NTSB was initially established within the newly formed Department of Transportation (DOT) in 1966, but was made independent from DOT in 1974. NTSB is charged by Congress with investigating every civil aviation accident in the United States and significant accidents in other modes of transportation—railroad, highway, marine and pipeline. NTSB determines the probable cause of the accidents and issues safety recommendations aimed at preventing future accidents. In addition, NTSB carries out special studies concerning transportation safety and coordinates the resources of the federal government and other organizations to provide assistance to victims and their family members impacted by major transportation disasters. Unlike regulatory transportation agencies, such as the Federal Aviation Administration, NTSB does not have the authority to promulgate regulations to promote safety, but instead makes recommendations in its accident reports and safety studies to agencies that have such regulatory authority. NTSB is comprised of a five-person board—a chairman, vice chairman, and three members—appointed by the President with the advice and consent of the Senate. The chairman is the NTSB’s chief executive and administrative officer. The agency is headquartered in Washington, D.C., and maintains 7 regional offices and a training center located in Ashburn, Virginia. In fiscal year 2013, the board was supported by a staff of about 400, which includes nearly 140 investigators assigned to its modal offices—aviation; highway; marine; and rail, pipeline, and hazardous materials—as well as 73 investigation-related employees, such as engineers and meteorologists. NTSB’s modal offices vary in size in relation to the number of investigators, with the Aviation Safety office being the largest. In addition, the Office of Research and Engineering provides technical, laboratory, analytical, and engineering support for the modal offices. Staff from this office interpret information from flight data recorders, create accident computer simulations, and publish general safety studies. This review focuses on the extent to which NTSB has achieved measurable improvements from actions the agency has taken in five management and operational areas based on prior GAO recommendations. Training Center utilization. Making efficient and effective use of resources provided by Congress is a key responsibility of federal agencies. NTSB’s Training Center, which opened in August 2003 in Ashburn, Virginia, consists of classrooms, offices, and laboratory facilities used for instructional purposes and active investigations. NTSB uses this center to train its own staff and others from the transportation community to improve accident investigation techniques. NTSB charges tuition for those outside NTSB to take its courses, and generates additional revenue from space rentals to other organizations for events such as conferences on a cost reimbursable basis. Although there is no statutory requirement that NTSB cover the cost of its Training Center through the revenues generated from the facility, a 2007 review we conducted found that NTSB was not capitalizing on its lease flexibility to generate additional revenues and classrooms were significantly underutilized. For example, we found that less than 10 percent of the available classroom capacity was used in fiscal years 2005 and 2006. Furthermore, NTSB was encouraged in a Senate report accompanying the 2006 appropriations bill for DOT to be more aggressive in imposing and collecting fees to cover the costs of the Training Center. Since then, NTSB leased a large portion of the Training Center’s non-classroom space to the Federal Air Marshall Service and provided short-term leases of classroom space to other organizations. In addition, NTSB increased the amount of training it delivered at the Training Center. Recommendation close-out process. Efficiently managing the recommendation tracking process is a key function, according to NTSB officials. The recommendation close-out process is managed by the Safety Recommendations and Quality Assurance Division, which has responsibility for tracking the status of its recommendations. When NTSB receives correspondence from an agency about an NTSB recommendation, this division ensures it is properly routed and reviewed and contacts the agency about whether the response is acceptable. If NTSB is delayed in communicating with agencies about whether NTSB considers actions to address recommendations acceptable, that agency could delay implementing a course of action pending approval. In fiscal year 2010, NTSB replaced a lengthy, paper-based process with an automated system— the Correspondence, Notation, and Safety Recommendation system (CNS)—intended to facilitate the recommendation close out process by electronically storing and automatically routing agencies’ proposals to the appropriate NTSB reviewers, allowing for concurrent reviews by multiple parties within NTSB, and more accurately tracking responses. It is important to note that an agency is not necessarily restricted from implementing action prior to formal NTSB approval of that action. Depending on the complexity of the issue, agencies may begin to address issues prior to NTSB’s providing formal approval. In other circumstances, NTSB addresses safety deficiencies immediately before the completion of an investigation. For example, during the course of the TWA flight 800 investigation, NTSB issued an urgent safety recommendation once it was determined that an explosion in a fuel tank caused