The U.S. government maintains more than 260 diplomatic posts—including embassies, consulates, and other diplomatic offices—in about 180 countries worldwide. In addition, according to various estimates, there are over 66,000 personnel overseas, including both U.S. direct hires and locally employed staff under chief of mission authority, representing more than 30 agencies and government entities. Agencies represented overseas include, among others, the Departments of Agriculture, Commerce, the Treasury, Defense, Homeland Security, Justice, and State and USAID. According to the Office of Management and Budget, the average cost across all agencies of having one U.S. direct hire overseas for 2007 is $491,000, including direct and indirect personnel costs as well as support costs such as security, office leases and furnishings, and field travel. According to State’s Bureau of Resource Management, State’s average cost of having one U.S. direct hire overseas for 2007 is approximately $400,000. The White House, Congress, the Office of Management and Budget, and our own agency have emphasized rightsizing as a key initiative to ensuring that the overseas presence is at an optimal and efficient level to carry out foreign policy priorities. The President’s Management Agenda has identified rightsizing as one of the administration’s priorities. The agenda stipulates that all agencies with an overseas presence should integrate rightsizing into their workforce plans and reconfigure overseas staff allocations to the minimum amount necessary to meet U.S. foreign policy goals. Figure 1 illustrates the various levels of involvement in U.S. government overseas rightsizing. In fiscal year 2004, Congress mandated the establishment of the Office of Rightsizing within State. The office was directed to lead State’s effort to develop internal and interagency mechanisms to better coordinate, rationalize, and manage the deployment of U.S. government personnel overseas, under chief of mission authority. The Office of Rightsizing reviews and approves rightsizing reports for all capital construction projects for new embassy compounds or facilities, as well as the staffing composition of 20 percent of all U.S. missions annually, so that each mission is reviewed once every 5 years. According to the Office of Rightsizing, without an approved rightsizing report based on these reviews, the Office of Management and Budget will not forward to Congress a programming notification for construction. In addition to the Office of Rightsizing, a number of entities within State at the Washington, D.C. and post levels are involved in initiatives and efforts related to rightsizing. State’s regional bureaus are involved with posts’ rightsizing reviews as well as the administration of regional service centers. In addition, State’s Bureau of Overseas Buildings Operations is responsible for the worldwide overseas buildings program for State and the U.S. government community serving abroad under chief of mission authority. The Bureau of Overseas Buildings Operations is directing an expanded new embassy construction program to provide safe, secure, and functional work places for the diplomatic and consular missions overseas. At the post level, the Chief of Mission is responsible for the security and safety of every U.S. government and foreign national employee at the mission. The precise structure of a mission is determined by the Chief of Mission through the National Security Decision Directive 38 (NSDD-38) process, which provides authority for the Chief of Mission to determine the size, composition, or mandate of personnel operating at the mission. See figure 1 for a depiction of the Chief of Mission’s involvement in the rightsizing process. The operation of embassies and consulates overseas requires basic administrative support services for overseas personnel. The management section, which is normally headed by a management counselor or officer, is the section responsible for overseeing the administrative functions at a post and generally serves as the recipient of requests from Washington, D.C., pertaining to staffing and rightsizing. Administrative support services at posts are generally provided through the State-managed International Cooperative Administrative Support Services (ICASS) system, which provides more than 30 services—including financial management vouchering, human resources, travel services, housing, vehicle maintenance, and motor pool—with costs of the services divided among the agencies and sub-agencies with staff at the post, based on the level of ICASS services used. To address the security and other deficiencies of overseas embassies, consulates, and other buildings, Congress established an interagency Capital Security Cost Sharing Program to generate almost $18 billion over a 14-year period to accelerate the construction of approximately 150 new, secure, and functional embassy and consular compounds. The main objectives of the program are to generate funds for new embassy compound construction and to encourage State and other agencies to rightsize their staff by requiring that all agencies with an overseas presence bear some of the costs for building construction. Capital security cost sharing is based on the total number of existing or authorized positions that an agency has overseas in U.S.