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UPWARD MOBILITY PROGRAM

Mr. STAATS. I might add one point here, Mr. Chairman. We have what we think is one of the best upward mobility programs in the government. We take individuals who are not professionals, maybe administrative or clerical even, and help them with their expenses to go to college, and then hire them as professionals. We would like to supply the information for the record on the number of those individuals. We have had very favorable comment on that from other agencies.

Mr. BENJAMIN. Please.

Have you ever been analyzed, reviewed, or evaluated by any part of the Civil Rights Division or the Equal Opportunity Employment Commission?

Mr. STAATS. The Civil Service Commission has evaluated our program.

Mr. BENJAMIN. For your affirmative action?

Mr. STAATS. Yes.

Mr. BENJAMIN. Not only for the program but-

Mr. STAATS. We have to update that once a year for them, and then they came in 2 years ago to make an evaluation.

Mr. PIN. A little over 2 years ago.

Mr. STAATS. About 2 years ago. I am happy to say, Mr. Chairman, that we have had a search for an equal opportunity officer for GAO and we think we have found a very good man in Mr. Yuille over here who just joined us about 3 or 4 weeks ago.

Mr. BENJAMIN. Have you seen this document? You haven't even seen it now, have you?

EMPLOYEE MORALE

Mr. KELLER. Mr. Chairman, with reference to the material you handed me, the memorandum of December 20 concerns a different problem than equal employment. It is a broad question of employee morale as a result of a number of changes we have made. I have replied to that memorandum, which I will furnish for the record. Mr. BENJAMIN. Please.

Mr. STAATS. Some of the criticism referred to in the December 20 memorandum comes about because we have been making a large number of changes in the way we do our work in GAO, and again to try to get our work out faster and at less cost. It puts a strain on an organization when you have changes of the kind that we have put into effect in the last 4 or 5 years. For example, some individuals didn't have to travel before and now they are having to travel. There is also a concern in GAO about the slowdown in promotions. This slowdown has come about because of the slowdown in our budget in the last 2 years, as we have pointed out. When your budget is stable or being reduced, then you obviously have fewer promotions than you do when you are not in that situation, so that both those factors I think play a part in this memorandum.

Mr. BENJAMIN. So that no one thinks that I totally agree with what you are saying, other than the section 311 restriction, I think we have been very fair in the GAO budget, but not necessarily the staff years, as you pointed out earlier.

Mr. STAATS. We are not making this as criticism at all. I hope you will understand this. We would like to have had some increase

in 1978, but we understood about that. I think our main problem comes about because of the 5 percent cut, plus this big, unexpected workload increase that we have been hit with this last year, which we did not fully anticipate when we were here a year ago, and which no one could have anticipated. It has just been unprecedented.

Mr. BENJAMIN. I don't know if Mr. Stokes or Mr. Giamo have contacted you, since they also have had copies directed to them, but whatever response you share with us, would you please also direct copies to them?

UPPER LEVEL HIRES

Mr. KELLER. Mr. Chairman, one of my staff just handed me statistics on upper level hires last year. I notice we had a total of 115 from October 1, 1977, through September 30. Of the 115, 48 were minorities.

Mr. BENJAMIN. How many were women?

Mr. KELLER. Thirty one.

Mr. BENJAMIN. Is that within the 48?

Mr. KELLER. That is within the 48. It actually breaks down 10 blacks, 1 Hispanic, 6 Orientals, and 31 women.

Mr. BENJAMIN. We will wait until we receive your response to this. If we have any further questions we will direct them to you on that.

GAO HOTLINE

In January, a news article indicated that a problem existed between the GAO and OMB with regard to a telephone hotline on which citizens can report fraud, waste or abuse in Federal operations.

What is the status of this project? Have any problems been resolved between the two agencies?

Mr. STAATS. I don't think there is a problem, Mr. Chairman, at all. As a part of this anti-fraud effort that we have made, we instituted, at the suggestion of the Senate Appropriation Committee, a toll-free line, whereby a citizen or a government employee, anyone, could call in, anonymously or not, to offer any information they might have with respect to either fraud, abuse or allegations of such. This is, incidentally, paying off very well, much better than any of us thought it would. We can give you details on that if you would like.

Mr. BENJAMIN. Would you please. I ask that, Mr. Staats, because the FBI has apparently done it in three instances, and they are evaluating how successful it has been. Their preliminary report shows it wasn't as successful as they thought it might be.

