Contingency Contracting: Observations on Actions Needed to Address Systemic Challenges
Published: 2011-04-25T00:00:00

Fast Facts:

Highlights:
section_title: Why GAO Did This Study
paragraphs: The Department of Defense (DOD) obligated about $367 billion in fiscal year 2010 to acquire goods and services to meet its mission and support its operations, including those in Iraq and Afghanistan. GAO's work, as well as that of others, has documented shortcomings in DOD's strategic and acquisition planning, contract administration and oversight, and acquisition workforce. These are challenges that need to be addressed by DOD and by the Department of State and the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) as they carry out their missions in Iraq and Afghanistan and prepare for future contingencies. Today's statement discusses (1) contract management challenges faced by DOD, including those that take on heightened significance in a contingency environment; (2) actions DOD has taken and those needed to address these challenges; and (3) similar challenges State and USAID face. The statement is drawn from GAO's body of work on DOD contingency contracting, contract management, and workforce, as well as prior reports on State and USAID's contracting and workforce issues.
section_title: What GAO Found
paragraphs: DOD faces a number of longstanding and systemic challenges that hinder its ability to achieve more successful acquisition outcomes--obtaining the right goods and services, at the right time, at the right cost. These challenges include addressing the issues posed by DOD's reliance on contractors, ensuring that DOD personnel use sound contracting approaches, and maintaining a workforce with the skills and capabilities needed to properly manage acquisitions and oversee contractors. The issues encountered with contracting in Iraq and Afghanistan are emblematic of these systemic challenges, though their significance and impact are heightened in a contingency environment. GAO's concerns regarding DOD contracting predate the operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. GAO identified DOD contract management as a high-risk area in 1992 and raised concerns in 1997 about DOD's management and use of contractors to support deployed forces in Bosnia. In the years since then, GAO has continued to identify a need for DOD to better manage and oversee its acquisition of services. DOD has recognized the need to address the systemic challenges it faces, including those related to operational contract support. Over the past several years, DOD has announced new policies, guidance, and training initiatives, but not all of these actions have been implemented and their expected benefits have not yet been fully realized. While DOD's actions are steps in the right direction, DOD needs to (1) strategically manage services acquisition, including defining desired outcomes; (2) determine the appropriate mix, roles, and responsibilities of contractor, federal civilian, and military personnel; (3) assess the effectiveness of efforts to address prior weaknesses with specific contracting arrangements and incentives; (4) ensure that its acquisition workforce is adequately sized, trained, and equipped; and (5) fully integrate operational contract support throughout the department through education and predeployment training. In that regard, in June 2010 GAO called for a cultural change in DOD that emphasizes an awareness of operational contract support throughout all aspects of the department. In January 2011, the Secretary of Defense expressed concerns about DOD's current level of dependency on contractors and directed the department to take a number of actions. The Secretary's recognition and directions are significant steps, yet instilling cultural change will require sustained commitment and leadership. State and USAID face contracting challenges similar to DOD's, particularly with regard to planning for and having insight into the roles performed by contractors. In April 2010, GAO reported that State's workforce plan did not address the extent to which contractors should be used to perform specific functions. Similarly, GAO reported that USAID's workforce plan did not contain analyses covering the agency's entire workforce, including contractors. The recently issued Quadrennial Diplomacy and Development Review recognized the need for State and USAID to rebalance their workforces and directed the agencies to ensure that they have an adequate number of government employees to carry out their core missions and to improve contract administration and oversight.
section_title: What GAO Recommends
paragraphs: GAO has made multiple recommendations to the agencies to address contracting and workforce challenges. The agencies have generally agreed with the recommendations and have efforts under way to implement them.

section_title: Letter
paragraphs: Thank you for inviting me here today to discuss improvements needed in  contracting and planning for the use of contractors in contingency  environments. The Department of Defense (DOD) obligated about  $367 billion in fiscal year 2010 to acquire goods and services to meet its  mission and support its operations, including those in Iraq and  Afghanistan. Our work, as well as that of the inspectors general and the  commission itself, has documented critical shortcomings in DOD’s  strategic and acquisition planning, contract administration and oversight,  and acquisition workforce. Addressing these challenges is essential if DOD  is to meet the warfighters’ needs in a timely and cost-conscious manner;  mitigate the risks of fraud, waste, and abuse; and minimize the operational  risks associated with contractors not only in today’s operations but also in  future contingencies. These challenges not only need to be addressed by  DOD but also by the Department of State and the U.S. Agency for  International Development (USAID) as these agencies carry out the U.S.  government’s diplomatic and development efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan.