-government-owned or leased facilities, as well as any projected staff growth positions. Cost sharing is also based on the type of space occupied by post personnel. Charges are being phased- in over 5 years with the fiscal year 2005 per capita charges being 20 percent of the fully phased-in amount and fiscal year 2009 per capita charges representing the full amount. Table 1 illustrates the fully phased-in per person charges for Capital Security Cost Sharing. Almost 5 years into the President’s Management Initiative on rightsizing, the U.S. government does not yet have accurate data on the size and composition of the U.S. overseas presence at embassies and consulates; however, State is working on a unified database which, if periodically updated by posts, should provide an accurate depiction of the overseas presence. Several agencies have undertaken efforts to examine and adjust their staffing configurations, which have been driven by various factors, such as congressional mandates; the rising costs of building new, secure embassy buildings; and other shared costs. According to State officials, there is not yet an accurate picture of the size and composition of the U.S. overseas presence at embassies and consulates. In order to be able to make informed staffing and rightsizing decisions, and conduct accurate analysis of overseas staffing changes, it is important that the U.S. government have an accurate account of all overseas positions under chief of mission authority. Moreover, accurate staffing data is needed to assess each agency a fair share of the cost of the embassy construction program. Depending on the data’s source and time, estimates of the total overseas presence under chief of mission authority run from 66,000 to about 69,000 American and non-American personnel, such as locally employed staff, from more than 30 agencies. In addition, State estimated that there are approximately 78,000 U.S. government positions overseas, as of December 2005. Some of these positions have been eliminated or are in the process of being eliminated or reconciled, according to an Office of Rightsizing document. Further, according to State’s estimates, there are almost 22,000 direct-hire American positions overseas. Figure 2 provides the estimated percentage breakdown of the total American positions overseas under chief of mission authority by the key agencies, according to the Office of Rightsizing. According to State officials, State has faced various difficulties in developing accurate data. For example, overseas staffing information is recorded in a number of different databases at a post, depending on the purpose of the information. In addition to the databases from Washington, D.C., posts have created their own databases, resulting in information not being uniform from post to post. Moreover, a State official reported that some agencies have failed to provide human resources data to individual posts. State officials added that changes made in one database do not automatically populate others. Therefore, posts need to make changes in a number of databases in order to ensure a full updating and, in particular, to ensure the new information will show up accurately at State headquarters. As a result, State’s numbers might include positions that have been eliminated or are vacant; or some positions might be entered more than once. Officials in the Office of Rightsizing also said that there are large numbers of employment categories overseas and that each agency might categorize its personnel overseas in a different manner or use different methodologies. They pointed out that, in some cases, agencies hire and count employed family members as U.S. direct hires while, in other instances, employed family members are counted as locally employed staff. They further explained that State’s current databases have not kept pace with changes in nomenclature. For example, although new agencies and components were established as part of the formation of the Department of Homeland Security, overseas positions might still appear in databases, for example, as part of the old Immigration and Naturalization Services. The incorrect reporting of staff positions could create problems for agencies, such as being incorrectly charged for positions under Capital Security Cost Sharing, according to non-State officials. Since 2004, State has required posts to utilize the Post Personnel database to account for overseas staffing positions for both American personnel and locally employed staff, according to the Office of Rightsizing. The Executive Director of the Bureau of Human Resources told us that, if used properly, this database has the potential to provide the staffing data that could lead to accurate overseas staffing numbers. However, officials in the Office of Rightsizing stated that the database is only as complete as the information that the posts enter into it, and that some posts might not fully understand how to use the software properly. The Executive Director of the Bureau of Human Resources indicated that his bureau has been developing training modules to educate post officials on using the Post Personnel database correctly. State’s Office of Rightsizing has been working with the Bureau of Human Resources to develop an improved database that will enable State to present a more accurate picture of all personnel and agencies assigned overseas under chief of mission authority.