection services by about $175 million.Homeland Security2012Domestic Disaster Assistance (Area 51): The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) 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. For fiscal years 2004 through 2011, had FEMA adjusted the indicator for increases in inflation or personal income since 1986, fewer jurisdictions would have met the primary criterion FEMA uses to determine whether to recommend that the President declare a major disaster, which could have reduced federal cost by as much as $3.59 billion.2012Checked Baggage Screening (Area 28): By reviewing the appropriateness of the federal cost share the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) applies to agreements that finance modification projects related to the installation of checked baggage screening systems at airport facilities, TSA could, if a reduced cost share were deemed appropriate, achieve cost efficiencies and be positioned to install a greater number of optimal baggage screening systems than currently anticipated. According to TSA, as of March 2015, their data show that lowering the cost share from 90 percent to 75 percent could result in roughly $140 million in cost efficiencies during the fiscal year 2015 to 2030 timeframe.aIncome Security2011Social Security Offsets (Area 80): Social Security needs data on pensions from noncovered earnings to better enforce offsets and ensure benefit fairness, estimated to result in $2.4-$6.5 billion savings over 10 years if enforced both retrospectively and prospectively. If Social Security only enforced the offsets prospectively, the overall savings would be less as it would not reduce benefits already received.2014Disability and Unemployment Benefits (Area 8): Congress should consider passing legislation to prevent individuals from collecting both full Disability Insurance benefits and Unemployment Insurance benefits that cover the same period, which could save $1.2 billion over 10 years in the Social Security Disability Insurance program according to the Congressional Budget Office.2014Veterans’ and Survivors’ Benefits The Department of Veterans Affairs’ direct spending could be reduced—by an average of about $4 million annually, according to the Congressional Budget Office—if new statutory provisions were enacted, namely, a look-back review and penalty period for claimants who transfer assets for less than fair market value before applying for pension benefits that are available to low-income wartime veterans who are at least 65 years old or have disabilities unrelated to their military service.Source: GAO. | GAO-15-404SPNote: The estimates in this
table are from a range of sources, including GAO, executive
branch agencies, the Congressional Budget Office, or the Joint
Committee on Taxation.aWe reported
in 2013 that reducing the portion of costs that TSA pays for
facility modifications associated with the installation of
optimal baggage screening systems, from 90 percent to 75 percent,
would lower the federal government’s cost for airport
modification projects it supports by roughly $300 million from
fiscal year 2012 through fiscal year 2030. However, according to
TSA, since 2012, many assumptions and cost estimates for airport
modification have changed. Specifically, TSA explained that as of
March 2015, the data show that lowering the cost share from 90
percent to 75 percent would result in cost efficiencies of
roughly $140 million during the fiscal year 2015 to 2030 time
frame. TSA stated that this variance in estimates is driven by
the fact that cost savings for 2012 through 2015 can no longer be
realized and many assumptions and definitions of related data
elements have changed.Existing and New Tools Can Assist in
Identifying, Evaluating, and Addressing Fragmentation, Overlap,
or DuplicationAddressing fragmentation, overlap, and duplication within
the federal government is challenging. Even with sustained
leadership, these are difficult issues to address because they
may require agencies and Congress to re-examine (within and
across various mission areas) the fundamental structure,
operation, funding, and performance of a number of long-standing
federal programs or activities with entrenched constituencies. As
we have previously reported, these challenges are compounded by a
lack of reliable budget and performance information. If fully and
effectively implemented, the GPRA Modernization Act of 2010
(GPRAMA) and the Digital Accountability and Transparency Act of
2014 (DATA Act) hold promise for helping to improve performance
and budget information and helping to address challenges in
identifying and addressing areas of fragmentation, overlap, and
duplication.40
GPRAMA establishes a framework aimed at taking a more
crosscutting and integrated approach to focusing on results
and improving government performance. Effective
implementation of GPRAMA could help clarify desired
outcomes, address program performance spanning multiple
organizations, and facilitate future actions to reduce,
eliminate, or better manage fragmentation, overlap, and
duplication.41The DATA Act requires actions that would help make
spending data comparable across programs, allowing
executive branch agencies and Congress to accurately
measure the costs and magnitude of federal investments. As
we have previously reported, better data and a greater
focus on expenditures and outcomes are essential to
improving the efficiency and effectiveness of federal
efforts.42To help analysts and decision makers better assess the
extent of fragmentation, overlap and duplication, GAO has
developed an evaluation and management guide (GAO-15-49SP),
which is being released concurrently with this
report.43 The guide includes two parts.
