<DOC> [108th Congress House Hearings] [From the U.S. Government Printing Office via GPO Access] [DOCID: f:92126.wais] 25th ANNIVERSARY OF THE INSPECTOR GENERAL ACT--WHERE DO WE GO FROM HERE? ======================================================================= HEARING before the SUBCOMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT EFFICIENCY AND FINANCIAL MANAGEMENT of the COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT REFORM HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES ONE HUNDRED EIGHTH CONGRESS FIRST SESSION __________ OCOTBER 8, 2003 __________ Serial No. 108-110 __________ Printed for the use of the Committee on Government Reform Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.gpo.gov/congress/house http://www.house.gov/reform ______ 92-126 U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE WASHINGTON : 2003 ____________________________________________________________________________ For Sale by the Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Printing Office Internet: bookstore.gpo.gov Phone: toll free (866) 512-1800; (202) 512ÿ091800 Fax: (202) 512ÿ092250 Mail: Stop SSOP, Washington, DC 20402ÿ090001 COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT REFORM TOM DAVIS, Virginia, Chairman DAN BURTON, Indiana HENRY A. WAXMAN, California CHRISTOPHER SHAYS, Connecticut TOM LANTOS, California ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN, Florida MAJOR R. OWENS, New York JOHN M. McHUGH, New York EDOLPHUS TOWNS, New York JOHN L. MICA, Florida PAUL E. KANJORSKI, Pennsylvania MARK E. SOUDER, Indiana CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York STEVEN C. LaTOURETTE, Ohio ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland DOUG OSE, California DENNIS J. KUCINICH, Ohio RON LEWIS, Kentucky DANNY K. DAVIS, Illinois JO ANN DAVIS, Virginia JOHN F. TIERNEY, Massachusetts TODD RUSSELL PLATTS, Pennsylvania WM. LACY CLAY, Missouri CHRIS CANNON, Utah DIANE E. WATSON, California ADAM H. PUTNAM, Florida STEPHEN F. LYNCH, Massachusetts EDWARD L. SCHROCK, Virginia CHRIS VAN HOLLEN, Maryland JOHN J. DUNCAN, Jr., Tennessee LINDA T. SANCHEZ, California JOHN SULLIVAN, Oklahoma C.A. ``DUTCH'' RUPPERSBERGER, NATHAN DEAL, Georgia Maryland CANDICE S. MILLER, Michigan ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, District of TIM MURPHY, Pennsylvania Columbia MICHAEL R. TURNER, Ohio JIM COOPER, Tennessee JOHN R. CARTER, Texas CHRIS BELL, Texas WILLIAM J. JANKLOW, South Dakota ------ MARSHA BLACKBURN, Tennessee BERNARD SANDERS, Vermont (Independent) Peter Sirh, Staff Director Melissa Wojciak, Deputy Staff Director Rob Borden, Parliamentarian Teresa Austin, Chief Clerk Philip M. Schiliro, Minority Staff Director Subcommittee on Government Efficiency and Financial Management TODD RUSSELL PLATTS, Pennsylvania, Chairman MARSHA BLACKBURN, Tennessee EDOLPHUS TOWNS, New York STEVEN C. LaTOURETTE, Ohio PAUL E. KANJORSKI, Pennsylvania JOHN SULLIVAN, Oklahoma MAJOR R. OWENS, New York CANDICE S. MILLER, Michigan CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York MICHAEL R. TURNER, Ohio Ex Officio TOM DAVIS, Virginia HENRY A. WAXMAN, California Mike Hettinger, Staff Director Larry Brady, Professional Staff Member Amy Laudeman, Clerk Mark Stephenson, Minority Professional Staff Member C O N T E N T S ---------- Page Hearing held on October 8, 2003.................................. 1 Statement of: Gianni, Gaston, vice chair, President's Council on Integrity and Efficiency and Inspector General, Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.; and Barry Snyder, vice chair, Executive Council on Integrity and Efficiency and Inspector General, Federal Reserve Board...................................... 62 Walker, David M., Comptroller General, U.S. General Accounting Office; and Clay Johnson III, Deputy Director for Management, Office of Management and Budget............ 16 Letters, statements, etc., submitted for the record by: Cooper, Hon. Jim, a Representative in Congress from the State of Tennessee, prepared statement of........................ 10 Gianni, Gaston, vice chair, President's Council on Integrity and Efficiency and Inspector General, Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., prepared statement of..................... 66 Johnson, Clay, III, Deputy Director for Management, Office of Management and Budget, prepared statement of............... 46 Platts, Hon. Todd Russell, a Representative in Congress from the State of Pennsylvania, prepared statement of........... 3 Snyder, Barry, vice chair, Executive Council on Integrity and Efficiency and Inspector General, Federal Reserve Board, prepared statement of...................................... 81 Towns, Hon. Edolphus, a Representative in Congress from the State of New York, prepared statement of................... 6 Walker, David M., Comptroller General, U.S. General Accounting Office, prepared statement of................... 19 25th ANNIVERSARY OF THE INSPECTOR GENERAL ACT--WHERE DO WE GO FROM HERE? ---------- WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 8, 2003 House of Representatives, Subcommittee on Government Efficiency and Financial Management, Committee on Government Reform, Washington, DC. The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 2 p.m., in room 2247 Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Todd Russell Platts (chairman of the subcommittee) presiding. Present: Representatives Platts, Blackburn, and Towns. Also present: Representative Cooper. Staff present: Mike Hettinger, staff director; Dan Daly, counsel; Larry Brady, Kara Galles, and Tabetha Mueller, professional staff members; Amy Laudeman, clerk; Mark Stephenson, minority professional staff member; and Jean Gosa, minority assistant clerk. Mr. Platts. With the belief that a quorum will very presently be established, we are going to begin this hearing of the Subcommittee on Government Efficiency and Financial Management, and the hearing will officially come to order. Twenty-five years ago this month, Congress created Inspectors General throughout the Federal Government in response to serious and widespread internal control breakdowns that resulted in significant monetary losses and reduced effectiveness and efficiency in Federal activities. Since their creation, IGs have been largely successful in carrying out their mission, reporting billions of dollars in savings and cost recoveries, as well as thousands of successful criminal prosecutions. There are currently 57 Inspector General offices with 11,000 employees and a total budget of nearly $1.5 billion. Twenty-nine IGs are appointed by the President and confirmed by the Senate, and 28 are appointed by agency heads in Designated Federal Entities [DFEs]. Inspector General offices are responsible for conducting and supervising audits and investigations, promoting economy, efficiency and effectiveness and preventing and detecting fraud and abuse in their agencies' programs and operations. IGs serve an important function in our system of separation of powers. Their autonomy and independence provide a crucial balance between the executive branch and the Congress. In August 2002, the General Accounting Office issued a report that explored the options consolidating some IG offices and changing the status of others. GAO surveyed the IG community to determine how consolidation would affect independence, quality of work and the best use of resources. Today, we will look at the progress that has been made in the past 25 years since the IG Act was passed and what, if any, legislative changes are needed to help the IG community ensure efficiency, accountability and effectiveness within the Federal Government. We are greatly honored here today to have before the subcommittee the Honorable David Walker, Comptroller General of the U.S. General Accounting Office, and the Honorable Clay Johnson III, Deputy Director for Management at the Office of Management and Budget; and they will be part of our first panel. On our second panel we will have the Honorable Gaston Gianni, vice chair of the President's Council on Integrity and Efficiency and the Inspector General of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.; and Mr. Barry Snyder, vice chair of the Executive Council on Integrity and Efficiency and Inspector General at the Federal Reserve Board. We appreciate all the witnesses being with us, and we all appreciate your fine service to our Nation, day in and day out. I am now pleased to yield to the ranking member of the subcommittee, the gentleman from New York, Mr. Towns. [The prepared statement of Hon. Todd Russell Platts follows:] [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T2126.001 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T2126.002 Mr. Towns. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Last week, the Government Reform Committee reported out a resolution commending the work of the Inspectors General on the occasion of the 25th anniversary of the act. I strongly supported that resolution and am proud to be an original cosponsor. The Government Reform Committee has a long history of working with the Inspectors General to eliminate waste, fraud and abuse in Federal programs. Indeed, the Government Operations Committee drafted the original statute establishing the Inspectors General in the executive branch 25 years ago. The close working relationship between the Inspectors General and our committee is entirely appropriate. The Inspector General community is one of the Congress' principal watchdogs in the executive branch. There is much we can learn from each other as we work to ensure that our government operates in the most effective and efficient manner possible. The IGs have a very difficult job. They are appointed by the President, but report to the Congress as well as the head of the agency. As independent investigators within the Federal agencies, they are often the last person a manager wants to hear from. Yet, in many instances, the toughest jobs are the ones that need to be done the most. During fiscal year 2002, IGs returned over $4.5 billion to the Federal Government in restitution and recoveries, and their audits identified another $72 billion in funds that could be used more effectively. They also had more than 10,000 successful criminal prosecutions. Similar accomplishments are made year after year. The IGs have more than proven their usefulness to Congress and the American public. The 25th anniversary of the Inspector General Act is also a logical point in time to examine whether any improvement could be made to the act. Several suggestions have been made to help enhance the independence of the IGs, adjust certain reporting requirements, and codify in statute the existing IG Council. I am pleased to hear that my good friend Representative Jim Cooper is drafting legislation on these and other issues. And I am ready to work with him and the chairman and anybody else that is concerned about this to try and see what we can do to strengthen the act in every way. On that note, Mr. Chairman, I yield back. Mr. Platts. Thank you, Mr. Towns. [The prepared statement of Hon. Edolphus Towns follows:] [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T2126.003 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T2126.004 Mr. Platts. I now would like to recognize Jim Cooper from Tennessee. Representative Cooper is a member of the full Government Reform Committee, and while he is not a member of this subcommittee, he certainly has a strong interest in improving government accountability and has drafted legislation that proposes a number of changes to the IG Act. I am now pleased to recognize Mr. Cooper for the purpose of making an opening statement. Mr. Cooper. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you to my friend Ed Towns. I appreciate your kind words and appreciate your letting me sit in on this hearing. My purpose is to try to draft consensus legislation with the help of the IGs themselves, with the help of experts in this area, and with the help of both parties in Congress, so we can do what we can to strengthen what is already a great government institution. The draft bill, as proposed, is called the Improving Government Accountability Act, and it would do several things. One, it would try to increase the independence of each IG by creating a fixed term of office and eliminating any possibility of arbitrary or politically motivated dismissals. Right now, IGs currently serve at the pleasure of the appointing authority, whether it is the agency they serve or the President of the United States. And while it is indeed rare, IGs have occasionally been dismissed for less than cause. My bill would set a 7-year term for every IG and have dismissal procedures for cause as is common in the private sector. That standard for removal would be the same one that applies currently under the statute for the Comptroller General for permanent disability, malfeasance, inefficiency, neglect of duty, conviction of a felony, or conduct involving moral turpitude. That was our best thought for really ensuring IG independence. Second, the bill would ensure that IG offices have access to sufficient resources from Congress. And here what we are thinking of is, although IG funding is ultimately determined by Congress through the appropriations process, IG budget requests are often submitted as part of an agency's overall budget request. We have heard several anecdotal reports of agencies punishing IG offices by dramatically shrinking or by reducing the IG budget; and we were thinking that it would be good for Congress to have copies of their funding requests sent directly to Congress, so we could know how much the IGs were cut back, and also require the President's budget to provide a comparison of budget requests submitted by IGs and the budget requests submitted by the agency involved. This provision would partially free the IGs from being captured by the agency appropriations process. And it would, I think, provide more transparency. Next, we would like to codify the current governing councils for the IGs, which seem to work in an excellent fashion, but now they are a creature of Executive order. This would allow dissemination of best practices on an even better basis and, I think, a unified institutional voice for the IGs, both the Presidentially and agency-appointed ones. It would combine both of the current councils into a single council, codify the council and also authorize