STATEMENT OF ELMER B. STAATS, COMPTROLLER GENERAL OF THE UNITED STATES MR. CHAIRMAN AND MEMBERS OF THE SUBCOMMITTEE: We appreciate the opportunity to present our plans for the General Accounting Office in FY 1975. In my statement today, I would like to briefly discuss some of the major factors that we consider in planning and developing our estimates. REQUEST FOR FISCAL YEAR 1975 Our FY 1975 request is $123.7 million. That will fund 5,230 manyears of GAO staff time or an increase of 150 manyears over that provided in our FY 1974 appropriations. The budget requests of our division and office directors totaled 5,600 manyears based on their projection of workload for FY 1975. My decision to limit our request to 5,230 manyears, was made to hold our staff to the minimum necessary to meet increased workload over which we have little or no control. This level of staffing will permit us to meet known and projected congressional requests for assistance and to meet workload increases in other areas where we have little or no discretion. The requested increase will give us a slight increase in reviews of new and expanded Federal programs. Our request for FY 1975 is $13 million more than our revised estimates for FY 1974 totaling $110.7 million. Of this, we will need $2 million for the full year's cost of general pay and other increases which were effective for only part of FY 1974. We will need $2 million to fund the 150 manyear increase to meet expanded workload. Another $2 million will be required for increased costs due to changes in employee pay--promotions, periodic step increases; and $1 million will be needed for increased costs of benefits and travel. We requested $6 million in FY 1975 because, for the first time, we will be required to reimburse GSA on a continuing basis for space assigned to GAO. In the past, we paid GSA only for the cost of leased space during the first year of occupancy. STAFFING TO MEET PLANNED FY 1975 LEVELS In staffing to meet planned FY 1975 levels, we will continue our trend toward further increasing the interdisciplinary character of our staff. About 27 percent of our professional staff is now made up of persons trained in disciplines other than accounting. Such other disciplines cover a wide range of skills, which we feel are increasingly necessary to much of our audit work and particularly to our evaluations of program results. Progress under our equal employment opportunity program in the 1973 recruiting year was good. Performance during the first seven months of FY 1974 indicates that we will equal or exceed last year's results. We recognize that emphasis in this area is necessary on a continuing basis to achieve our full commitment to an affirmative, results-oriented program of equal employment opportunity. In this connection, we are pleased with our recent implementation of an upward mobility program which provides "bridge" jobs and makes it possible for secretarial, clerical and administrative personnel to become members of our professional staff. Nine persons are now performing in these jobs and taking college courses at GAO expense. We expect this program to build up gradually. By FY 1978 we anticipate having 80 persons in the program at one time. Costs for our total program, including both the Equal Opportunity Program and that for Upward Mobility will be $890,000 in FY 1975. GENERAL PERFORMANCE HIGHLIGHTS As you know, we work to improve Government programs without regard to the dollar savings that we might claim from our work. For the most part, actions taken on our recommendations cannot be measured in dollar savings. Where we can identify those savings specifically and where the actions have been taken by the Congress or by an agency, we do, however, keep a record of them. In FY 1973 such savings amounted to $284 million, which was roughly three times our budget for that year. Attachment 1 summarizes tangible savings for FY 1973. One of the ways we bring about savings is by working closely with the appropriations committees. Our work involving ammunition plants is an example of this. We found that the Army's FY 1973 and FY 1974 appropriation requests included projects for modernizing plants that were not needed or for which the design and engineering was not complete. As a result of our work, the House Committee on Appropriations reduced the Army's FY 1973 request by $20 million. Then, following the FY 1974 appropriations hearings the Army reduced its request by $4.1 million and the Committee further reduced the revised request by $85.3 million, identifying projects which should be deferred until design and engineering was complete. Even more important, in some ways, are the recommendations we make that may not result in dollar savings but do lead to increased effectiveness of Government programs. For example, in connection with a review, we obtained statistics on hazardous locations--where the highest incidence of serious accidents took place in various States' highway systems. Then we obtained estimates of what would be necessary to remove the obstacles and bring them into conformity with safety standards. Working with the Senate and House Public Works Committees, we recommended that a certain amount of money be earmarked to remove obstacles which were creating serious highway hazards. Subsequently, the Congress earmarked $375 million in the Federal-Aid-Highway Act of 1973 to improve high hazard locations and eliminate roadside obstacles. Based on the available statistics, use of this $375 million fund should save 1,450 lives and prevent 22,000 injuries annually over the life of the improvements. IMPACT OF LEGISLATION AND Numerous legislative and other congressional actions will continue to have a marked effect on GAO work programs. A. Legislation Vesting Specific New I will mention just a few of the more significant 1. 2. 3. 4. The Health Maintenance Organization Act of 1973 The Trans-Alaska Pipeline Act of 1973 gave Amendments to the National School Lunch and The Defense Appropriation Authorization Act B. C. More significant over the long run is legislation which creates new Federal programs or expands existing program levels. We will need to audit them just like we do all other programs. Again I will give just a few examples: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. The Emergency Petroleum Allocation Act of 1973, along with other emergency energy programs, can be expected to result in a substantial The Consumer Product Safety Act will contribute The Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1973 (P.L. 93-87) The Trans-Alaska Pipeline Act (P.L. 93-153) The Agriculture and Consumer Protection Act Pending Legislation Which Would Increase the GAO Workload A wide range of legislative proposals have been introduced in this Congress which could significantly increase our workload. Examples are bills which would require GAO to: --Provide Congress with information on Presidential impoundments of funds appropriated by Congress and bring civil 32-477 O-74-3 |