My statement today will discuss (1) contract management challenges DOD  has faced, including those that take on heightened significance in a  contingency environment; (2) actions DOD has taken and those remaining  to address these challenges; and (3) similar challenges facing State and  USAID. This statement is drawn from our broad body of work on DOD  contingency contracting, contract management, and acquisition  workforce, including work reflected in our February 2011 high-risk update  and our June 2010 testimony on operational contract support issues.  Additionally, we relied on our work on State and USAID’s contracting and  workforce efforts relevant to Iraq and Afghanistan. Our prior work was  prepared in accordance with generally accepted government auditing  standards. Those standards require that we plan and perform the audits 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.
subsections: section_title: DOD Faces Longstanding and Systemic Contract Management Challenges
paragraphs: DOD faces a number of longstanding and systemic challenges that have  hindered its ability to achieve more successful acquisition outcomes— obtaining the right goods and services, at the right time, at the right cost.  These challenges include addressing the issues posed by DOD’s reliance  on contractors, ensuring that DOD personnel use sound contracting  approaches, and maintaining a workforce with the skills and capabilities  needed to properly manage the acquisitions and oversee contractors. The  issues encountered in Iraq and Afghanistan are emblematic of these  systemic challenges, though their significance and effect are heightened in  a contingency environment.
subsections: section_title: DOD’s Increased Reliance on Contractors Poses Risks
paragraphs: Our concerns about DOD’s acquisition of services, including the  department’s reliance on contractors and the support they provide to  deployed forces, predate the operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. We  identified DOD contract management as a high-risk area in 1992 and since  then we continued to identify a need for DOD to better manage services  acquisitions at both the strategic and individual contract levels. Similarly,  in 1997 we raised concerns about DOD’s management and use of  contractors to support deployed forces in Bosnia. We issued a number of  reports on operational contract support since that time, and our recent  high-risk update specifically highlighted the need for increased  management attention to address operational contract support.
Contractors can provide many benefits, such as unique skills, expertise,  and flexibility to meet unforeseen needs, but relying on contractors to  support core missions can place the government at risk of transferring  government responsibilities to contractors. In 2008, we concluded that the  increased reliance on contractors required DOD to engage in a  fundamental reexamination of when and under what circumstances it  should use contractors versus civil servants or military personnel. Earlier  this year, we reported that the department lacked good information on the  roles and functions fulfilled by contractors. Our work has concluded that  DOD’s reliance on contractors is still not fully guided by either an  assessment of the risks using contractors may pose or a systematic  determination of which functions and activities should be contracted out  and which should be performed by civilian employees or military  personnel.
The absence of systematic assessments of the roles and functions that  contractors should perform is also evident in contingency environments.  For example, in June 2010 we reported that DOD had not fully planned for  the use of contractors in support of operations in Iraq and Afghanistan and  needed to improve planning for operational contract support in future  operations. In addition, we reported that while U.S. Forces-Iraq had taken  steps to identify all the Army’s Logistics Civil Augmentation Program  (LOGCAP) contract support needed for the drawdown in Iraq, it had not  identified the other contractor support it may need. We found that the May  2009 drawdown plan had delegated responsibility for determining contract  support requirements to contracting agencies rather than to operational  personnel. However, DOD contracting officials told us that they could not  determine the levels of contractor services required or plan for reductions  based on those needs because they lacked sufficient, relevant information  on requirements for contractor services during the drawdown. Similarly  for Afghanistan, we found that despite the additional contractors that  would be needed to support the troop increase, U.S. Forces-Afghanistan  was engaged in very little planning for contractors with the exception of  planning for the increased use of LOGCAP.