Part one is for analysts, including federal, state, and local
auditors; congressional staff; researchers; and consultants. Part
two is for policymakers, including congressional decision makers
and executive branch leaders.Part one provides four steps for analysts to identify and
evaluate instances of fragmentation, overlap or
1. Identify fragmentation, overlap or duplication among a
selected set of programs and understand how the programs are related.
2. Identify the potential positive and negative effects of any
fragmentation, overlap, or duplication found.
3. Validate the effects and assess and compare the fragmented,
overlapping or duplicative programs to determine their relative performance and cost-effectiveness.
4. Identify options to reduce or better manage the negative
effects of fragmentation, overlap, or duplication.Each step includes examples that illustrate how to
implement suggested actions or consider different types of
information. The guide also includes a number of Tip Sheets and
Tools to help guide analysts’ reviews of fragmentation,
overlap, and duplication. The guide is constructed so that
analysts may follow it from beginning to end, or apply only
certain steps to their reviews. For example, analysts relying on
existing GAO work that identifies fragmentation, overlap, and
duplication among a number of programs may use the latter steps
of the guide to evaluate and compare those programs and identify
options for reducing or better managing the fragmentation,
overlap, or duplication identified. The guide is meant to provide
a framework for considering these issues and offers an approach
for conducting a fragmentation, overlap, and duplication review
and selecting options to reduce or better manage negative
effects.Part two provides guidance to help policymakers reduce or
better manage fragmentation, overlap, and duplication. It
includes two sections, one for congressional decision makers and
one for executive branch leaders.
1. The first section of part two provides steps for
congressional decision makers to consider that could include
proposing legislation establishing deadlines for agencies to
provide performance and other programmatic information with consequences for noncompliance, as well as, obtaining informal
cost estimates of proposed legislation from the
Budget Office. Congressional decision makers could also use
existing processes, such as authorization or reauthorization,
budget, appropriations or oversight, to establish such deadlines
and consequences or to specifically appropriate funds to help
establish a program’s performance or cost-effectiveness,
particularly when limited information is available about a
program’s performance.
2. The second section of part two addresses steps that executive branch leaders could take, including actions for
mitigating the negative effects of fragmentation, overlap, or duplication through management approaches. These
managemen approaches could include engaging in performance management activities, initiating and participating
in collaborative efforts both within and among agencies, indentifying and implementing through guidance or rule-making efficiencies and other streamlining measures, and identifying and communicating to congressional decision makers opportunities for increasing efficiency that require congressional action to implement.
In recognition that the pervasiveness of fragmentation,
overlap, and duplication may require attention beyond the program
level, the guide also includes information on a number of options
Congress and the executive branch may consider to address these
issues government-wide. Some of these options are executive
branch reorganization, special temporary commissions, interagency
groups, automatic sunset provisions, and portfolio or
performance-based budgeting. These options can be used
independently or together to assist policymakers in evaluating
and addressing fragmentation, overlap, and duplication beyond the
programmatic level.This report was prepared under the coordination of Orice
Williams Brown, Managing Director, Financial Markets and
Community Investment, who may be reached at (202) 512-8678 or
williamso@gao.gov; and A. Nicole Clowers, Director, Financial
Markets and Community Investment, who may be reached at (202)
512-8678 or clowersa@gao.gov.
Specific questions about individual issues may be directed to the
area contact listed at the end of each summary.Gene L. DodaroComptroller General of the United States
Report at a GlanceSection I of this report presents 12 areas in which we
found evidence of fragmentation, overlap, or duplication among
federal government programs. Section II of this report summarizes 12 additional
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. Fragmentation, Overlap, or Duplication Areas
To help ensure that the eight federal agencies administering over 100 programs supporting individuals with serious mental illness are able to develop an overarching perspective in order to understand the breadth of programs and resources used—including any potential gaps or overlap—greater coordination of federal efforts is needed from the Department of Health and Human Services, and within it, the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, which is required to promote coordination of programs relating to mental illness throughout the federal government.