about $750,000 a year in operating funds through the year 2009 to ensure their organization and efficiency. And finally my bill would improve direct access of IGs to Congress. Under current law, IGs submit semiannual reports to their agency heads, who then have 30 days to transmit the report to Congress. Many IGs have argued that this process diminishes their access to Congress and undermines their ability to draw attention to an agency concern. This is particularly true due to the filing dates for these reports which oftentimes, in fact, almost invariably fall during a congressional recess, which limits their impact. So what we would like to do is allow IGs to report directly to Congress and to bypass agency intercession. I think that would enable Congress to exercise its oversight responsibilities more effectively. And we would change the IG reporting dates to January 31 and July 31, when we are more likely to be in session. So, in sum, Mr. Chairman--and I appreciate your indulgence--we would like to applaud the IGs for their terrific work for the American taxpayer these last 25 years. It is incredible the efficiency and effectiveness of this group of internal monitors in these agencies. So I would like to do what we can, Mr. Chairman, to further enhance their ability to serve the American taxpayer. [The prepared statement of Hon. Jim Cooper follows:] [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T2126.058 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T2126.059 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T2126.060 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T2126.061 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T2126.062 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T2126.063 Mr. Platts. Thank you, Mr. Cooper. We appreciate your participation here today. I would like also to recognize that we have the vice chairwoman of our subcommittee, the gentlelady from Tennessee, Mrs. Blackburn. Would you like to make an opening remark? Mrs. Blackburn. Mr. Chairman, I have no opening remarks, but as always, I have plenty of questions and will just take advantage of the time at that point. Mr. Platts. We will proceed with our first panel and ask our witnesses for the first panel to stand and raise their right hands and prepare to take the oath together. [Witnesses sworn.] Mr. Platts. The clerk will note that both witnesses have affirmed the oath, and we will proceed now directly to testimony from our first panel. Mr. Walker, we will begin with you, followed by Mr. Johnson; and after the conclusion of your testimonies and Q and A with our first panel of witnesses, then we will proceed to Mr. Gianni and Mr. Snyder. We do have your written testimonies and appreciate the time and effort that went into preparing those for both members and staff and would ask that you somewhat limit your oral statements here today to about 5 minutes. We are not going to be a real stickler on that, because we appreciate your time and the wisdom you will share with us. STATEMENTS OF DAVID M. WALKER, COMPTROLLER GENERAL, U.S. GENERAL ACCOUNTING OFFICE; AND CLAY JOHNSON III, DEPUTY DIRECTOR FOR MANAGEMENT, OFFICE OF MANAGEMENT AND BUDGET Mr. Walker. Mr. Chairman, Mr. Towns, other Members, I appreciate the opportunity to be here to be able to review the 25-year experience of the IG Act. I would ask, Mr. Chairman, that a copy of the full statement be entered into the record so I can, just now, summarize. Mr. Platts. It will be done. Mr. Walker. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. There's no question that the Inspector General community has made a significant difference in Federal performance and accountability during the past 25 years. As indicated by their many reports, they have saved billions of dollars for the public. They have made thousands of recommendations and thousands of criminal and civil referrals. Notwithstanding the accomplishments of the past, however, the Federal Government as a whole, and including the performance and accountability community of which GAO and the IGs are a part, face continuing challenges to be able to meet increasing demand with available resources. One of the challenges that face us in the performance and accountability community today is how we can do more with less and how we can improve our own economy, efficiency, effectiveness, transparency and accountability, because I am a strong believer that we should lead by example, since we are the ones holding others accountable. It's not just GAO, but also the Inspectors General, whether part of the PCIE or the ECIE. Although both GAO and IGs have efforts in place to identify major risk and challenges within the Federal Government, there really is no current formalized mechanism in place for us as a community to carry out a strategic and integrated planning and coordination process, which I think is necessary in order to maximize the return on the collective investment in the performance and accountability community. There is a provision in current law that requires some coordination by the IGs with the GAO, but that has really been more ad hoc in the past, and it is one of the areas that I think we need to figure out how we can work together more in a complementary fashion for the benefit of not only the Congress but the American people. With regard to the consolidated financial audit, as you know, IGs have a number of different roles and responsibilities. One of the areas that the GAO works on with the IGs, among others, is in the conduct of the audit of the consolidated financial statements of the U.S. Government. And most of that is going well. As you know, 21 of 24 CFO Act agencies have clean opinions on their financial statements, while a number have internal control challenges and various compliance issues. But as we look ahead to the day where, hopefully, GAO will be able to initially express a qualified opinion on the consolidated financial statements of the U.S. Government and, hopefully, leading to a full opinion--I hope before the end of my 15-year term--the fact of the matter is, we are going to have to do things differently. There have been some issues with regard to the agency financial statement audits. We're going to have to have access to records and other information a lot earlier in the process, and certain steps are going to need to be taken in order to assure the quality and consistency of audits throughout government. I am happy to answer questions in that regard or any other areas. With regard to this--one of the things I would point out is, through working with OMB in a constructive fashion, the Secretary of the Treasury, the Director of OMB and myself as Comptroller General have agreed to accelerate financial reporting, accelerate auditing on those financial reports and to really try to raise the bar on what acceptable performance is in the financial management area. I think that is a major step in the right direction, but it will place additional challenges on all of us as we try to meet these new requirements. One of the other issues that I think is important is to keep in mind is that, in the private sector, when an entity is audited, the audited entity typically bears the cost of that audit. I think that's something that needs to be considered for public-sector entities as well, that the entity that is being audited bear the cost of that audit, at least as it relates to departments and agencies. We also believe that it's appropriate for consideration to be given for selective implementation of financial management advisory committees or audit committees, at selected Federal agencies, based upon value and risk. This is a private-sector best practice, and we think it's something that needs to be considered for the public sector as well, as well as certain other aspects of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act such as certifications by agency heads and CFOs with regard to financial reporting. As you mentioned, Mr. Chairman, GAO issued a report last year dealing with a number of IG offices. There are 57 IG offices. About half of the IG's are Presidential appointees and about half of the IG's are appointed by their agency head. We recommended that the Congress consider consolidating the number of IG offices. We did this for a variety of reasons: economy, efficiency, effectiveness, flexibility, accountability and independence. The fact of the matter is, there are real independence questions when the agency head selects the IG. Furthermore, there are real issues as to economy of scale and whether or not there is adequate critical mass with regard to some of the smaller IG offices. We believe it is possible to accomplish consolidation of IG offices in a manner that would not dilute the coverage for some of the agencies that currently have their own IG if it's properly designed and properly implemented. Obviously we will be happy to answer any questions on this matter. As you might imagine, when we solicited the opinions of ECIE members, which are the agency-appointed IGs and the PCIE members, their opinions tend to diverge based upon where they sat. All the parties have a vested interest in the outcome. Candidly, we don't have a dog in this fight, and we're just trying to make recommendations to Congress. Reasonable people can differ, and will differ, but we think it's an area you need to consider. On page 16 of my testimony, I outline several other areas where we think consideration should be given for possible legislation dealing with the need for a coordinating mechanism, the possibility of elevating certain current IGs to Presidential appointee, Senate confirmation status, and the possibility of consolidating certain IG offices. And by the way, what we put in our report was an illustrative example; it wasn't a formal recommendation. It was illustrative of how you might be able to consolidate offices, not necessarily the way to do it. And last, also, as Mr. Cooper mentioned, my written testimony supports the idea of formalizing, through the statutory process, coordinating councils within the IG community, and among the Federal performance and accountability community as well. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Platts. Thank you, Mr. Walker. [The prepared statement of Mr. Walker follows:] [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T2126.005 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T2126.006 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T2126.007 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T2126.008 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T2126.009 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T2126.010 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T2126.011 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T2126.012 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T2126.013 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T2126.014 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T2126.015 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T2126.016 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T2126.017 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T2126.018 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T2126.019 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T2126.020 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T2126.021 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T2126.022 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T2126.023 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T2126.024 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T2126.025 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T2126.026 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T2126.027 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T2126.028 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T2126.029 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T2126.030 Mr. Platts. Mr. Johnson. Mr. Johnson. Thank you. As the Deputy Director for Management at OMB it is my privilege to be the Chair of the PCIE and the ECIE. What that calls for me to do is to work with the leadership of these two groups to make sure that, in addition to being a tough watchdog and in addition to being the last person management wants to hear from, these groups of the IG community are also--as their charter or as their mission statement calls for them to be, that they are agents of positive change, that they are finding ever more effective ways to work with Department leadership to help better accomplish each agency's mission, and that they are working as effectively as possible to prevent waste, fraud and abuse in addition to discovering it and eliminating it. Also, it is my responsibility as the Deputy Director of OMB to be the senior person in this administration that drives the President's Management Agenda. So I work closely with the IGs to look for additional ways for them to be involved in that as their--as the IGs' mission and the stated goal of the President's Management Agenda, those goals are the same and that is to create--to cause the Federal Government to become even more focused on results, to become even more effective and to allow us to spend and account for the people's money ever more wisely. It's my privilege to work with Gaston and Barry and their groups, and I find that the primary value that I bring to that group is, I can help them work even more effectively with agency leadership and administration leadership to accomplish their goals and the administration's goals. Thank you. Mr. Platts. Thank you, Mr. Johnson. [The prepared statement of Mr. Johnson follows:] [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T2126.031 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T2126.032 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T2126.033 Mr. Platts. We'll proceed right to questions and again shoot for about a 5-minute question period for each of our panel or each of the members and then have subsequent rounds as time allows and members have interest. Mr. Walker, if you could start, and you touched the recommendation you have made about consolidation of the department-appointed IGs with the Presidential appointees and you identified a number of areas--the independence, efficiency, effectiveness. In your opinion, what's GAO's position, the most important reason for that? Is it because they're not as effective as they could be or is it more about saving dollars? Is there one