Further, we have reported on limitations in DOD’s ability to track  contractor personnel deployed with U.S. forces. In January 2007, DOD  designated the Synchronized Predeployment and Operational Tracker  (SPOT) as its primary system for tracking data on contractor personnel  deployed with U.S. forces. SPOT was designed to account for all U.S.,  local, and third-country national contractor personnel by name and to  contain a summary of services being provided and information on  government-provided support. Our reviews of SPOT, however, have  highlighted shortcomings in the system’s implementation in Iraq and  Afghanistan. For example, we found that varying interpretations by DOD  officials as to which contractor personnel should be entered into the  system resulted in SPOT not presenting an accurate picture of the total  number of contractor personnel in Iraq or Afghanistan. In addition, we  reported in 2009 that DOD’s lack of a departmentwide policy for screening  local or third-country nationals—who constitute the majority of DOD  contractor personnel in Iraq and Afghanistan—poses potential security  risks. We are currently assessing DOD’s process for vetting firms that are  supporting U.S. efforts in Afghanistan.
Regarding planning for the use of contractors in future operations, since  February 2006 DOD guidance has called for the integration of an  operational contract support annex—Annex W—into certain combatant  command operation plans, if applicable to the plan. However, 4 years later  we reported that of the potential 89 plans that may require an Annex W,  only 4 operation plans with Annex Ws had been approved by the  department. As a result, DOD risks not fully understanding the extent to  which it will be relying on contractors to support combat operations and  being unprepared to provide the necessary management and oversight of  deployed contractor personnel. Moreover, the combatant commanders are  missing an opportunity to fully evaluate and react to the potential risks of  reliance on contractors.
section_title: Weaknesses in Contracting Approaches and Oversight Increase Risk
paragraphs: While the strategic level defines the direction and manner in which an  organization pursues improvements in services acquisition, it is through  the development, execution, and oversight of individual contracts that the  strategy is implemented. Keys to doing so are having clearly defined and  valid requirements, a sound contract, and effective contractor  management and oversight. In short, DOD, like all organizations, needs to  assure itself that it is buying the right thing in the right way and that doing  so results in the desired outcome. Our work over the past decade  identified weaknesses in each of these key areas, whether for services  provided in the United States or abroad, as illustrated by the following  examples:  In June 2007, we reported that DOD understated the extent to which it  used time-and-materials contracts, which can be awarded quickly and  adjusted when requirements or funding are uncertain. We found few  attempts to convert follow-on work to less risky contract types and  found wide discrepancies in DOD’s oversight.
That same month we also reported that DOD personnel failed to  definitize—or reach final agreement on—contract terms within  required time frames in 60 percent of the 77 contracts we reviewed.  Until contracts are definitized, DOD bears increased risk because  contractors have little incentive to control costs. We then reported in  July 2007 that DOD had not completed negotiations on certain task  orders in Iraq until more than 6 months after the work began and after  most of the costs had been incurred, contributing to its decision to pay  the contractor nearly all of the $221 million questioned by auditors.  We subsequently reported in 2010 that DOD had taken several actions  to enhance departmental insight into and oversight of undefinitized  contract actions; however, data limitations hindered DOD’s full  understanding of the extent to which they are used.
As early as 2004, we raised concerns about DOD’s ability to effectively  administer and oversee contracts in Iraq. We noted that effective  contract administration and oversight remained challenging in part  because of the continued expansion of reconstruction efforts, staffing  constraints, and need to operate in an unsecure and threatening  environment. In 2008, we reported that the lack of qualified personnel  hindered oversight of contracts to maintain military equipment in  Kuwait and provide linguistic services in Iraq and questioned whether  DOD could sustain increased oversight of its private security  contractors. During our 2010 visits with deployed and recently  returned units, we found that units continue to deploy to Afghanistan  without designating contracting officer’s representatives beforehand  and that those representatives often lacked the technical knowledge  and training needed to effectively oversee certain contracts. Several  units that had returned from Afghanistan told us that contracting  officer’s representatives with no engineering background were often  asked to oversee construction projects and were unable to ensure that  the buildings and projects they oversaw met the technical  specifications required in the drawing plans. We are currently  assessing the training on the use of contract support that is provided to  military commanders, contracting officer’s representatives, and other  nonacquisition personnel before they deploy.
section_title: Continuing Acquisition Workforce Challenges Hinder DOD’s Ability to Properly Manage Acquisitions
paragraphs: Underlying the ability to properly manage the acquisition of goods and  services is having a workforce with the right skills and capabilities. DOD  recognizes that the defense acquisition workforce, which was downsized  considerably through the 1990s, faces increases in the volume and  complexity of work because of increases in services contracting, ongoing  contingency operations, and other critical missions. For example, while  contract spending dramatically increased from fiscal years 2001 through  2008, DOD reported that its acquisition workforce decreased by  2.6 percent over the same period.