Mr. STAATS. We find that over half of the calls that have been received have some substance behind them. In some cases they are sending forward documents. This is a higher figure than we thought it would be.

What is involved in the executive branch, and this item in the press is a garble, is the following: They are interested in implementing the so-called "whistleblower" provision in the Civil Service Reform Act. Some of the agencies are setting up not public toll-free lines but lines in the Federal tele communications system, whereby an employee can call in to the Inspector General of the agency. It

is a very different kind of a function, but there is no problem or disagreement at all between us and OMB.

IMPLEMENTATION OF INTERNAL AUDIT AGENCIES'
RECOMMENDATIONS

Mr. BENJAMIN. On October 25, 1978, the GAO issued a report which explained that more effective action was needed to implement recommendation contained in the audit reports of the executive branch's numerous internal audit agencies.

Could you explain what progress has been made in resolution and/or collection of questioned or unallowable costs? Do you have any suggestions as to how the Congress might act to improve this situation?

I ask that for the record.

Mr. STAATS. All right.

[The following responses were supplied for the record:]

Subsequent to issuance of the report, OMB officials met with agency representatives concluding that there is indeed a problem. In a letter dated December 6, 1978, they requested agencies to provide additional information on unresolved audit findings and audit followup and resolution systems.

Recently OMB informed GAO that some agencies did not respond with information that was exactly as OMB wanted. As a result, OMB does not have a good measure at this time in the backlog of questioned or unallowable costs. OMB does believe, however, that the situation has improved since agencies have been reexamining and improving their audit resolution systems. OMB also is considering what changes are needed to its circulars containing guidance for resolving audit findings. GAO has received agency replies to the draft and final report. Most of the replies agreed, at least in principle, with the audit findings and the need for improvement. In a general way, the Department of Defense felt that no changes were needed in their current system. Several other agencies disagreed with specific individual recommendations. In some cases, even when the agencies agreed, there is some question whether the corrective actions cited will correct the problems.

GAO staff is currently working with the House Government Operations Committee to prepare for hearings on the report. The hearings are expected in March.

BUDGET SCHEDULES AND JUSTIFICATIONS

Mr. BENJAMIN. At this point in the record, we will insert the budget schedules, the organization chart, the narrative on pages B1 through B-12, and the summary tables on pages C-1 through C-8 of the justifications.

[The information follows:]

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U.S. GENERAL ACCOUNTING OFFICE PROGRAM AND PERFORMANCE

INTRODUCTION

This section describes CAO's overall work plan and the staff resources required in FY 1980. Using an Office-wide perspective, it:

--summarizes the status of CAO funding and staff year requirements
for FY 1979--as a backdrop to those for FY 1980;

--describes the need for additional staff resources in FY 1980 as
they stem from:

. legislatively mandated requirements for particular audits
and evaluations,

. legislation creating new or expanding existing Federal programs,
and

. specific requests of Committees and members for specific
audits and evaluations;

--summarizes our planned work and application of resources
by Office-wide program categories; and

--describes our work plans for each of the program categories.

The staff requirements of the various divisions and offices by which GAO's work is carried out are detailed in sections following this one. Those sections identify specific division and office responsibilities and indicate the resources that will be required to fulfill then.

THE STATUS OF GAO FUNDING AND STAFF YEAR REQUIREMENTS FOR FY 1979

For FY 1979, GAO requested $187.8 million to fund 5,264 staff years, an increase of 120 staff years over those that we had been authorized for FY 1978. The appropriations committee authorized the 5,264 staff years that we had requested but approved only half-year funding for the 120 staff year increase over FY 1978 levels.

While this action called for a significant adjustment in our plans, we felt we could accommodate it because we would have the full benefit in the following year, 1.e., FY 1980. However, the Fiscal Year 1979 Legislative Branch Appropriation Aut withheld from obligation and expenditure 5 percent of the total amounts approved except for payments required by law. This action brought to $176.5 million the resources available to GAO in FY 1979--a level which would provide resources for only 5,100 staff years. This is 44 staff years less than FY 1978 levels.

This would, we believe, seriously jeopardize GAO's ability to carry out our responsibilities. Consequently, we have--in a separate "Justification of Request for Supplemental Appropriations"--asked for a total of $5.5 million to provide the additional resources needed to fund 5,182 staff years in FY 1979.

While this staff year level will fall well short of our FY 1979 requirements, it will permit us to have 5,350 staff on rolls at the end of FY 1979 and provide a base permitting us to realize the 5,350 staff years that constitute a minimum level of coverage in FY 1980.

B-1

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