of those issues that really jumps out? Mr. Walker. This is in no way intended to say that the individual IGs aren't doing a good job. That's not the case at all. The question is, what is the best way to go about ensuring the independence of the IGs? Independence is really an issue with regard to the agency-head-appointed IGs. There's a fundamental, at a minimum, appearance of a conflict of interest when the agency head appoints the IG and can remove the IG. It's obvious. It's recognized in independent standards with regard to generally accepted auditing standards. Second, the fact of the matter is there's also an issue if you've got an IG shop that has less than 5 or 10 people. Do you really have enough of a critical mass in order to get the job done? Do you have access to things that otherwise you might be able to achieve if you were part of a larger organization? There's also an issue of flexibility in reallocating in the areas of highest risk and highest value. My personal view, Mr. Chairman, is, I believe that the government as a whole--not just the IG community and the performance and accountability community--needs to review and reassess the number of silos that it has. I think government has too many silos and too many stovepipes. The more silos that you have, the more potential duplication and inefficiency you have; furthermore, the more you have to rely on coordination of activities rather than integration of efforts. I might note that we basically did this at GAO where we went from 35 individual units down to 13, and it along with other actions, has enhanced our capability quite a bit over the last several years. Mr. Platts. It's fair to say--kind of summarizing your approach, what is the mission here and is there a problem with how--what is the best way to fulfill the mission? Mr. Walker. That's correct. This is not an indictment or a complaint in any way, shape or form with regard to any particular IG. The question is--as you know, Mr. Chairman, we face large and growing budget deficits. We face serious challenges. The question is, how can we get as much done with the resources we have? How can we improve economy, efficiency, effectiveness, flexibility, and how can we assure independence. That's really where we're coming from. Mr. Platts. In your survey and making recommendations, you talked to the Presidentially appointed IGs, the department- head-appointed and the consensus and kind of a turf battle, in a sense, that drove the general positions. Were there any independent voices with Presidentially appointed IGs or the department-head-appointed IGs that stood out from their colleagues that--maybe start with the Department appointees--that said, actually, I do think this will be a good idea, that jump out as more the exception? Mr. Walker. There were some exceptions and without talking about specific individuals, I guess what I would say is that we did the survey as a supplement to our work. Obviously, we're not in the business of just doing polls and making recommendations based on poll results. This is not referendum government. So the fact of the matter is, we wanted to be able to get a sense from where the IG community was coming from, first from the Presidentially appointed, the PCIE and then the ECIE, the agency-head-appointed, because that's important input not only for us but for the Congress to consider. Not surprisingly, as you can imagine, reasonable people can and do differ on the issue of consolidation, and not surprisingly the Presidentially appointed IGs who might end up gaining additional resources and authorities and scope generally supported it by a wide margin. Not surprisingly, the ECIE members many of which, not all of which, would be merged into a PCIE, expressed concerns, some of which were very legitimate concerns, as to what the impact might be on them, their offices or the agencies that they have responsibility for. However, we believe those issues can be effectively addressed. Mr. Platts. Was there followup, though, with the ones in the Presidential-appointed IGs, the ones that didn't recommend or favor consolidation? Was there followup with them? Because they were not--I mean, it's human nature, kind of, to protect turf; but because they were not doing that to expand their area, did you followup with them--and same with the other side--to give a little more weight to their opinions because they did stand out from their peers? Mr. Walker. We did have formal and informal dialog to try to help understand why people felt the way that they did. I also might say that one of the things that happened this past year, which I am very appreciative of, is, I was given the opportunity to attend the Inspector General's Planning Conference for the PCIE and ECIE to be able to talk about areas for coordination and cooperation and also to talk about this consolidation report. I also had an opportunity to speak one on one with a number of Inspectors General from both the PCIE and EICE about their views. And you know and as I said, reasonable people can differ. We gave one example of how you could consolidate. We still stand behind our recommendation and we believe the pluses outweigh the minuses with regard to consolidation and, also, elevation of some of the current ECIE members to Presidential- appointee status. Mr. Platts. Mr. Johnson, from the administration's perspective, what is seen as the most important priority of IGs auditing financial statements, guarding against waste and fraud? It's kind of that priority mission, in the opinion of the administration; and based on that, what do you look for as you are looking to fill IG positions? What are you looking for as most important, whether financial accountability, investigative background? Mr. Johnson. IGs themselves say that they are agents of positive change; and that is a big umbrella, but I think the right umbrella. It talks about prevention versus ``gotcha,'' talks about partnering--with being independent of agency management, but also partnering with agency management in helping agencies accomplish their missions. And I think that collaborative, but yet independent relationship is what I consider to be my highest priority in terms of working with the IG community. In terms of what we look for, it depends. We ask the same questions of IGs that we ask of Assistant Secretaries or Deputy Secretaries or Secretaries: What do we want the person to accomplish in the next 2 to 3 years? There are large investigations that need to take place, or large financial management matters or audit matters. The nature of the primary task in the 2, 3, 4, 5 years that a person is likely to hold a position would determine what kind of person we look for. If it is investigative, we would look for investigative background. If it is financial management and audit management, that's the kind of background we look for also. So it depends on what we deem--what the financial community, what the comptroller at OMB use to be the primary challenge in that agency; and also we partner with the Secretary in terms of determining whether the person--what kind of person we are looking for in that position. And also the same thing is true, is the person in that position doing a good job? This administration has been involved in the removal of, I think--in the point of terms, I think it's three or four or five, I think, IGs. And the feeling was, they were too oriented to prevention and not enough to investigation or vice versa, or they didn't have the financial background. Whatever the feeling was, they were not the best fit for what the job called for at that agency at that time, and so we went through the process of making those changes. So again it is very specific and targeted to what the nature of the past, what the nature of the objective is. Mr. Platts. I want to yield to the ranking member, Mr. Towns. But I do appreciate the kind of umbrella message, or approach, trying to promote independence, but in a cooperative way. Because that is something, as a subcommittee Chair with oversight responsibilities, that we're independent as we look at executive departments and agencies. We are not here to play ``gotcha,'' but it is to be supportive and a partner in serving the public well. So independent but cooperative. And that approach you are trying to espouse throughout the IG community is, I think, very appropriate. Mr. Towns. Mr. Towns. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Walker, I listened to your comments and, you know, Mr. Snyder makes the point in his written testimony that this would likely sacrifice some of the local preventive presence which having an IG onsite ensures. How would you respond to this point? Mr. Walker. It would be very easy to make sure that you deployed certain resources decentrally. In other words, if certain ECIE-IG shops were consolidated into a PCIE IG shop, that does not preclude the responsibility of their still having certain IG members at that individual agency. We have people at GAO in more than just our headquarters in Washington, DC. We have people in 11 cities around the country. We have certain audit sites in various major departments and agencies where we have people there on a full-time or part-time basis. So I believe it's possible to deal with that issue even if these functions are consolidated. Mr. Towns. They could place somebody there? Mr. Walker. Sure. For example, if there's enough work or enough concern about agency X, then I would argue that the Inspector General, whoever he or she might be, consider whether or not there ought to be people physically at agency X on the front line engaging in activities with regard to that on a day-to-day basis. That's part of the IG's leadership and management responsibilities. If the Congress was particularly concerned to make sure that there was a full presence at agency X; then Congress has the ability to deal with that in a variety of different ways. So I think that's a legitimate point, though I think it can be dealt with very easily. Mr. Towns. Would you please elaborate a bit more on your proposal for a Federal Accountability and Performance Council to improve coordination between the IG and GAO. Mr. Walker. Thank you, Mr. Towns. This is a concept we would like to be able to work or with the IG community, as well as the Congress, because we haven't formally formulated it yet. The concept I would give you is this: Clay Johnson does a very good job chairing the PCIE and ECIE. There is a mechanism within the executive branch for there to be coordination within the executive branch among the performance and accountability community. However, I would respectfully suggest that the IGs really have dual reporting responsibilities. They report to the agency head; they also report to the Congress. A dimension that is not adequately addressed, I believe, is the need for there to be some type of ongoing coordination within the performance and accountability community. That means members of the PCIE and members of the ECIE and with the GAO. I think there is a lot that we can and should do and, in fact, are doing to try to work in a constructive and cooperative fashion to leverage our resources, to minimize duplication of effort, and to work in a complementary rather than competing fashion. And yet, right now, the way it works is, that it is based upon the individual good-faith efforts of myself and other IGs and our respective staff, rather than there being a requirement to do something. So I think we need to explore what would make sense for the Congress, for the IG community and for GAO. Mr. Towns. You're not suggesting that the GAO exert control over IGs? Mr. Walker. No, I'm not. I am not talking about that at all. What I'm talking about is that we have a mechanism whereby, from a strategic planning standpoint and from an engagement execution standpoint, that we have more of a formalized, ongoing process, to coordinate our efforts. No, I do not believe that the IGs should report to the Comptroller General or the GAO. Absolutely not. I do, however, believe, as one example, that the IGs can play an important role, for example, in determining who the external auditor for agency financial statement audits is going to be. And the IGs are going to end up coordinating the effort with GAO with regard to who that external auditor is going to be. I do believe that it is imperative that the Comptroller General be consulted with regard to those decisions because in the final analysis, we are the party who has to end up signing the opinion on the consolidated financial statements, and we have to be comfortable with regard to whether or not the work that's being done is adequate. Mr. Towns. You suggested that the agencies pay for the audit. How would that work? Mr. Walker. Most do that now. And let me clarify what I mean by that. A significant majority of the audits of departments and agencies right now are performed by independent certified public accounting firms--PriceWaterhouseCoopers, KPMG, Ernst & Young, Deloitte & Touche, for example. Those are the big four that are still left after consolidation in the accounting profession. There are other firms that do audits. To the extent that those firms do the audits, they are obviously not doing it for free, so they have to be paid. And I think it's important that the entity that is being audited be charged with the cost of that audit. And so the issue is, it's not a matter of whether or not somebody is going to pay, but who should pay and how should the cost be allocated for that. By the way, I am not proposing that for the consolidated financial statement audit. We have the responsibility for the consolidated financial statement audit, and I would respectfully suggest that Congress appropriates money for us to do that audit. And so I'm not asking--I am not going to send OMB a bill for the consolidated financial statement audit. I do, however, think that consideration ought to be given as to whether for instance, the IRS should have to bear some costs for its audit, just as the FDIC does and just as the SEC does, who are two other audit clients that we have. Mr. Towns. I see the light is on--we'll get another round. Mr. Platts. Now recognize vice chairwoman of the subcommittee, the gentlelady from Tennessee, Mrs. Blackburn. Mrs. Blackburn. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And I want to begin by apologizing to all of you. I have been up and down twice as you were giving your comments, and I do apologize for that. It just seems like this is the day constituents have decided to all come and all come at the same time, and not when we have expected them. So I have been spending my time in the hallway, up and down. Mr. Platts. Mrs. Blackburn, how would you like to be 96 miles from the Capitol? Mrs. Blackburn. When I was in the State senate in Tennessee, I was 12 miles from the Capitol. And we love to have them come and visit and appreciate their interest so much, but I do feel as if the up and down is very inconsiderate of the fact that you all take the time to prepare your testimonies and come over here to us and talk with us. I did want to provide that explanation. Mr. Walker, I think I will begin with you. And, first of all, I enjoyed the article that was in Wall Street Journal or somewhere, your comments from the Press Club; it was excellent. And I--it was one of those that I made a lot of notes as I read it, and I appreciate that. In your testimony, you had mentioned going through--having a top-to-bottom review of Federal policies and programs that would be conducted to make the Federal Government more sustainable, and I think also to make it effective for the 21st century. My question to you is, do you think this should be handled by an independent commission that would go in and look at resources and programs and reallocations and such, or is that something that could be handled through activity by the Inspectors General? Mr. Walker. Well, I think it needs to be handled through a cooperative effort and the combined efforts of a variety of parties. First, I don't think the issue is ripe yet for an independent commission. Let me try to elaborate on what I intended by that. GAO is the third Federal agency I have headed. I have headed two in the executive branch and one in the legislative branch, and I have had the good fortune to have leadership responsibilities in both the public and private sector. And I hae found that government, especially at the Federal level, is an amalgamation and accumulation of various policies, programs, activities and functions over decades. We have this amalgamation and accumulation that occurs over all these decades, and there's a tremendous amount of time focused on whether we are going to end up getting a little bit more or a little bit less, or tweak this here or tweak this there. However, there's not enough of a fundamental review and reassessment of whether or not this policy, program, function and activity makes sense today and whether or not it will make sense tomorrow. I think it is critically important that we engage in that process because the world is fundamentally different today. It's changing very rapidly and we have very serious budget deficits, a structural deficit that we are going to have to deal with. And to do that, it takes combined efforts. For example, one of a number of positive things---- Mr. Johnson. One of a number of very important things. Mr. Walker [continuing]. One of the number of positive things that Clay is doing is, through the President's Management Agenda, this issue of linking resources to results. That is part of the concept. What are we trying to accomplish? What's the mission? How do you measure success? How can you demonstrate you're making a difference? That's something that I think that OMB and the agencies have a responsibility to do. The IGs can play a constructive role; GAO can play a constructive role and Congress, I think, must play a constructive role not only through the oversight process, but the authorization process and, frankly, the appropriations process. Because if there aren't consequences for not doing a good job, then why should people pay any attention? If people who do a good job aren't somehow rewarded, then what kind of incentives are we providing? I think there is a lot that can and should be done in the context of the current system. At some point in time, there might be the need for a commission, but I don't think we're there yet. Mrs. Blackburn. Looking at going forward with that thought pattern, if we had an independent commission or a council, would we have members of the GAO, the PCIE and ECIE on the commission; or should a comprehensive review by a completely independent council? Mr. Walker. First, I think you have to have qualified people that have the time and the ability to get the job done. Without knowing what it would be, it's difficult for me to respond. Let me just say, I have seen different models work. For example, one model could be--is that you would have the GAO and the IGs provide support, testify and provide some type of support to that commission. Another model which has worked, but in a very different context, is that the Congress decided about a year and a half ago that there were problems in the area of competitive sourcing; and they decided that they wanted to create an advisory council, and actually had the Comptroller General head that council to make recommendations to the Congress that involved OMB, OPM, various unions and other parties. There are different models that can work, and I think we would have to discuss what you are trying to accomplish and therefore what alternatives might make sense. Mrs. Blackburn. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Platts. We'll come back around again. Mr. Cooper. Mr. Cooper. Thank you again, Mr. Chairman and madam vice chairwoman and Mr. Towns for allowing me to participate. Strikes me as a good news/bad news situation. I think most Americans would be delighted that IGs have saved us nearly $72 billion and prosecuted some 10,700 bad guys. But the bad news is there is that much waste out there and that many bad guys. So I don't think we will ever know how much more there is to be done, but I am thankful that they're working, as you all are, to police that fraud and abuse. Mr. Johnson, first question I had on the councils that you already are the head of, what's your opinion of an idea to codify those councils, to put them together into one group and give them a minimal $750,000 annual operating budget? Would that help in the sharing of best practices? Mr. Johnson. I think they take it upon themselves now to improve their standards and look at what their recommended codes of conduct are and so forth. I think they do a good job. If they were codified, they could perform that function more readily. I think it depends on what you codify. I think some of the CIO council and the CFO council are both codified by statute. We have a Federal Acquisition Council that exists by neither statute or Executive order. We just created it. I think it can work either way. I am not opposed to codification, but that alone will not ensure its effectiveness. I think it's very important that the IG community be codified by statute or by Executive order--do tie into OMB. I think the Deputy Director for Management can be a tie to management, and a tie to the budgets can be a most effective tool for getting agencies to listen to what the IGs are recommending for that agency. I think we represent--we work with agencies all the time on budget matters and general management issues, and to work on matters that are brought to light by the IG community is just an extension of that. So we are already set up to do that, to work with the agencies, to drive them to better performance for the American taxpayer; and to do that with the IG community is consistent with what we already do. Mr. Cooper. I appreciate your views on that, and I look forward to working with you to make sure we do that. Mr. Johnson. We will work with you on the language. Mr. Cooper. Mr. Walker, on the point of IG independence, it seems like there are a couple of ways to enhance their independence. Consolidation may be one way so that an agency head is not directly responsible for picking their own IG. The way that we were looking at it in our draft legislation--and it is just a draft form--is to have a 7-year term and then dismissal for cause. I am open-minded about consolidation. Can you be open- minded about a term and dismissal for cause? Mr. Walker. Absolutely. I think they're not mutually exclusive. My personal view is, I think it would be desirable to have statutory criteria for Inspectors General. I think it would be a good idea to consider term appointments. I do think that you need to have some criteria for removal. Who am I to argue with the criteria for the Comptroller General? I think that the term needs to be reasonably long enough for them to be able to make a difference. And as I understood, what you are proposing is 7 years. I think that's a reasonable term. I do think the President has to play a role, but if you had fewer PASs with a term appointment and specified grounds for removal and statutory qualification requirements, I think that would be a major plus for the independence of the IGs. Mr. Cooper. I welcome your views on that. Mr. Johnson. Mr. Cooper, may I add a comment to that? I am not sure that anybody has indicated that there's not already sufficient independence. My understanding is that the independence level that exists now in the IG community is more than adequate. I can understand there's potential--that we are addressing potential here, but I think the way it's set up now creates a significant amount of independence. I personally would be opposed to a term. There were four, five IG changes that we made at the beginning of this administration that had nothing to do with malfeasance. We thought the person had the wrong set of skills for what the nature of the job was at that point in time. And having terms would have prevented us from getting somebody better suited for the job at that time. The reasons you gave for just cause don't include matters such as that. Wonderful people, they have all the right statutory and education and experience requirements; they are just investigative rather than financial, or vice versa; and I think the administration's ability to deal with that is limited if you put a term on it. Mr. Cooper. Mr. Johnson, it strikes me that your concern is not with the term, but the definition of ``dismissal for cause.'' And if we define that to include a wrong fit for the agency, that might alleviate your concerns. Mr. Johnson. But that is so broad. We could do that, but in effect, I think you have no term. Mr. Cooper. My concern now, having talked to a wide number of IGs, is that they feel considerable pressure as individuals when they support sensitive areas and a more regular, private- sector-like situation might be helpful. Most people in the private sector kind of know what ``for cause'' is, and maybe we can adjust that slightly for government contacts because we do want the right fit and we need an appropriate balance between prevention and ``gotcha.'' Mr. Johnson. Of course, maybe the pressure they feel is the pressure to get it right, which is a good pressure to have. Mr. Cooper. Well, we live in a political world, and there are a lot of folks who know that there are certain things that they will be in trouble if they investigate. And wouldn't it be wonderful if we lived in world when they could investigate wherever waste, fraud or abuse occurred? So let's work on a way and see if we can't do that. Mr. Walker. I think both of you made good points. Mr. Johnson is talking about the fact that maybe you could end up doing something on the basis for removal, but it would have to not be so general that it really didn't have much significance. If you look at the criteria and the reporting requirements, they could be another check and balance. Mr. Cooper. I look forward to working with you gentlemen on that. Mr. Platts. Thank you, Mr. Cooper. Our ranking member has to leave shortly, so we will go to Mr. Towns next. Mr. Towns. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I just want to ask Mr. Walker, you mentioned that IGs must abide by the GAO government auditing standards, the so-called ``yellow book'' that, among other things, governs government auditors' professional qualifications, the quality of the audit effort and the characteristics of professional and meaningful audit reports. I understand that every IG must undergo a peer review every 3 years by another IG to determine compliance with these standards. Can you please tell us what GAO's own experience has been with peer review? Has there ever been an independent review of a GAO compliance with its own audit standards? Mr. Walker. Good point, and let me tell you what we have done and what we are doing. No. 1, we are subject to an external audit and have been for a number of years--a financial statement audit. We have gotten a clean opinion, no material control weaknesses, no compliance problems for several years. Second, we have a peer review conducted every 3 years by a major accounting firm, one of the big four firms of our work in conjunction with our financial statement audits: the audit of the consolidated financial statement of the U.S. Government, the IRS, the Bureau of Public Debt, the FDIC. However, when I became Comptroller General, it became evident--and we do have our own Inspector General, but it did became evident that the scope of that peer review did not cover program evaluations, policy analyses and other types of work. So, therefore, I have worked with my colleagues from around the world. We have now formed a consortium of auditors general from around the world, and GAO will have a peer review done, led by the Auditor General of Canada, next year for the rest of our work. So we've always had a peer review for part of our work, but I want to make sure that we have a peer review for all of our work. Mr. Towns. Mr. Johnson, last year the IG community achieved one of its main legislative priorities in the Homeland Security bill, gaining statutory law enforcement authority. Would you elaborate on how this authority has been implemented. Have there been any significant problems that we should know about? Has there been any resistance to the implementation? Mr. Johnson. I'm sorry. I'm not familiar with the situation, but I'll be glad to find out the answer to that question and get back to you, yes, sir. Mr. Towns. I'd like to make that---- Mr. Johnson. I apologize. Mr. Towns. Thank you very much. I'd be delighted if you'd do that. I yield back, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Walker. Mr. Chairman, if I can, we also have a very extensive and elaborate internal quality assurance process as well. I'd be happy