In April 2010, DOD issued an acquisition workforce plan that identified  planned workforce growth, specified recruitment and retention goals, and  forecasted workforce-wide attrition and retirement trends. As part of that  plan, DOD announced that it would increase the size of two oversight  organizations—the Defense Contract Audit Agency and the Defense  Contract Management Agency—over the next several years to help reduce  the risk of fraud, waste, and abuse in DOD contracts. However, we  reported in September 2010 that DOD had not completed its assessment of  the critical skills and competencies of its overall acquisition workforce  and that it had not identified the funding needed for its initiatives until the  conclusion of our review. The current budget situation raises questions  as to whether DOD will be able to sustain its projected workforce growth  and related initiatives. We are currently reviewing the Defense Contract  Management Agency’s capacity for oversight and surveillance of  contracting activity domestically in light of its role in contingency  operations.
section_title: DOD’s Efforts Have Not Yet Resolved Contract Management Challenges or Fully Addressed Its Reliance on Contractors
paragraphs: DOD has recognized the need to take action to address the challenges it  faces regarding contract management and its reliance on contractors,  including those related to operational contract support. Over the past  several years, the department has announced new policies, guidance and  training initiatives, but not all of these actions have been implemented and  their expected benefits have not yet been fully realized. While these  actions are steps in the right direction, we noted in our February 2011  high-risk update that to improve outcomes on the billions of dollars spent  annually on goods and services, sustained DOD leadership and  commitment are needed to ensure that policies are consistently put into  practice. Specifically we concluded that DOD needs to  take steps to strategically manage services acquisition, including  defining and measuring against desired outcomes, and developing the  data needed to do so;   determine the appropriate mix, roles, and responsibilities of  contractor, federal civilian, and military personnel; assess the effectiveness of efforts to address prior weaknesses with  specific contracting arrangements and incentives; ensure that its acquisition workforce is adequately sized, trained, and  equipped to meet the department’s needs; and fully integrate operational contract support throughout the department  through education and predeployment training.
DOD has generally agreed with the recommendations we have previously  made and has actions under way to implement them. I would like to touch  on a few of the actions already taken by DOD. On a broad level, for  example, improved DOD guidance, DOD’s initiation and use of  independent management reviews for high-dollar services acquisitions,  and other steps to promote the use of sound business arrangements have  begun to address several weaknesses, such as the department’s  management and use of time-and-materials contracts and undefinitized  contract actions. Further, DOD has identified steps to promote more  effective competition in its acquisitions, such as requiring contracting  officers to take additional actions when DOD receives only one bid in  response to a solicitation and revising its training curriculum to help  program and acquisition personnel develop and better articulate the  department’s requirements.
Similarly, efforts are under way to reduce the department’s reliance on  contractors. In April 2009, the Secretary of Defense announced his intent  to reduce the department’s reliance on contractors by hiring new  personnel and by converting, or in-sourcing, functions currently  performed by contractors to DOD civilian personnel. To help provide  better insights into, among other things, the number of contractors  providing services to the department and the functions they perform and  to help make informed workforce decisions, Congress enacted legislation  in 2008 requiring DOD to annually compile and review an inventory of  activities performed pursuant to contracts for services. In January 2011,  we reported that while DOD had taken actions to reduce prior  inconsistencies resulting from DOD components using different  approaches to compile the inventory, it still faced data and estimating  limitations that raised questions about the accuracy and usefulness of the  data. Given this early state of implementation, the inventory and  associated review processes are being used to various degrees by the  military departments to help inform workforce decisions, with the Army  generally using the inventories to a greater degree than the other military  departments. Later this year we will review DOD’s strategic human capital  plans for both its civilian and acquisition workforces, the status of efforts  to in-source functions previously performed by contractor personnel, and  DOD’s upcoming inventory of services.
Furthermore, DOD has taken several steps intended to improve planning  for the use of contractors in contingencies and to improve contract  administration and oversight. For example, in the area of planning for the  use of contractors, in October 2008 the department issued Joint  Publication 4-10, Operational Contract Support, which establishes  doctrine and provides standardized guidance for and information on  planning, conducting, and assessing operational contract support  integration, contractor management functions, and contracting command  and control organizational options in support of joint operations. DOD  also provided additional resources for deployed contracting officers and  their representatives through the issuance of the Joint Contingency  Contracting Handbook in 2007 and the Deployed Contracting Officer’s  Representative Handbook in 2008. In 2009, the Army issued direction to  identify the need for contracting officer’s representatives, their roles and  responsibilities, and their training when coordinating operational unit  replacements.