To address duplication in the processing of Freedom of Information Act requests, the Department of Homeland Security should determine the viability of re-establishing an agreement between two of its component agencies that process immigration files.
To help identify opportunities for saving costs by consolidating or disposing of unutilized or underutilized facilities, the Department of Defense should ensure that data on the utilization of DOD facilities—which were collectively valued at around $850 billion in fiscal year 2013—are complete and accurate.
The Department of Energy could potentially realize savings by reexamining the appropriate size of the Strategic Petroleum Reserve—which was valued at about $45 billion as of December 2014—and depending on the outcome of the analysis, selling crude oil from the reserve and using the proceeds to fund other national priorities.
In order to achieve hundreds of millions of dollars in government-wide savings, federal agencies should apply better management of software licenses and the Office of Management and Budget should issue a directive to assist agencies in doing so.
Section I: Fragmentation, Overlap &
DuplicationThis section presents 12 areas in which we found evidence
of fragmentation, overlap, or duplication among federal
Narrow by AreaAgricultureDefenseGeneral governmentHealthHomeland security/Law enforcementInformation technologyInternational affairsScience and the environment	Agriculture
2. Ground Radar and Guided Munitions Programs3. Weapon System Milestone Decision Process
4. Consumer Product Safety Oversight5. Nonemergency Medical Transportation
6. DOD US Family Health Plan7. Medicare Postpayment Claims Reviews8. Programs for Serious Mental Illness
Section II: Cost Savings & Revenue
EnhancementThis section summarizes 12 areas for
agencies or Congress to consider taking action that could
either reduce the cost of government operations or enhance
revenue collections for the Treasury.
13. Defense Facilities Consolidation and Disposal14. DOD Headquarters Reductions and Workforce Requirements
15. Strategic Petroleum Reserve16. U.S. Enrichment Corporation Fund
18. DOD TRICARE Improper Payments19. Medicare Payments to Certain Cancer Hospitals20. State Medicaid Sources of Funds
21. Children's Disability Reviews22. Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program Fraud and Abuse
Objectives, Scope, and MethodologySection 21 of Public Law 111-139, enacted in February 2010,
requires GAO to conduct routine investigations to identify
federal programs, agencies, offices, and initiatives with
duplicative goals and activities within departments and
governmentwide. This provision also requires GAO to report
annually to Congress on its findings, including the cost of such
duplication, and recommendations for consolidation and
elimination to reduce duplication and specific rescissions
(legislation canceling previously enacted budget authority) that
Congress may wish to consider. As agreed with the key
congressional committees, our objectives in this report are to
(1) identify what potentially significant areas of fragmentation,
overlap, and duplication as well as opportunities for cost
savings and enhanced revenues exist across the federal
government; and (2) identify what options, if any, exist to
address fragmentation, overlap, and duplication in these areas
and take advantage of opportunities for cost savings and enhanced
revenues.For the purposes of our analysis, we used the term
"fragmentation" to refer to those circumstances in which more
than one federal agency (or more than one organization within an
agency) is involved in the same broad area of national need and
there may be opportunities to improve how the government delivers
these services. We used the term "overlap" when multiple agencies
or programs have similar goals, engage in similar activities or
strategies to achieve them, or target similar beneficiaries. We
considered "duplication" to occur when two or more agencies or
programs are engaged in the same activities or provide the same
services to the same beneficiaries.44 This
report presents 12 areas of fragmentation, overlap, or
duplication where greater efficiencies or effectiveness in
providing government services may be achievable. We also
highlighted 12 other opportunities for potential cost saving or
revenue enhancements.GAO’s ApproachOver the course of our 2011 through 2013 annual reports we
conducted a systematic and practical examination across the
federal government to provide reasonable coverage for areas of
potential fragmentation, overlap, and duplication
government-wide.45 Since then, we continue
to consider a variety of factors to determine whether such
potential instances or opportunities identified in our routine
audit work warrant inclusion in this annual report. Such factors
included, but were not limited to, the extent of potential cost
savings, opportunities for enhanced program efficiency or
effectiveness, the degree to which multiple programs may be
fragmented, overlapping, or duplicative, whether issues had been