to brief you on it at some point in time. We have our own office of quality and continuous improvement, but I appreciate your question about the peer review. It's a very good one. Mr. Towns. Thank you very much. And Mr. Johnson--for the record I'd like for Mr. Johnson to respond to my question in writing. Mr. Platts. Sure. We'll be keeping the record open for that followup. What we're going to try to do, because we do have votes on the floor, and it's going to be a series of five, so a lengthy period of time, is try to push through as many questions here for our first panel, and then we break, then that will conclude with our first panel, followup with my questions that we don't get included in writing to include in the record your responses, and then start with the second panel when we come back so we're not keeping two of you here while we're over for--and for our second panel witnesses, we apologize. You'll have to wait until we come back over. Let me jump into the issue of the consolidation, and, Mr. Johnson, the administration's position on the GAO recommendation in a broad sense about consolidating the ECIE positions into the Presidentially appointed positions. Are there certain ones that the administration is especially concerned about or has a position that you don't think it would be a good idea? Mr. Johnson. No. We have not looked at it by a specific agency. Our focus has been on if we're going to change something, let's understand specifically what it is we're trying to accomplish. Are we trying to accomplish--create an independence that doesn't exist? Are we trying to save X amount of money? What do we think the opportunity is and at what cost, what interaction or communication cost is that, but just be real clear about what the goals are, be real clear about what we think the risks and opportunities are before we actually decide to proceed. Mr. Platts. And making that type of risk assessment, cost benefit assessment, is there a position today on the recommendation of the broad consolidation? Mr. Johnson. Well, I support what Barry Snyder said, which--I think what they have now is working fine, but I think we'd be perfectly open to studying that and understanding what the opportunity for savings are. I don't believe there is a need for additional independence. I think there's about as much independence as there can be, but perhaps the savings, the efficiency thing, is an opportunity that exists. Mr. Platts. One specific consolidation that the administration has supported or recommended, and it seems to deal more with efficiency, not independence but cost benefit, is with Treasury and the tax administration IG. Do you want to expand on that? Mr. Johnson. Seventy percent of the Treasury's duties and responsibilities were transferred to Homeland Security, and so they have the leadership there to oversee a much larger operation than they have to oversee, and it seemed like there was an opportunity to combine those two for almost exclusively efficiency reasons. There are large operations, like the FBI does not have a separate IG from Justice Department, and the FAA does not have a separate IG from Transportation. So there's plenty of precedent for large seemingly independent operations not having separate IGs, and I think the same case might apply here. Mr. Platts. In this year's April semiannual report to Congress from the Treasury IG, the last sentence in that transmittal letter said that, ``We no longer have the resources necessary to provide timely audit and investigation services to the Department.'' Were you aware of that statement and have you looked into the accuracy and how has that been addressed that they do have the resources? Mr. Johnson. Well, the way we addressed it was Linda Springer, who is the Comptroller, talked to Homeland Security and identified additional resources that had been moved--OIG resources that had been moved to Homeland Security that--new audit issues at Treasury that could be detailed back to Treasury to deal with audit matters. So they addressed very specifically the concerns that the Treasury Inspector General identified, and that's one of Linda's responsibilities, is to make sure that if there's some temporary adjustments to be made to deal with these kinds of things that it's taken care of. Mr. Platts. Thank you. I want to allow Ms. Blackburn, did you want to get another question or two in? Ms. Blackburn. You know, we're going to submit all of ours. I do have several, and I know we do need to go vote. Mr. Platts. And I apologize for the timing. Mr. Cooper, did you want to---- Mr. Cooper. As I understand it, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac don't have IGs today. Would that be an appropriate use of the surplus Treasury IG talent to look into some of their activities? Mr. Johnson. Of the surplus--I don't think there is surplus IG talent at Treasury. Mr. Cooper. I thought you said a great deal of the Treasury activities had been transferred to the Department of Homeland Security. Mr. Johnson. Right, along with the IG personnel. Mr. Cooper. So that went with them too. OK. Well, what about the general topic of Fannie or Freddie having IGs, because they're viewed as government-sponsored entities that-- -- Mr. Johnson. I did not know until you just said that they don't have IGs. Should have, but don't. Mr. Walker. OHFEO is the body right now that has the responsibility. There is a proposal, I understand, to transfer responsibility for oversight of Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae to Treasury, but I don't believe it deals with this issue. Mr. Cooper. A final question. Your idea about getting each agency to pay for its own audit is part of the reasoning behind that, to encourage an agency to be more auditable once they're having to bear the costs? Because the DOD may take a generation to be fully auditable unless we find another incentive for them to bear down. Mr. Walker. I clearly think it is an incentive. I mean, it's an incentive for people to be able to make sure they have the right type of controls and systems in place. I also would respectfully suggest that you wouldn't even want to try to audit DOD until you believe that they're in a situation where in fact they are auditable, because otherwise it would be a waste of taxpayer resources. Mr. Cooper. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Platts. Thank you, Mr. Cooper. I'm going to try to squeeze in two more specific areas before we break and run across. One is on--a kind of followup on the consolidation, Mr. Johnson, and a specific position is when we look at the Postal Service and the size of the IG at USPS, and I think the fifth largest from a budget standpoint of all the IGs; yet, it's a department head, agency head appointee versus Presidential. Does the administration support that one being elevated to a Presidential because of the size and responsibility of it? Mr. Johnson. Well, they think an IG being Presidentially appointed or not ensures independence. The IG at the Postal Service I understand is primarily focused on internal auditing of contracts as opposed to the general responsibility of an IG, and when there are general audit issues, other groups get involved. So I think the issue is what is the role of the IG, what is the responsibility, is it expanded in scope. I don't think the issue at the Postal Service is the lack of or presence of independence of the IG, given what their current responsibilities--the current responsibilities are. Mr. Platts. Is it fair then to say that really the administration, whether--when it comes to adding more-- consolidating or having more Presidential appointed IGs really is not in the administration's position kind of relevant. It's more the independence of those IGs, the resources given them, not whether Presidential appointed or not. Mr. Johnson. Well, I think we would like--the administration likes to be able to reserve the right to change IGs if they think they are not appropriate for the task at hand. Now, whether they are Senate-confirmed or not is another matter. Mr. Platts. Mr. Walker, do you want to answer? Mr. Walker. Mr. Chairman, just because somebody is a PAS doesn't mean they're going to be independent. I think the issue is to what extent does the appointment mechanism involve a party independent of who they're supposed to be auditing, investigating, evaluating and reporting on; and the fact is, that if you look at the Postal Service, there is a degree of independence, because the Inspector General is appointed by the Board of Governors. The Inspector General is not appointed by the Postmaster General, and so there is a degree of independence. But if you look at most of the other ECIE members, I'm not saying they're not acting in an independent manner, but what I'm saying is there's absolutely no question that at a minimum there's a major appearance of an independence problem. There's just no question about it. And, if the person you're supposed to be auditing, and investigating and evaluating is the one that appoints you and has the authority to remove you, it's hard to say there's not an issue there. Now, whether or not in fact it manifested itself is a different issue versus whether or not it could manifest itself and whether or not as a matter of integrity and public confidence you wanted to try to deal with a problem before it's a problem. We've seen some things that have happened in the private sector. I would respectfully suggest we want to be ahead of the curve, not behind the curve. Mr. Platts. Final question and then we will recess till approximately 3:45, based on how quickly the votes go. To both of you, seeing the number of the 2002 fiscal year--savings of-- or projected savings in the area of $72 billion, how would you quantify that savings in the sense of what does that mean to the taxpayer when we talk that amount of money that is identified as projected savings, money recovered, not spent, how would you best quantify that? Mr. Walker. I'll address GAO. I would respectfully suggest that Mr. Johnson or the IG should address what they do. For us, we have financial benefits. What financial benefits are, part of them are savings, absolute cost avoidance and additional recoveries. Some of it is where people adopt our recommendations and it frees up additional resources for redeployment to better use, and either the agency or the Congress may decide to do that. In our view our job is to look for economy, efficiency, effectiveness, and accountability. If somebody adopts our recommendation and it results in savings or somehow recovering resources or freeing up resources that can be redeployed to higher use, that's what we call a financial benefit. Our number for fiscal 2003, because we've closed the books, it could go up, it won't go down, is about $35 billion, which is a $78 return for every dollar invested in GAO. Mr. Platts. Mr. Johnson. Mr. Johnson. I know that the IG community has looked at trying to remove all duplication of this benefit reporting, which is good, and we can always find--look for better ways of reporting the benefits of this activity. There's--in addition to the different categories of benefits that David talked about, there's real money saved versus potential money saved. Was that money really, really saved, implemented, did it really happen, or was it the possibility of savings? And so, again, that would call for post-activation audits and so forth. Then you get into the question of do you want to spend the money on the audits--you know, it's those kinds of issues, but we ought to be looking for real savings. And every new program we develop and every old program we audit, we cannot spend enough time on what real results are being accomplished with all the-- -- Mr. Platts. That defectiveness--you know, the efficiency aspect of the IG responsibility, is what is the mission, how are we doing it and is it the best way. I do apologize. We need to run, but I thank both of you for your participation today and we'll followup with some other specific questions. Thank you. We stand at recess till approximately 3:45. [Recess.] Mr. Platts. We're going to reconvene our hearing, and I want to first thank our witnesses and all who have been very patient while we took care of our votes and kind of get started here again. We need to start with swearing in our witnesses. If you'll raise your right hands, and if there are any staff who will be part of it. [Witnesses sworn.] Mr. Platts. And the clerk will reflect that both witnesses answered in the affirmative. And we're going to jump right into your testimony, Mr. Gianni. STATEMENTS OF GASTON GIANNI, VICE CHAIR, PRESIDENT'S COUNCIL ON INTEGRITY AND EFFICIENCY AND INSPECTOR GENERAL, FEDERAL DEPOSIT INSURANCE CORP.; AND BARRY SNYDER, VICE CHAIR, EXECUTIVE COUNCIL ON INTEGRITY AND EFFICIENCY AND INSPECTOR GENERAL, FEDERAL RESERVE BOARD Mr. Gianni. Thanks, Mr. Chairman. I'm pleased to be here today to recognize the 25th anniversary of the Inspector General Act. On behalf of the IG community, we sincerely thank you for calling this hearing and your support of the IGs over the years. In the last Congress the entire House Committee on Government Reform was instrumental in helping the IG community achieve our No. 1 legislative priority, providing most Inspector Generals with statutory law enforcement authority. We appreciate your efforts in getting this important tool enacted into law. Over the next few minutes I would like to highlight important events leading up to the enactment of the IG Act and the impact that the act has had on our government and possible legislation refinements to the act. I addressed the GAO consolidation report in my written statement. I would ask that my entire statement to be included in the record, and will defer to my colleague Barry Snyder to address those issues. For the last 25 years IGs have served as independent voices to their agencies and to the Congress. Early in the 1960's this subcommittee of the House Government Operations Committee began to highlight the need for independent statutory IGs. In 1974 further work by this same committee revealed that the Department of Health, Education and Welfare lacked effective processes for investigating program fraud and abuse. In 1976 this resulted in a statutory IG at HEW. Then on October 12, 1978, the IG act was created. Twelve IGs were bestowed with powers and responsibilities modeled after HEW IG. The House passed the act with strong