Our work found that beyond issuing new policies and procedures, DOD  needs to fundamentally change the way it approaches operational contract  support. In June 2010, we called for a cultural change in DOD that  emphasizes an awareness of operational contract support throughout all  aspects of the department to help it address the challenges it faces in  ongoing and future operations. This view is now apparently shared by the  department. In a January 2011 memorandum, the Secretary of Defense  expressed concern about the risks introduced by DOD’s current level of  dependency on contractors, future total force mix, and the need to better  plan for operational contract support in the future. Toward that end, he  directed the department to undertake a series of actions related to force  mix, contract support integration, planning, and resourcing. According to  the Secretary, his intent was twofold: to initiate action now and to  subsequently codify the memorandum’s initiatives in policy and through  doctrine, organization, training, materiel, leadership, education, personnel,  and facilities changes and improvements. He concluded that the time was  at hand, while the lessons learned from recent operations were fresh, to  institutionalize the changes necessary to influence a cultural shift in how  DOD views, accounts for, and plans for contractors and personnel support  in contingency environments. The Secretary’s recognition and directions  are significant steps, yet cultural change will require sustained  commitment from senior leadership for several years to come.
section_title: State and USAID Confront Similar Contracting Challenges
paragraphs: While my statement has focused on the challenges confronting DOD, our  work involving State and USAID has found similar issues, particularly  related to not planning for and not having insight into the roles performed  by contractors and workforce challenges. The need for visibility into  contracts and contractor personnel to inform decisions and oversee  contractors is critical, regardless of the agency, as each relies extensively  on contractors to support and carry out its missions in Iraq and  Afghanistan.
Our work has identified gaps in USAID and State’s workforce planning  efforts related to the role and extent of reliance on contractors. We noted,  for example, in our 2004 and 2005 reviews of Afghanistan reconstruction  efforts that USAID did not incorporate information on the contractor  resources required to implement the strategy, hindering its efforts to make  informed resource decisions. More generally, in June 2010, we reported  that USAID’s 5-year workforce plan for fiscal years 2009 through 2013 had  a number of deficiencies, such as lacking supporting workforce analyses  that covered the agency’s entire workforce, including contractors, and not  containing a full assessment of the agency’s workforce needs, including  identifying existing workforce gaps and staffing levels required to meet  program needs and goals.
Similarly, in April 2010, we noted that State’s departmentwide workforce  plan generally does not address the extent to which contractors should be  used to perform specific functions, such as contract and grant  administration. As part of State’s fiscal year 2011 budget process, State  asked its bureaus to focus on transitioning some activities from  contractors to government employees. State officials told us, however,  that departmentwide workforce planning efforts generally have not  addressed the extent to which the department should use contractors  because those decisions are left up to individual bureaus. State noted that  in response to Office of Management and Budget guidance, a pilot study  was underway regarding the appropriate balance of contractor and  government positions, to include a determination as to whether or not the  contracted functions are inherently governmental, closely associated to  inherently governmental, or mission critical.
In the absence of strategic planning, we found that it was often individual  contracting or program offices within State and USAID that made case-by- case decisions on the use of contractors to support contract or grant  administration functions. For example, USAID relied on a contractor to  award and administer grants in Iraq to support community-based conflict  mitigation and reconciliation projects, while State relied on a contractor to  identify and report on contractor performance problems and assess  contractor compliance with standard operating procedures for its aviation  program in Iraq. State and USAID officials generally cited a lack of  sufficient number of government staff, the lack of in-house expertise, or  frequent rotations among government personnel as key factors  contributing to their decisions to use contractors.
Our work over the past three years to provide visibility into the number of  contractor personnel and contracts associated with the U.S. efforts in Iraq  and Afghanistan found that State and USAID continue to lack good  information on the number of contractor personnel working under their  contracts. State and USAID had agreed to use the SPOT database to track  statutorily-required information. The system still does not reliably track  the agencies’ information on contracts, assistance instruments, and  associated personnel in Iraq or Afghanistan. As a result, the agencies relied  on other data sources, which had their own limitations, to respond to our  requests for information. We plan to report on the agencies’ efforts to  track and use data on contracts, assistance instruments, and associated  personnel in Iraq or Afghanistan later this year.
