6:53 am, June 20, 2013
GAO News 
Top News
- Sequestration, budget cuts taking its toll on DoD
- Small companies won't feel effect of lowered contractor pay cap
- GSA trying innovative approaches to disposing of real property
- IRS draws new criticism over $70M employee bonuses
- VA identifying project managers, then improving their skills
- OMB sets new deadlines to improve data on USASpending.gov
- As VA works to eliminate one backlog, one more might emerge
- BRAC-like commission proposed to hunt down government cost savings
- Sequestration claims another conference: DHS' GFirst cyber event
- Postal Service closing Capitol Hill post offices in 'symbolic' move
- Senators seek cost cuts for F-35 fighter jet
- Fed pens new furlough song
- Web guru Dorris brings new life to government websites
- EPA CIO Jackson returning to private sector
- Navy strikes enterprise licensing deal with Oracle
- Contractors with security clearances lack path to report problems
- NSA leak case gives vendors reason to reevaluate personnel
- 8 contract executives guilty of 8(a) contracting fraud
- Whistleblower suit leads to $12M false claims settlement by SAIC
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GAO: Few small companies would be affected by lowered contractor pay cap
Reducing the contractor compensation cap to the level of the salary drawn by the President ($400,000) or the Vice President ($230,700), as suggested by some lawmakers and the White House in the past, would dramatically increase the number of employees who earn compensation above the allowable limits GAO said. But the changes would mostly affect large companies, auditors said, because few of the small companies it surveyed pay their employees more than the amount earned by the President and Vice President.
Comment
Gov't report: Smooth launch unsure for health law
GAO: Smooth and timely launch uncertain for Obama health law; administration making progress
Comment
GAO: Agencies should expand TechStat reviews to all high-risk projects
Federal agencies need to step up their use of TechStat sessions, the Government Accountability Office concluded in a new report. The face-to-face meetings of IT officials and agency leaders have been put to use by the Office of Management and Budget and individual agencies to turn around or terminate dozens of failing IT projects. But only about a third of the agency projects deemed most at risk of cost overruns or schedule slips have undergone the reviews, GAO reported.
Comment
Rep. Issa heading down familiar path for IT reform; Senate still in discovery mode
Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) plans to offer the Federal IT Acquisition Reform Act (FITARA) as an amendment later this week to the 2013 Defense Authorization bill. The Senate held a hearing looking at the best approach to empower federal CIOs. The Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee heard that transparency, visibility and senior leadership are common traits among successful CIOs.
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DoD using flawed approach to calculate $1.1B in improper payments
The Defense Department reported making just $1.1 billion in improper payments in fiscal 2011, a small fraction of the Pentagon's total outlays of more than $1 trillion. But, in a new report, the Government Accountability Office said those estimates are neither reliable nor statistically valid because of "longstanding and pervasive" weaknesses in DoD financial-management practices as well as specific deficiencies in the department's procedures for estimating improper payments.
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GAO's Orice Williams Brown -- 'When she speaks, people listen'
The Partnership for Public Service named Orice Williams Brown, the managing director of GAO's Financial Markets and Community Investment, a finalist for a 2013 Service to America Medal.
Comment
Performance.gov faces identity crisis
Nearly two years after the site launched, the Office of Management and Budget still hasn't clearly defined its purpose or its intended audience, according to a new report from the Government Accountability Office.
Comment
White House wants to root out copycat programs - starting with STEM
The Obama administration's proposed fiscal 2014 budget called for consolidating or eliminating 116 of the government's 226 STEM initiatives and centralizing the coordination of STEM programs under just three agencies: the Education Department, the National Science Foundation and the Smithsonian Institution. The administration's STEM proposal is one of the government's first visible steps in reversing some of the duplication that riddles the federal landscape and which some lawmakers have seized on as examples of government waste.
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GAO, OMB spar over whether to measure data center cost savings
Government auditors told House Oversight and Government Affairs members that saving money from closing more than 1,000 data centers needs to be metric. OMB said optimization of core data centers is a more important measure than straight cost savings.
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GAO bid protests
Jack Horan, partner at McKenna Long and Aldridge LLP, will talk about GAO bid protests, including how the process works, and how many protests are successful.
May 7, 2013
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Lawmakers take on legislative process in fight against duplicative programs
Two senators from the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee want to change Senate rules in an attempt to make sure new federal programs or initiatives in proposed legislation don't overlap with existing efforts. Earlier this month, two House members introduced a measure that would require House committees of jurisdiction to hold oversight hearings on an annual report from the Government Accountability Office detailing government duplication.
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Experts discuss DoD's challenges in reaching a clean audit
Former DoD Deputy CFO Al Tucker and Asif Khan from the Government Accountability Office join Francis Rose on this week's edition of Pentagon Solutions to discuss the challenges DoD has in reaching a clean audit by 2017.
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Does a bad audit really affect agency operations?
Bob Dacey, the chief accountant at the Government Accountability Office, helps Federal News Radio answer this question as part of our special report, Rise of the Money People.
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Redundant agency programs wasting billions of dollars
From catfish inspections to military uniforms, redundancy problems within government agencies span virtually every major department and agency across government, according to Comptroller General Gene Dodaro. The latest report from Dodaro's Government Accountability Office brings the number of redundant or inefficient mission areas within agencies to 162.
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Cost-conscious DoD reduces pricetag of big-ticket acquisition programs
The size and cost of the Defense Department's portfolio of major weapons acquisition programs have fallen to their lowest levels in five years, according to a new report from the Government Accountability Office. DoD's major weapons portfolio decreased by 10 programs in 2012 -- to 86 programs -- while the total cost of DoD's big-ticket procurements fell by $152 billion to $1.6 trillion.
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GAO to review agency sequestration planning, implementation
House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) asked auditors to review five different areas of sequestration. The Government Accountability Office will examine the actual sequestration order, as well as the July 31 memo to agencies from the Office of Management and Budget. He also wants GAO to look at any supporting reports, regulations and orders for compliance with the Budget Control Act, the Balanced Budget and Emergency Deficit Control Act, and other relevant statutes.
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Federal Drive Interviews -- Feb. 19, 2013
GAO's Mark Gaffigan talks about how the federal government will experience increased fiscal exposure due to climate change. Gary Somerset discusses the GPO's new Pinterest page. On Legal Loop, procurement attorney Joe Petrillo discusses a change in status for the Alaska Native Corporations. John Plaguta of the Partnership for Public Service discusses the critical skills gaps in the federal workplace. Former SEC Chairman Harvey Pitt talks about rule writing in the wake of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act.
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DHS, DoD among agencies making slow, steady progress to get off High Risk list
GAO adds two new areas to the list, NOAA's satellite programs and the federal government's financial risk because of climate change. Comptroller General Gene Dodaro said nearly every initiative on the list made progress in fixing their problems over the last two years.
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IRS program, interagency contracting finally removed from High-Risk list
A total of 30 programs, once again, are considered troubled, including two new areas. But, the Government Accountability Office removed the IRS' Business Systems Modernization program after 18 years on the list, and interagency contracting after 8 years.
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DoD slow to codify some interagency contracting standards
Despite a big policy push from the administration, some agencies have lagged in implementing guidance dealing with interagency contracting, according to a recent report from the Government Accountability Office. Still, GAO said the creation of a policy framework by the Office of Federal Procurement Policy had gone a long way toward ameliorating some of the issues that landed interagency contracting on the watchdog agency's high-risk list eight years ago, such as duplication and unclear lines of authority between agencies.
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