bipartisan support, while the Senate passed it without opposition. The IG Act was signed into law by President Jimmy Carter. Mr. Chairman, nearly 40 years ago the Congress was clearly looking to shine the light on the Federal programs and operations and to provide a mechanism for independently reporting the results. This desire produced the IG Act, a unique piece of legislation that has stayed the test of time. The act gives the IGs authority and responsibility to be an independent voice for economy, efficiency, effectiveness within the Federal Government. These basic tenets of the act remain constant and strong today. In response to changes in our government, the act has been amended several times. The most extensive amendment occurred in 1988, when reporting requirements were clarified and IGs from designated Federal entities were added, more than doubling the size of the community. Today there are 57 of us. I believe the act has had a profound impact on our government, which can be seen in improved Federal operations, sharper focus on governmentwide initiatives, and increased attention from our colleagues abroad. Impact is also evident in the fact that the IGs are being repeatedly asked by their agencies and the Congress to conduct audits, evaluations and investigations. Congress has seen fit to expand the duties of the IG by assigning new responsibilities through general management laws like the CFO Act, Reports Consolidation Act and FISMA, the Financial Information Security Management Act. It has been talked about today what our accomplishments were last year--$72 billion in potential savings from agency actions on current and prior investigations and through our investigative efforts. We had nearly 10,700 successful prosecutions and suspensions or debarments of over 7,600 individuals or businesses. We had 2,200 civil or personnel actions. The IG community in total had over 234,000 complaints which we processed. More than 4,600 reports were issued, and we testified before Congress 90 times collectively as a community. In addition to focusing on unique issues in our individual agencies, IGs have been attentive to matters that transcend agency lines and impact the government as a whole, such as accelerated reporting on our audited financial statements, annual independent IT--i.e., information technology--security evaluations, critical infrastructure protection programs, erroneous payments, purchase card fraud and abuse and controls over Social Security numbers. In addition, we are continuing to host foreign delegates who are hoping to replicate the basic IG principles in their government. Mr. Chairman, one of the many issues that the House subcommittee wrestled with many years ago was the lack of effective coordination and communication between departments and agencies. The IG Act and the Executive order creating the PCIE in 1981 sought to resolve these issues. The PCIE and the Executive Council on Integrity and Efficiency subsequently created several years later once the DFE IGs were established serve this community. We currently have an executive committee. We have six standing committees that deal with coordinating and processing our work. We have five roundtables and working groups that delve down into topical issues that help various IGs working in these areas do their work. We actively coordinate with other Federal management councils such as the CFO, CIO, as well as maintaining ongoing dialog with the GAO. We maintain two professional training facilities and promulgate standards for our community to ensure that our work is of the highest quality and integrity. We oversee a peer review process to ensure that our audits and investigative work is done in accordance with professional standards. We maintain an IG community Web site, and we publish semiannually a professional journal. It is important to note that the two councils do not receive any funding to support these items and rely on individual IGs to absorb the costs. Codification and funding support of the two councils, which is one of our legislative proposals, would help to eliminate these funding issues and provide opportunities to enhance our initiatives. As I mentioned before, we believe that the act's provisions have worked quite well; however, in anticipation that the Congress might revisit the act for our 25th anniversary, we developed four proposals which are summarized in my written statement. These proposals, which are still under review by the IG community, include codification of the PCIE and ECIE, creation of statutory terms of office and removal for cause protection, personnel flexibility for inspectors general, and changing the reporting periods of our semiannual reports. As I mentioned, these proposals are still under review within the IG community and will need to be thoroughly discussed with our oversight committees as well as with OMB before we can endorse them. We understand, as Congressman Cooper has discussed, that he is planning to introduce legislation on improving government accountability. We look forward to working with him and your subcommittee to refine these proposals. As far as the future direction of the community, I agree with Clay Johnson's written statement that the future of the IG community is bright, but speaking as a former auditor, in order to keep that future bright we need to be constantly looking for ways to improve our operations and to ensure that our nearly 11,000 employees are adequately trained and well-equipped. We must also remain ever mindful that our integrity and credibility is of the utmost importance to remain effective in our unique position as IGs and as agents of positive change in our agencies. IGs have been operating in a changing environment for many years. We remain flexible and ready to mobilize as new issues emerge, such as accelerated financial statements, erroneous payments, and IT security. Twenty-five years ago IGs were given the authority to be independent voices for assuring economy, efficiency and effectiveness and promoting integrity, accountability and transparency in the Federal Government. We take this authority and responsibility very seriously. Mr. Chairman, in closing, I would like to again thank you and members of your subcommittee for having this hearing. We would also like to express our sincere appreciation to you, Mr. Chairman, and to Mr. Towns, Congressman Cooper and to House Government Reform Committee chairman, Tom Davis, and the committee's ranking member, Henry Waxman, for your involvement and your support of H.J. Res. 70, a joint resolution in recognition of our 25th anniversary. Mr. Chairman, that concludes my remarks, and I will be happy to take questions when you're ready. [The prepared statement of Mr. Gianni follows:] [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T2126.034 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T2126.035 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T2126.036 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T2126.037 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T2126.038 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T2126.039 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T2126.040 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T2126.041 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T2126.042 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T2126.043 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T2126.044 Mr. Platts. Thank you, Mr. Gianni. Mr. Snyder. Mr. Snyder. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Let me also express my appreciation on the opportunity to meet with you today to discuss the 25th anniversary of the IG Act. I'm here today as the vice chair of the ECIE. A lot has been talked about the ECIE already, so I'm sure we'll have a lot of questions on that. Let me just say that the 28 members of the ECIE represent agencies that are a bit different, in that they are regulatory entities, Federal commissions, independent corporations, and boards and foundations. They also have different types of funding, administrative authority, and practices. They have different congressional oversight and funding processes and separate governances and oversight structures. They perform regulatory and other missions and have significant impact on the private sector and the public. I'm going to paraphrase from my written statement today, but just wanted to give you a feel for what the agencies are that make up the ECIE--and I ask that my written statement be put into the record. Mr. Platts. Without objection, it will be. Mr. Snyder. Gaston has talked a little bit about the history of the Inspector General Act leading up to the passage of the act in 1978 and some of the things that have happened since that time. I think the one thing to look at is the success of the act that led Congress to expand the provisions to other major departments and agencies and eventually to smaller Federal entities. During the 10-year period following the passage of the act, the legislative history reflects that Congress gave careful consideration on how best to address audit and investigative coverage in these smaller agencies. Studies and analyses were conducted, bills were introduced and hearings were held, and stakeholder reviews were collected and considered. In 1984 and again in 1986, GAO issued reports which uncovered many of the same problems in these smaller agencies that prompted Congress to establish the IGs in the original 12. Specifically, GAO found a lack of audit independence because auditors were supervised by officials who were directly responsible for the programs and activities under review, inadequate audit coverage of important and vulnerable agency operations, lack of evaluation of significant fraud problems by internal audit or investigative staffs, and audit resolution and followup systems that did not meet government requirements. I think Gaston as well as other presenters here today have also given you an overview of the accomplishments that have been attributed. I won't go into those. Let me just add that as full-time and onsite, the DFE IGs have contributed significantly and tangibly to enhancing programs and activities within their agencies. Over the years, DFE audits and inspections have addressed their agency's various program activities as well as wide-ranging administrative and management issues and concerns such as human capital management, procurement, financial management, budgetary processes and electronic government. Also, our investigations have uncovered program fraud and addressed travel card abuses, conflict of interest, procurement irregularities and other essential organizational and employee integrity issues. I would also today say that the DFE IGs are continuing to have a substantial impact on many of the critical and topical challenges facing our government, including financial management, information technology, and emergency preparedness. For example, the Accountability of Tax Dollars Act of 2002 brings the CFO Act concepts of annual audited financial statements to a number of smaller agencies. Some of these agencies are for the first time now preparing financial statements that will be subject to year-end audit. The DFE IGs are playing a key role to meet the act's requirements of conducting or overseeing these financial statement audits in a timely manner. Similarly, the IT area has been the focus of IGs not only from an operational point of view but also from a security perspective. Like our Presidentially appointed counterparts, DFE IGs are performing and reporting independent security evaluation and agency compliance with the Federal Information Security Management Act. Emergency management and continuity of operations have also continued to be a focal point of DFEs as they address how their agencies can enhance security after September 11th. Gaston has also talked about the IGs and the councils and committees. I will just add that the ECIE are members on the PCIE committees so that we don't duplicate effort, and the various roundtables and working groups that we have look at a wide range of issues such as government performance, information technology and misconduct in research. One of the key reasons I think I'm here today is to talk about the GAO consolidation report. Let me say that while each DFE IG probably has a unique perspective on the report, the formal comments in the report that were incorporated reflect the general comments from 26 of 28 DFEs regarding GAO's conclusions in matters for consideration in the report. First and foremost, the DFE IGs emphasize that consolidation would likely sacrifice providing a local preventive presence and oversight and focus at individual entities in favor of potentially fragmenting the attention of larger IGs across a broader, more diverse spectrum of programs and operations. From the history, it's clear that Congress took a very measured and careful approach in deciding to provide an onsite, accountable IG presence specifically dedicated to carrying out the IG Act mandate at those agencies selected as designated Federal entities. Therefore, DFE IGs indicated that care should be taken to avoid making a change as significant as consolidation without compelling evidence that a consolidation approach in fact would foster better government. We believe that the simple organization and operation structure that comes with being a smaller DFE is well suited to the organizations covered by the 1988 amendments, and that congressional wisdom in taking this approach was well placed. By virtue of being onsite and knowledgeable of an entity's legislative backgrounds, operating environments, cultures and policies and procedures, DFE IGs are able to act quickly to bring about positive change in entity operations. Increasingly DFEs are leveraging their limited resources and contract dollars to respond to legislative requirements for specific audit and evaluation work, such as FISMA, and reporting on their agency's progress in a number of areas of interest governmentwide, such as the President's management agenda. We note that alternatives to consolidation, such as the use of consultants and memorandums of understanding with other IGs that have developed specialized expertise, have been used successfully in the past to augment scarce resources and may offer a way to further strengthen the resources across all IGs. As a result of this analysis, the DFE IGs expressed