The agencies have generally agreed with the recommendations we have  made to address these challenges. To their credit, senior agency leaders  acknowledged that they came to rely on contractors and other  nongovernmental organizations to carry out significant portions of State  and USAID’s missions. For example, the Quadrennial Diplomacy and  Development Review (QDDR), released in December 2010, reported that  much of what used to be the exclusive work of government has been  turned over to private actors, both for profit and not for profit. As  responsibilities mounted and staffing levels stagnated, State and USAID  increasingly came to rely on outsourcing, with contracts and grants to  private entities often representing the default option to meet the agencies’  growing needs. Further, the QDDR recognized the need for the agencies to  rebalance the workforce by determining what functions must be  conducted by government employees and what functions can be carried  out by nongovernment entities working on behalf of and under the  direction of the government. As part of this effort, the QDDR called for  State and USAID to ensure that work that is critical to carrying out their  core missions is performed by an adequate number of government  employees. The review also recommended that for contractor-performed  functions, the agencies develop well-structured contracts with effective  contract administration and hold contractors accountable for performance  and results. Along these lines, the Administrator of USAID recently  announced a series of actions intended to improve the way USAID does  business, including revising its procurement approach.
The acknowledgment of increased contractor reliance and the intention to  examine their roles is important, as is developing well-structured contracts  and effectively administering contracts. Left unaddressed, these  challenges may pose potentially serious consequences to achieving the  U.S. government’s policy objectives in Iraq and Afghanistan. For example,  in March 2011, the Secretary of State testified that the department is not in  an “optimal situation,” with contractors expected to comprise 84 percent  of the U.S. government’s workforce in Iraq. We recently initiated a review  of State’s capacity to plan for, award, administer, and oversee contracts  with performance in conflict environments, such as Iraq and Afghanistan.  As part of this review, we will assess the department’s workforce both in  terms of number of personnel and their expertise to carry out acquisition  functions, including contractor oversight. We will also assess the status of  the department’s efforts to enhance its workforce to perform these  functions.
section_title: Concluding Observations
paragraphs: The issues I discussed today—contract management, the use of  contractors in contingency environments, and workforce challenges—are  not new and will not be resolved overnight, but they need not be enduring  or intractable elements of the acquisition environment. The challenges  encountered in Iraq and Afghanistan are the result of numerous factors,  including poor strategic and acquisition planning, inadequate contract  administration and oversight, and an insufficient number of trained  acquisition and contract oversight personnel. These challenges manifest in  various ways, including higher costs, schedule delays, and unmet goals,  but they also increase the potential for fraud, waste, abuse, and  mismanagement in contingency environments such as Iraq and  Afghanistan. While our work has provided examples that illustrate some  effects of such shortcomings, in some cases, estimating their financial  effect is not feasible or practicable. The inability to quantify the financial  impact should not, however, detract from efforts to achieve greater rigor  and accountability in the agencies’ strategic and acquisition planning,  internal controls, and oversight efforts. Stewardship over contingency  resources should not be seen as conflicting with mission execution or the  safety and security of those so engaged.
Toward that end, the agencies have recognized that the status quo is not  acceptable and that proactive, strategic, and deliberate analysis and  sustained commitment and leadership are needed to produce meaningful  change and make the risks more manageable. DOD has acknowledged the  need to institutionalize operational contract support and set forth a  commitment to encourage cultural change in the department. State and  USAID must address similar challenges, including the use and role of  contractors in continency environments. The recent QDDR indicates that  the agencies have recognized the need to do so. These efforts are all steps  in the right direction, but agreeing that change is needed at the strategic  policy level must be reflected in the decisions made by personnel on a day- to-day basis.
Chairman Thibault, Chairman Shays, this concludes my prepared  statement. I would be happy to respond to any questions you or the other  commissioners may have.
section_title: Contacts and Acknowledgments
paragraphs: For further information about this statement, please contact me at (202)  512-4841 or francisp@gao.gov. Contact points for our Offices of  Congressional Relations and Public Affairs may be found on the last page  of this statement. Individuals who made key contributions to this  statement include Johana R. Ayers, Vince Balloon, Jessica Bull, Carole  Coffey, Timothy DiNapoli, Justin Jaynes, Sylvia Schatz, Sally Williamson,  and Gwyneth Woolwine.
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