identified by GAO or external sources, and the level of
coordination among agency programs.Each issue area contained in Sections I and II of this
report lists any respective GAO reports and publications upon
which it is based. Those prior GAO reports contain more detailed
information on our supporting work and methodologies. For issues
that update prior GAO work, we provide additional information on
the methodologies used in that update in the section entitled
“How GAO Conducted Its Work” of each issue
area.Identifying Actions To identify what actions, if any, exist to address
fragmentation, overlap, and duplication and take advantage of
opportunities for cost savings and enhanced revenues, we reviewed
and updated prior GAO work and recommendations to identify what
additional actions agencies may need to take and Congress may
wish to consider. For example, we used a variety of prior GAO
work identifying leading practices that could help agencies
address challenges associated with interagency coordination and
collaboration and evaluating performance and results achieving
efficiencies.46To identify the potential financial and other benefits that
might result from actions addressing fragmentation, overlap, or
duplication, we collected and analyzed data on costs and
potential savings to the extent it was available. Estimating the
benefits that could result from eliminating unnecessary
fragmentation, overlap, or duplication was not possible in some
cases because information about the extent of duplication among
certain programs was not available. Further, the financial
benefits that can be achieved from eliminating duplication,
overlap, or fragmentation were not always quantifiable in advance
of congressional and executive branch decision making, and needed
information was not readily available on, among other things,
program performance, the level of funding devoted to overlapping
programs, or the implementation costs and time frames that might
be associated with program consolidations or terminations.When possible, we also included tables in appendix V that
provide a detailed listing of federally-funded program names and
associated budgetary information. While there is no standard
definition for what constitutes a program, they may include
grants, tax expenditures, centers, loans, funds, and other types
of assistance. A wide variety of budgetary information may be
used to convey the federal commitment to these programs. When
available, we collected obligations information for fiscal year
2013 for reporting across issue areas. In some instances,
obligations data were not available, but we were able to report
other budgetary information, such as appropriations. In other
issue areas, we did not report any budgetary information, because
such information was either not available or sufficiently
reliable. For example, some agencies could not isolate budgetary
information for some programs, because the data were aggregated
at higher levels.We assessed the reliability of any computer-processed data
that materially affected our findings, including cost savings and
revenue enhancement estimates. The steps that GAO takes to assess
the reliability of data vary but are chosen to accomplish the
auditing requirement that the data be sufficiently reliable given
the purposes it is used for in our products. GAO analysts review
published documentation about the data system and Inspector
General or other reviews of the data. GAO may interview agency or
outside officials to better understand system controls and to
assure ourselves that we understand how the data are produced and
any limitations associated with the data. GAO may also
electronically test the data to see if values in the data conform
to agency testimony and documentation regarding valid values, or
compare data to source documents. In addition to these steps GAO
often compares data with other sources as a way to corroborate
our findings. Per GAO policy, when data do not materially affect
findings and are presented for background purposes only, we may
not have assessed the reliability depending upon the context in
which the data are presented.Assessing Status of
ActionsTo examine the extent to which the legislative and
executive branches have made progress in implementing the
approximately 440 actions in the 188
areas47 we have reported on in previous
annual reports on fragmentation, overlap, and duplication, we
reviewed relevant legislation and documents such as budgets,
policies, strategic and implementation plans, guidance, and other
information. We also analyzed, to the extent possible, whether or
not financial or other benefits have been attained, and included
this information as appropriate. In addition, we discussed the
implementation status of the areas with officials at the relevant
agencies.Using the legislation and documentation collected from
agencies, GAO analysts and specialists working on defense,
domestic, and international areas assessed progress for each of
the approximately 440 actions within their areas of expertise. A