concern that GAO proposed significant and far-reaching changes to the IG Act and to IG organizations largely based on subjective responses to one survey without providing sufficient supporting evidence that indicates changes in the current IG structure are truly warranted and without views of the entity management, customers and key stakeholders. Absent more detailed information regarding the existence and magnitude of problems with the current structure, the DFE IGs question whether conversion or consolidation would bring about more cost-effective value-added IG operations and results. Almost all of the DFE IGs commented that GAO's proposed consolidation scenarios were a bit overly simplistic given the diversity of the unique agencies that comprise the designated Federal entities. In fact, the end result of consolidation could bring an unprecedented level of complexity to the long- standing IG concept and framework and may serve to only distance the Congress, the public and agency management from the central, dedicated IG at key entities. As far as the future, I think Gaston has highlighted four legislative proposals where we are getting a consensus from the IG community. I would discuss a couple of those in a little bit more detail, particularly the concept of removal for cause and establishing the term limit. Under GAO's recently updated government auditing standards, DFE IGs are in fact organizationally independent to report externally. The original IG Act provided a number of safeguards to allow that. However, there continues to be a perception that DFE IGs' independence is hampered because the IG is appointed by the agency head. If this is indeed the concern, then I think the two provisions that are here, removal for cause and term limits, could go a long way to help remove that perception. I also would want to add one other item that has not been discussed, and that would be to extend the Program Fraud and Civil Remedies Act authority to DFE IGs. That act, when it was passed in 1986, enabled agencies to recover losses resulting from false claims and statements when claims were less than $150,000. Executive departments, the military establishments and agencies defined by the original IG Act, and the U.S. Postal Service have this authority. It's our understanding that Congress intended to provide all IGs with the authority under the Civil Remedies Act when it was enacted, but the DFE IGs obviously came along 2 years later. The legislative committee that we have in the PCIE notes that this proposal has received virtually unanimous support from the entire IG community and could be achieved with a very simple adjustment to that act. Mr. Chairman, this concludes my prepared statement and in closing I would like to again thank you and members of your subcommittee for having this hearing and allowing us to focus on the 25th anniversary of the IG Act and to reflect upon our past accomplishments and future direction. We appreciate your interest in and support of the IG mission and the community and welcome an ongoing dialog going forward. I join Gaston in expressing our appreciation to you, Congressman Towns, Congressman Cooper and committee Chairman Davis and Ranking Member Waxman for sponsoring the joint resolution in recognition of the 25th anniversary. I agree with Gaston that the IG community takes its mission and authority very seriously and remains committed to promote integrity, accountability and efficiency and effectiveness in operations within the individual departments and agencies and across government. At this time, I would be happy to respond to questions. [The prepared statement of Mr. Snyder follows:] [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T2126.045 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T2126.046 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T2126.047 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T2126.048 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T2126.049 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T2126.050 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T2126.051 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T2126.052 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T2126.053 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T2126.054 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T2126.055 Mr. Platts. Thank you, Mr. Snyder, and my thanks again to both of you for not just being here today but for your service day in and day out in your respective agencies. Let me begin maybe with a broad approach with the--we talked a lot today with both panels about communication between Congress and the administration, between the IGs and their respective agency heads or the administration. Between the two councils, if I understand the written testimony here today, the training program is shared by both councils and operated together for the benefit of all IGs. Mr. Gianni. That is correct, sir. Mr. Platts. What type of interaction occurs between the councils and the IG members on the council on a monthly basis, you know, as far as kind of sharing ideas or what's, you know, working, what's not working and your respective duties? Mr. Gianni. We have multiple forms of coordination. I sit on the Executive Council on Integrity and Efficiency. Barry sits on the President's council. So we have both opportunity to be knowledgeable of what each council's concerns are. As Barry indicated in his time, our various committee structure is comprised of both PCIE and ECIE members. So those people who are addressing audit issues, for example, represent the entire IG community. Those people who are dealing with investigative issues, we have an investigative committee, represent the whole IG community. So we go at length to ensure that there is collaboration and communication. In addition, we meet jointly twice a year. And then in addition to that, we have a number of our working groups that have both PCIE and ECIE members, who are addressing a focused issue, such as erroneous payments or accelerated reporting. In addition to that, we have meetings from time to time to discuss mission-related issues. For example, Barry and I are IGs of regulatory agencies. There are seven IGs that have regulatory responsibility. We get together on a monthly basis to talk about financial regulatory issues. Mr. Platts. And regardless whether PCIE, ECIE? Mr. Gianni. Right. We have a common mission where our missions come together. So we coordinate, we look for opportunities where we can do work together on common issues and have done that in the past. We look at how we're communicating with the Congress and how we're working with our agency. Also when we have, let's say, an issue that we're faced with within our respective office or agency, we have our peers who act as a sounding board to exchange ideas and seek advice on some common answers. Now, this happens elsewhere within the IG community. Mr. Snyder. I would only add that we also have an annual planning conference that we go to where all of us get together as well, in addition to all the ones that Gaston mentioned. Mr. Platts. Given these extensive interactions with IGs in both type of departments, agencies, is it safe to assume that pretty unanimously the IG community would support a consolidation of the two councils into one council, and the second part then, and making it statutory as opposed to Executive order? Mr. Gianni. I do believe there would be support for that within both councils. Mr. Snyder. I agree. Mr. Platts. Because it seems that you're doing that, you know, in every instance you can while also maintaining the official separation. Mr. Gianni. The councils are administrative bodies created by Executive order. I think that the idea of codifying the council would be to also recognize that we do have a reporting relationship with the Congress and that it gives us some credibility as a council to the Congress. And as David Walker was talking about, it also would give us an opportunity to build on the working relationships that we have with GAO right now to deal with some of the issues that the Comptroller General was talking about. Mr. Platts. The other aspect, codifying a single council, that would also be the funding of that council directly, you know, from an appropriations as opposed through--because currently your efforts--if I understood you correctly, the cost of your efforts come out of your IG offices, your individual agency budgets, that somehow you take a part of your individual office and put it toward that joint effort. Is that---- Mr. Gianni. That is correct, sir. Mr. Platts. There's no funding for the council per se? Mr. Gianni. There is no funding at all. We're very appreciative of Congressman Cooper's thinking of a funding allocation. A couple of things when it comes to funding. We have two training academies. These training academies are training our investigators. They're training our auditors. We spend over $6 million as a community to operate these training academies. Funding comes from our operating budgets. There is a certain amount of opportunity costs, if you will, that are constant, and to the extent that Congress was willing and saw fit that they would be able to help support those academies in some way, I think that would be certainly beneficial and helpful. When the Congress created the TVA as a Presidential IG office, they also created the authority for us to have an investigative academy and a forensic academy, and for funds to be appropriated accordingly. We have never received any appropriations for those. We have operated our investigative academies from our own budgets by--in the investigative matter, it's an allocation based on the number of investigators that we have within the community. On the audit side it's a cost per training activity. So if you use it, you pay; if you don't, you don't have to pay. But because of those different funding mechanisms, it kind of stifles our opportunities to improve our academies to where they need to be. Mr. Platts. Walk me through from a funding standpoint typical nonPresidential appointed office, as far as how you come up with your annual budget request, and by what you determine how many personnel you think you need to do your job and that translates to salaries and benefits and all related expenses. How does that happen on an annual basis in your respective agencies, you know, with your agency head, and what type of give and take in it, you know? And if you can give me a general idea of what you ask for, what you typically get in response. Mr. Gianni. I'll take a crack at it. I've been in my position for over 7 years. So if the Congressman's bill were to pass, I'd have to leave. Mr. Platts. Now, he may grandfather in---- Mr. Gianni. No. I'm just bringing in a little levity here. The point on budget, when I--my budget has been reduced over the past 8 cycles. I've done this---- Mr. Platts. Every cycle for---- Mr. Gianni. Every cycle for the past 8 years. I had an office that consolidated two IG offices. We had to do some downsizing. We did that accordingly. We entered into---- Mr. Platts. That downsizing was dictated to you by agency head or internal; you said we have the opportunity to do this? Mr. Gianni. It was dictated by the circumstances in our corporation. As the corporation was downsizing we also felt that we had to be a part of that downsizing. We were the destined--so we created plans for our downsizing. And the corporation bought into it, certainly supported it. I present my budget to my chairman. The chairman basically agrees on two things, my staff size and the total dollars. He says, I agree with that. We send it to OMB. OMB forwards it to the Congress, and the Congress reviews it as part of its normal appropriation process. Mr. Platts. When you say the chairman agrees, you know, there's a give and take every year, or is it basically he tells--says here's what we'll accept, and that's the way it is? Mr. Gianni. He has accepted what I've put forward every year. Mr. Platts. Mr. Snyder. Mr. Snyder. It's different at the Federal Reserve, in that we are a nonappropriated agency, so we don't go through the congressional budget process. However, we do have a separate budget within the board related to IG activities. When the IG's office was established in 1987, the Board felt that something less than 10 positions would be enough to do the job. So we started with nine people. That's less than 10. Over the years we--well, it wasn't long after we were there that it was clear that number was not going to be sufficient to get the job done, and we made a request to the board to have our resources increased. There was a good bit of give and take at that meeting. Unfortunately, at the time I was the Assistant Inspector General for Audit. The IG was in the hospital. I got to go and defend the budget. So we had a significant large discussion about the duties and responsibilities of IG, particularly me and one Governor. But ultimately, our budget was increased to 32 positions. In 1997, we cut back 10 percent, or 3 positions, recognizing that the Board as a whole was also trying to hold its budgets down, and we complied with their direction to all divisions that were there. We've felt free, though, to ask for something additional if need be. We've kind of held our budget at that level since that time. Mr. Platts. A lot of our focus today is independence and-- -- Mr. Snyder. I will say I'm a bit unique in having my own budget I think as far as the DFE community goes. A lot of their budgets, I believe, are incorporated in their agency's budgets. They do have to--they are probably in competition with other programs within the agency in terms of funding, and there's probably not another level of review that particularly takes place to any great degree at OMB or here at the appropriations process, unless somebody requests what that level is going to be. Mr. Platts. With the absolute, you know, agreement that independence is critical for IGs being able to do their job well, both in reality and in perception, that perceived independence, the fact that the norm is that IG budgets go through and are really decided by those that you're supposed to be kind of watching over seems one of the most problematic aspects of the existing structure, and if we were to statutorily create the council for all IGs as one, that maybe then presents an avenue where Congress in appropriating the funds works directly