the breakup of the aircraft. Communication. Useful management practices include seeking and monitoring employee attitudes, encouraging two-way communication between employees and management, and incorporating employee feedback into new policies and procedures. This type of communication and collaboration across offices at all levels can improve an agency’s ability to carry out its mission by providing opportunities to share best practices and helping to ensure that any needed input is provided in a timely manner. To this end, NTSB managers and board members began holding periodic meetings with staff, conducting outreach to regional offices, and surveying staff about the effectiveness of communication techniques. Diversity management. Implementing a diversity management strategy and a more diverse workforce helps foster a work environment that not only empowers and motivates people to contribute to mission but also provides accountability and fairness for all employees. Diversity management helps an organization create and maintain a positive work environment where the similarities and differences of individuals are valued, so that all can reach their potential and maximize their contributions to the organization’s strategic goals. NTSB has developed diversity training courses and held events to educate staff on diversity and inclusiveness issues, created career development and mentoring programs to create upward mobility, targeted its recruitment program to reach a more diverse pool of applicants, and surveyed staff to assess the effectiveness of its efforts. Financial management. Sound financial management is crucial for responsible stewardship of federal resources. Traditionally, government financial systems and government managers have focused on tracking how agencies spend their budgets but did not focus on assessing the costs of activities to achieve efficiencies. More recently however, some government agencies have adopted cost accounting systems that track the cost of providing a service—in NTSB’s case, an accident investigation. In 2006, GAO recommended that NTSB develop a cost accounting system to track the amount of time employees spend on each investigation and other activities. This approach allows management to link the cost of providing a service directly with the budget and allocate resources based on those costs. To determine the costs associated with conducting accident investigations, NTSB launched a time and attendance program tied to its cost accounting platform that allows the agency to collect and analyze labor and certain other costs associated with individual investigations. Investigators account for their time on investigations through the time and attendance system using specific codes that identify different investigations. Our analysis found varying degrees of improvement associated with NTSB’s actions in each of the management and operational areas we selected for review. Our analysis showed that NTSB improved the utilization of the Training Center, which allowed it to recover a larger portion of its operating costs. NTSB increased utilization of both classroom and non-classroom space at the Training Center since we conducted our work in 2006. NTSB subleased all available office space at the Training Center to the Federal Air Marshal Service in 2007, and utilization of non-classroom spaces has been at 95 percent since then. At the same time, NTSB increased utilization of the classroom space, increasing its own use of classrooms, subleasing approximately one-third of the classroom space to the Department of Homeland Security in 2008, and providing short term leases to other outside parties for classroom use. Subsequently, NTSB reported classroom utilization rose from less than 10 percent in 2005 to 18 percent in fiscal year 2007. By fiscal year 2009, it had increased to over 60 percent—the target we identified in our 2008 report as the appropriate minimum level. Classroom utilization has remained above 60 percent through fiscal year 2012. We also found that improved Training Center utilization generated additional revenue over time, which allowed NTSB to recover a larger portion of the facility’s operating costs. When the Training Center first opened in fiscal year 2004, NTSB recovered about 4 percent of its operating costs, resulting in a deficit of nearly $6.3 million. Portions of the Training Center’s costs that are not covered by revenues from tuition and other sources such as facility rentals are offset by general appropriations to the agency; therefore, generating additional revenue makes those appropriated funds available for other uses. In 2011, NTSB indicated that it was committed to improving cost recovery at the Training Center. That year the agency set a goal to recover costs of the Training Center within 10 percent of the previous fiscal year. For example, in fiscal year 2010, NTSB recovered $2 million in operating costs, making the fiscal year 2011 goal to recover at least $1.8 million of the Training Center’s costs. NTSB achieved its goal in fiscal years 2011 and 2012 by which time the agency was recovering about half of the Training Center’s operating costs, reducing the operating deficit at the Training Center to $2.1 million, one-third of what it was in 2004. (See fig. 1 for changes in the Training Center’s expenses and revenues.) The automation of NTSB’s recommendation follow-up process has reduced the amount of time it takes to formally respond to agencies about whether planned actions to implement an NTSB recommendation are acceptable.