core group of GAO staff examined all assessments to ensure
consistent and systematic application of the criteria, and made
adjustments, as appropriate.We used the following criteria in assessing the status of
actions.48
In assessing legislative branch actions, we applied
the following criteria: “addressed” means
relevant legislation is enacted and addresses all aspects
of the action needed; “partially addressed”
means a relevant bill has passed a committee, the House of
Representatives, or the 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.49In assessing executive branch actions we applied the
following criteria: “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, the
agencies, or both have made minimal or no progress toward
implementing the action needed.GAO provided drafts of these assessments to the agencies
involved for their technical comments and incorporated these
comments, as appropriate. In providing the drafts to the agencies
for review, we communicated that we would use an as of date of
March 6, 2015, for all assessments. In addition to summarizing
any comments received on our assessments, we incorporated a
summary of comments on the prior GAO work upon which each issue
area is based. Consistent with GAO policy, we are not reprinting
copies of agencies’ comment letters with this report, as
the work included is based predominantly on previously issued GAO
reports. Copies of agency comment letters associated with
previous reports can be found in those reports, if
applicable.This report is based upon work GAO previously conducted in
accordance with generally accepted government auditing standards,
or GAO’s quality assurance framework. Generally accepted
government auditing standards require that we plan and perform
the audit to obtain sufficient, appropriate evidence to provide a
reasonable basis for our findings and conclusions based on our
audit objectives. We believe that the evidence obtained provides
a reasonable basis for our findings and conclusions based on our
audit objectives. In addition, Area 16: U.S. Enrichment
Corporation Fund was conducted from April 2014 to May 2014 under
GAO’s quality assurance framework. We use GAO’s
quality assurance framework when we conduct routine nonaudits,
such as technical assistance provided to Congress. GAO’s
quality assurance framework requires that we plan and perform the
engagement to meet our stated objectives and to discuss any
limitations in our work. We maintain that the information and
data obtained, and the analysis conducted, provide a reasonable
basis for our findings and conclusions.AbbreviationsAFRICOM U.S. Africa CommandAFSCN Air Force Satellite Control NetworkAIDS acquired immunodeficiency syndromeAMC Army Materiel CommandATVM Advanced Technology Vehicles ManufacturingAWPS Army Workload and Performance SystemCAA Combating Autism Act of 2006CAP Compliance Assurance ProcessCDC Centers for Disease Control and PreventionCIO chief information officerCMS Centers for Medicare & Medicaid ServicesCBO Congressional Budget OfficeCPC Countries of Particular ConcernCPO Cash Product OfficeDHA Defense Health AgencyDHS Department of Homeland SecurityDI Disability InsuranceDOD Department of DefenseDOE Department of EnergyDOJ Department of JusticeDOL Department of LaborDPMO Defense Prisoner of War/Missing Personnel OfficeDSH disproportionate-share-hospitalEISA Energy Independence and Security ActEPA Environmental Protection AgencyFAR Federal Acquisition RegulationFDA Food and Drug AdministrationFECA Federal Employees’ Compensation ActFEMA Federal Emergency Management AgencyFHA Federal Housing AdministrationGLP Good Laboratory PracticesGPRA Government Performance and Results Act of 1993GPRAMA GPRA Modernization Act of 2010GSA General Services AdministrationHHS Department of Health and Human ServicesHIV human immunodeficiency virusHRSA Health Resources and Services AdministrationHUD Department of Housing and Urban DevelopmentIACC Interagency Autism Coordinating CommitteeIRS Internal Revenue ServiceIT information technologyJPAC Joint Prisoner of War/Missing in Action Accounting CommandJPME Joint Professional Military EducationLMP Logistics Modernization ProgramMA Medicare AdvantageMAI Minority AIDS InitiativeNDNH National Directory of New HiresNIH National Institutes of HealthNSF National Science FoundationOARC Office of Autism Research CoordinationODNI Office of the Director of National IntelligenceOHAIDP Office of HIV/AIDS and Infectious Disease PolicyOMB Office of Management and BudgetOPM Office of Personnel ManagementPACOM U.S. Pacific CommandPOW/MIA Prisoner of War/Missing in ActionQW quarterly wageREO real estate-ownedRHS Rural Housing ServiceSSA Social Security AdministrationSMAIF Secretary’s MAI FundTSA Transportation Security AdministrationUI Unemployment InsuranceUSAID U.S. Agency for International DevelopmentUSCIRF United States Commission for International Religious FreedomUSDA Department of AgricultureVA Department of Veterans AffairsFootnotes1) GAO’s analysis of the Federal Fiscal Outlook can be
http://www.gao.gov/fiscal_outlook/federal_fiscal_outlook/overview.
See also, GAO, Financial Audit: U.S. Government’s Fiscal
Years 2014 and 2013 Consolidated Financial Statements,
GAO-15-341R (Washington, D.C.: Feb. 25, 2015), and Congressional
Budget Office, The Budget and Economic Outlook: 2015 to 2025 (Washington, D.C.: Jan. 26, 2015).2) Pub. L. No. 111-139, § 21, 124 Stat. 29 (2010), 31
U.S.C. § 712 Note. See appendix I for the list of
congressional addressees for this work.3) GAO, Opportunities to Reduce Potential Duplication in
Government Programs, Save Tax Dollars, and Enhance Revenue,
GAO-11-318SP (Washington, D.C.: Mar. 1, 2011), 2012 Annual
Report: Opportunities to Reduce Duplication, Overlap and
Fragmentation, Achieve Savings, and Enhance Revenue, GAO-12-342SP (Washington, D.C.: Feb. 28, 2012), 2013 Annual Report: Actions
Needed to Reduce Fragmentation, Overlap, and Duplication and
Achieve Other Financial Benefits, GAO-13-279SP (Washington, D.C.:
Apr. 9, 2013), and 2014 Annual Report: Additional Opportunities
to Reduce Fragmentation, Overlap, and Duplication and Achieve
Other Financial Benefits, GAO-14-343SP (Washington, D.C.: Apr. 8,
2014).4) We conducted the work for Area 16: U.S. Enrichment
Corporation Fund under GAO’s quality assurance framework.
We use this framework when we conduct routine nonaudits, such
as technical assistance provided to Congress. GAO’s
quality assurance framework requires that we plan and perform
the engagement to meet our stated objectives and to discuss any
basis for our findings and conclusions.5) The six federal departments are the Departments of
Agriculture, Health and Human Services, Education, Housing and
Urban Development, Transportation, and Veterans Affairs.6) TRICARE-eligible beneficiaries include active duty
personnel and their dependents, medically eligible Reserve and
National Guard personnel and their dependents, and retirees and
their dependents and survivors.7) Both EPA and FDA conduct laboratory inspections to test
laboratories’ compliance with the agencies’ Good
Laboratory Practices (GLP), which are intended to ensure the
quality and integrity of data. For example, FDA’s GLP
regulations ensure the quality and integrity of the data for
nonclinical laboratory studies of investigational drugs,
medical devices, food additives, and other products.8) EIA is a statistical agency within the Department of
Energy that collects, analyzes, and disseminates independent
information on energy issues.9) The estimated operation savings was based on GAO’s
calculation of the amount of oil in excess of 90 days of net
imports as of September 2014 and DOE’s assessment of its
annual operating cost for the SPR at $0.25 per barrel.10) We estimated this inpatient savings amount within a range
of plus or minus $4 million at a 95 percent confidence level.
This savings estimate covers 9 of the 11 cancer hospitals due
to missing 2012 data for 2 hospitals.11) Partnerships and S corporations are flow-through
entities, which are entities that generally do not pay taxes
themselves on income, but instead, pass income or losses to
their partners and shareholders, who must include that income
or loss on their income tax returns.12) GAO, New Markets Tax Credit: Better Controls and Data Are
Needed to Ensure Effectiveness, GAO-14-500 (Washington, D.C.:
July 10, 2014).13) GAO, High-Risk Series: An Update, GAO-15-290 (Washington,
D.C.: Feb. 11, 2015).14) In assessing actions suggested for Congress, we applied
the following criteria: “addressed” means relevant
legislation has been enacted and addresses all aspects of the
action needed; “partially addressed” means a
relevant bill has passed a committee, the House of
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. In assessing actions suggested
for the executive branch, we applied the following criteria:
“addressed” means implementation of the action
needed has been completed; “partially addressed”
means the action needed is in development, or started but not
yet completed; and “not addressed” means the
administration, the agencies, or both have made minimal or no
progress toward implementing the action needed.15) Twenty actions were categorized as “consolidated or
other” and were not assessed due to additional audit work
or other information we considered.16) In calculating these estimates, we relied on estimates
from the Congressional Budget Office and the Joint Committee on
Taxation, where possible. We also developed estimates based on
agencies’ data and used agencies’ developed
estimates. The totals reflect a summary of these estimates,
which relied on different data sources and methodologies and
considered different time periods. They represent a rough
estimate of financial benefits and have been rounded down to
the nearest $5 billion.17) According to the conference report accompanying the 1996
Farm Bill, production flexibility contract payments—the
precursors to direct payments, which were similar in
design—were established to help farmers make a transition
to basing their planting decisions on market signals rather
than on government programs. Accordingly, production
flexibility contract payments were scheduled to decrease over
time and expire in 2002. Federal Agricultural Improvement and
Reform Act of 1996, Pub. L. No. 104-127, 110 Stat. 888.
However, farm bills passed in 2002 and 2008 continued these
payments as “direct payments.”18) Subject to certain exceptions, the provision also
prohibits the military departments from adopting new pattern
designs or uniform fabrics unless they will be adopted by all
services or the uniform is already in use by another service.
See Pub. L. No. 113-66, § 352(a), (b) (2013). In addition,
DOD must issue implementing guidance requiring the military
departments to, among other things, ensure that new uniforms
meet commanders of combatant command’s geographic and
operational requirements and continually work together to
assess and develop new uniform technologies to improve
warfighter survivability. See Pub. L. No. 113-66, §
352(f).19) GAO’s February 2012 annual report on opportunities
to reduce duplication, overlap, and fragmentation across the
federal government included 50 programs that supported
employment for people with disabilities in fiscal year 2010.
GAO later updated its analyses to exclude, for example,
programs that had been phased out or ended as of April 2012. In
June 2012, GAO reported on 45 programs that supported
employment for people with disabilities.20) Funding for Projects with Industry was eliminated in
fiscal year 2011. As a result, we excluded it from our list of
45 programs in our June 2012 report.21) Twenty actions, or 4 percent, have been consolidated into
other areas and are no longer been assessed due to additional
work or other information that we considered.22) DOD employs expendable jamming decoys to degrade enemy
air defense systems with the purpose of allowing U.S. aircraft
to operate within threat environments.23) GAO-15-290.24) GAO-15-290.25) Our review included major information technology
investments at DOD, HHS, DHS, Treasury, and VA.26) GAO, Progress Needed on Identifying Expenditures,
Building and Utilizing a Data Infrastructure, and Reducing
Duplicative Efforts, GAO-15-193 (Washington, D.C.: Feb. 12,
2015).27) S. 740, 114th Cong. (2015).28) We have added the recommendations from GAO-15-193 to GAO’s Action Tracker.29) GAO, Electronic Health Records: VA and DOD Need to
Support Cost and Schedule Claims, Develop Interoperability
Plans, and Improve Collaboration, GAO-14-302 (Washington, D.C.:
Feb. 27, 2014).30) We have added the recommendations from GAO-14-302 to GAO’s Action Tracker.31) Medicare Advantage is the private plan alternative to the
original Medicare program. Medicare Advantage plans are paid a
fixed, per member, per month payment to provide all services
covered under original Medicare. This payment does not vary on
the basis of the services beneficiaries receive.32) Under Section 1115 of the Social Security Act, the
Secretary of Health and Human Services can approve waivers of
certain Medicaid requirements, and provide states with new
spending authorities, for purposes of implementing Medicaid
demonstration projects. The demonstrations under the law are
for purposes of testing new ways to operate state programs and
deliver services, and agency policy requires that the programs
not increase federal spending.33) GAO, Medicaid Demonstrations: HHS’s Approval
Process for Arkansas’s Medicaid Expansion Waiver Raises
Cost Concerns, GAO-14-689R (Washington, D.C.: Aug. 8,
2014).34) GAO-15-290.35) Federal law does not expressly prohibit an individual
with unpaid federal taxes from being granted a security
clearance; however, delinquent tax debt does pose a potential
vulnerability that must be considered in making a broader
determination of whether an applicant should be granted a
security clearance.36) Congress established the EITC in 1975 to (1) offset the
impact of Social Security taxes on low-income families and (2)
encourage low-income families to seek employment rather than
public assistance. EITC eligibility depends on an
individual’s earned income. Credit amounts depend on the
number of qualifying children who meet age, relationship, and
residency tests. The credit gradually increases with income
(the phase-in range), plateaus at a maximum amount (the plateau
range), and then gradually decreases until it reaches zero (the
phaseout range). For EITC, program payments include tax
expenditures (a tax credit that offsets income taxes) and
outlays (a refund if the credit exceeds the amount of taxes
owed).37) EITC overpayments are the difference between the EITC
amount claimed by the taxpayer on his or her return and the
amount the taxpayer should have claimed. EITC underpayments are
defined as the amount of EITC disallowed by IRS in processing
that should have been allowed.38) These numbers have not been adjusted for
inflation.39) GAO-15-290.40) Pub. L. No. 111-352, 124 Stat. 3866 (2011) (GPRAMA); Pub.
L. No. 113-101, 128 Stat. 1146 (2014) (DATA Act).41) For GAO’s most recent work on GPRAMA, see GAO,
Government Efficiency and Effectiveness: Inconsistent
Definitions and Information Limit the Usefulness of Federal
Program Inventories, GAO-15-83 (Washington D.C.: Oct. 31, 2014);
Managing for Results: Selected Agencies Need to Take Additional
Efforts to Improve Customer Service, GAO-15-84 (Washington D.C.:
Oct. 24, 2014); and Managing for Results: Agencies’
Trends in the Use of Performance Information to Make Decisions,
GAO-14-747 (Washington D.C.: Sept. 26, 2014). In addition,
information on GAO’s work on GPRAMA can be found at
http://www.gao.gov/key_issues/managing_for_results_in_government/issue_summary.42) See GAO, Federal Data Transparency: Effective
Implementation of the DATA Act Would Help Address
Government-wide Management Challenges and Improve Oversight,
GAO-15-241T (Washington, D.C.: Dec. 3. 2014).43) See GAO, Fragmentation, Overlap, and Duplication: An
Evaluation and Management Guide, GAO-15-49SP (Washington, D.C.:
Apr. 14, 2015).44) We recognize that there could be instances where some
degree of program fragmentation, overlap, and duplication, may
be warranted due to the nature or magnitude of the federal
effort.45) See GAO-14-343SP.46) GAO, Results-Oriented Government: Practices That Can Help
Enhance and Sustain Collaboration among Federal Agencies,
GAO-06-15 (Washington, D.C.: Oct. 21, 2005) and Managing for
Results: A Guide for Using the GPRA Modernization Act to Help
Inform Congressional Decision Making, GAO-12-621SP (Washington,
D.C.: June 15, 2012).47) To provide a more accurate picture of the progress made
in the identified areas, starting in 2015, we are reporting the
status of each action under each area (see appendix IV). New
actions are assessed as pending.48) Based on subsequent audit work that we conducted, 12
actions reported in 2011 and 8 actions reported in 2012 were
not assessed this year, and we have categorized those areas and
actions as “consolidated or other.” These actions
have either been consolidated, redirected from a Congressional
to an executive branch action, or revised to reflect updated
information or data that we obtained. In addition, we added 19
new actions to areas on which we reported in 2011-2014, these
newly added actions are listed in appendix III. The status of
new actions has not yet been assessed.49) On January 6th, 2015 the 114th United States Congress
convened and all pending legislation from the 113th Congress
expired. Therefore, all of the legislative branch actions that
were assessed as partially addressed under the 113th Congress
reverted to not addressed because the relevant bill was not
enacted into law before the end of the 113th Congress and no
similar bill has passed out of committee in the 114th Congress
as of March 6, 2015.