with the IGs through that entity as opposed to the individual departments and agencies. A related question, then, is in the amount of money you get, your auditing of your respective departments, agencies comes from those funds that you're--you talked about you approved, how many positions and total dollars. Of that total dollar, your auditing expenses come from that, correct? Mr. Gianni. Yes, sir, audit and investigative expenses. Mr. Platts. So the amount you devote to the audit--and this kind of--I think, Mr. Snyder, in your comments you talk about the new requirement pursuant to 2002 with more agencies having to do that---- Mr. Snyder. Correct. Mr. Platts [continuing]. As those agencies--were they given more money? Mr. Snyder. I think it varies from agency to agency that's out there. I---- Mr. Platts. Because if not, to fulfill the audit requirement they've obviously got less to do in the other investigative, whatever it may be, aspects of your mission? Mr. Snyder. That's true. I believe most of them have taken the route that we have, though, and that is to contract with an independent public accounting firm to do the audits and leave the IG's operations to oversee and to judge the quality of those audits. Mr. Platts. But the cost of those contracts still comes out of the IG's budget? Mr. Snyder. It would come out of the IG's budget and I think many of them had their contract dollars increased to do this. Mr. Gianni. Mr. Chairman, one point of clarification on my part. I misinterpreted your question. The financial auditing for my agency is paid for by the corporation, and it's paid to the General Accounting Office, who is the auditor of record for the financial audits. Mr. Platts. Separate from the budget for IG's budget? Mr. Gianni. Separate from my budget. Mr. Platts. That's probably the exception, though, for the---- Mr. Gianni. That is the exception. That is the exception. There may be one or two other IG offices where the department is paying for the audit out of their revenues as opposed to the IG budget, but I think for the most part it's coming out of the IG budget. Mr. Platts. Because the--and my staff will correct me if I'm wrong in this. When we did a hearing regarding Homeland Security this year for their auditing, there really was no funds for their financial auditing, and the IG office I think came up with 4.5 million, which obviously takes from their ability, and that department, because of, you know, the consolidation of 22 different agencies, we really want that IG to be as active and effective as possible, and that is an example where their ability to fulfill some important parts of the mission probably has been diminished because they weren't given money, but yet they had to come up with money for that financial audit aspect. Mr. Gianni. When the CFO Act was passed over 10 years ago, many of the IGs had to take the cost of conducting the audits out of their budgets, and during that time, I mean, you factor a lot of things in. We've gone through cycles where many of the IGs were in a period where they were competing for resources within their agency, and it had an impact. My personal opinion is the more that we can create a system that allows for openness of what is being transpired and that then the Congress can say we either agree or we don't agree with what's going on, the more we can create that type of transparency to the process. Because of our unique nature I think it would go a long way in helping us be successful. Mr. Platts. What would be--if you--in looking as part of that 25th anniversary, what, if any, statutory changes should be addressed? If you had to focus--you know, I'm always asked this, and I hate being asked this, but one specific change, what would be the most important thing we could do, whether it be for the PCIE member IGs or ECIE IGs, the one thing that Congress could do to allow you to be more effective, more, you know, efficient in your mission assignment? Mr. Gianni. My personal opinion would be the codification of the PCIE and ECIE with some funding. I think that would be the primary one from my perspective, and I can prioritize the others accordingly. I think that's what the community would suggest also, but, you know, I leave that open for future discussion. Mr. Platts. OK. Mr. Snyder. I would agree on the codification. I think the Program Fraud Civil Remedies Act is an easy one to do for the DFE IGs. Related to the question of independence, though, as I stated in my testimony, it could be that the removal for cause and the term limit would be right up there. Mr. Platts. On the GAO report and the recommendations of consolidation--and, Mr. Snyder, with your IG members being maybe most dramatically impacted, and you've given us some good reasons why it's not just about turf, it is about the effectiveness of the IG operations in your members' offices-- are there any of those now, you know, DFE IG offices that you would maybe collectively--ECIE members collectively say would make sense? Like, I'm going to say Amtrak with DOT. Are there any, you know, that specifically because of the circumstances make greater sense than collectively consolidation? Mr. Snyder. I think my answer would be none of them, but let me clarify as we go along here. I think the big concern is if the Congress wants oversight at a particular agency, then the staff needs to be onsite and working at that agency, and that's truly, I think the question. We've talked a lot about size and efficiencies and independence and what have you, but it really comes down to do you want a presence that understands programs and activities of that agency and can provide oversight of that agency? Because absent forcing that--in which case I would ask then why are we consolidating--but absent forcing the level of resources at that agency, then there is the probability and likelihood that the agency--that the DFE resources that would be transferred or somehow moved to the consolidated entity, thus creating some savings I guess would not necessarily be sent back. A number of the scenarios that were there, the DFE agencies and operations that would be consolidated wouldn't even come close to some of the major programs and activities of the departmental agencies that are there. The size is just too different. I don't think it's unreasonable to think that the size of the DFE IGs are small because of some actions to keep them that way. I think what we're looking at is the size of the agencies are small. If you compare DOD and it's 1,000 staff in the IG versus another agency that only has 100 people and there's only 3 or 4 people in the IG office, you could understand why this size is there. Personally, I'm not sure if there isn't a need for a critical mass as we've talked about to be effective as an IG and to carry out all the mandates that are there, particularly with respect to the new programs and activities that have come to these agencies, but I think---- Mr. Platts. So there would be some that maybe are so small, that their ability to fulfill all the requirements is more challenge---- Mr. Snyder. I'm sure it's more difficult and a challenge today. But I would ask the question if we're looking at efficiencies and we're looking at the level of oversight, then maybe we need to look at whether or not an agency needs the level of oversight that was contemplated when that particular agency was designated as a Federal entity for this purpose. If that's still there, then I think it only makes sense to have the IG onsite there so they can respond. There are a number of implementation considerations that also would make this fairly complex to do. You could have situations--or you would have situations where the consolidated IG would be under the, ``general supervision of more than one agency head.'' Having two bosses is somewhat difficult today from an IG perspective of the agency head and the Congress. Giving them three or four bosses--I think in the one scenario the Department of Commerce got a lot of the DFEs. They might have 8 or 10 people that the IG would be under the general supervision of. Next, I think there's some complexity about the oversight committees here on Congress. The IG would be subject to multiple oversight and potentially to multiple appropriation committee oversight as it relates to the different activities that it might be dealing with. So there's some practical implementation considerations that I think that are out there. From my perspective, if you want oversight, they should be onsite. Mr. Platts. I want to give Mr. Cooper a chance to have some questions. Just one followup. Conversely with the GAO's recommendations being that the PCIE membership was more supportive of consolidation, are there any ones that you would specifically think should not be consolidated versus opposite that, you know, should be? Mr. Gianni. I think my colleagues and I approach this as a purely theoretical issue, that because we have--we are larger and tend to have an infrastructure to support both administrative, statistical perhaps, or technical infrastructure, that we would be better able to support these other functions. Whether we consolidate or not is really a congressional decision. The issue of whether we can consolidate has been answered. We did it at Homeland Security. We had four different IG offices folded into Homeland Security. So it's not an issue of that it can't be done. It's an issue of do we want to do it. And if we want to do it for the reasons that the Comptroller General put forward or for other reasons, such as we're beginning to streamline our government agencies and refocusing the mission of our government, I believe that, those are very large, complex issues. We're not going to solve them by just merging a couple IG offices. Mr. Platts. On a specific---- Mr. Snyder. If I could add to that, I think the DFE community would concur that if the agencies are being consolidated, then it only makes sense for the IG's offices to be consolidated. Same would hold true for Treasury and Tax Administration. But I think in many of the instances, the agencies were separated out. For example, NARA was taken out of GSA. Federal Maritime was taken out of Transportation. And now you're going to have the IG go back and really supposedly undo what that separation was all about, and that's where to them it didn't make a lot of sense. Mr. Platts. Mr. Gianni, on that theoretical approach of having the infrastructure, would one of the agencies that you propose for elevation, is the Postal Service, and their independence, and Mr. Walker talked about how they really have independence--to answer to the governing board, not the postmaster and the type of work and given their size, they have the significant infrastructure ability out there for their mission. Would that be one that the PCIE members would maybe agree should be consolidated, or should it need to be changed from its existing format in any sense? Mr. Gianni. Clearly the postal IG is an anomaly as being a DFE when you look at the rest of the DFE organization. As I understand it, there was debate at the time that the Postal Service Inspector General office was created as to where and how that IG would be appointed. It was subsequently agreed that the IG would be appointed by the board of Governors. Whether making that IG a Presidentially appointed IG would make them more efficient, more effective, I don't think that's the issue there. There would be other issues, other considerations that would go into making that judgment. Clearly, if one were to say are there agencies as large as the Postal Service IG that are Presidentially appointed and we want to have some degree of consistency about which ones are Presidential and which ones aren't Presidential, then they would fall in the Presidential category, assuming that both the board of Governors and the Congress could agree that that's what they want to occur. Mr. Platts. I want to give Mr. Cooper a chance for additional questions. Mr. Cooper. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. You have been very kind. I appreciate that. Consolidation as a way of achieving independence is not the only way of achieving independence. Of course, I, in my earlier remarks, was pushing the idea of terms and dismissal for cause; and I could understand and I wasn't surprised by the administration's reaction. They wouldn't mind if everyone could be reappointed on their watch, all Federal judges, too, I would imagine. But terms, to me, ensure an insulation and accountability and also expectation on the part of the professional employee, as long as he or she does their job, they are going to have a 7-year term of office. So to me it's an essential part of professionalism, not the status of being an at-will employee where you just blow with the wind. There are so many issues to discuss, I understand from my staffer, when asked to prioritize the elements of the bill that I am putting together, that codification of the professional councils would be the No. 1 priority. Is there a No. 2 priority in the list of things? Mr. Gianni. I would think, from my constituency in the PCIE, that codification and removal for cause would be a high priority. As was discussed earlier with David Walker and Clay Johnson, the issue is how do you define what the removal criteria would be remains. Again, I don't want to minimize the importance of compatibility in this position. If personalities aren't compatible, then what could happen is that you have a dysfunctional IG office or a dysfunctional relationship that causes the IG to be less effective than he or she could. So compatibility is very important to getting the job done. It's not the only thing, but it is important to making sure that the job gets done effectively. Mr. Cooper. I look forward to working with you to sort of craft the right language there. Efficiency is the goal of everyone, I believe. What's the best way to evaluate the quality of an IG's performance? You have 57 of them out there, some large, some small. How do you spot a great IG versus someone who may be headed toward retirement and not as active as perhaps he could be, and he might have a marvelous personality, but perhaps the job isn't being done. As I understand, when you are trying to catch fraud, you never know when it's good news or bad news, but you catch because it could be an indication there's a lot more to be found. So what's the best way for really evaluating IG performance among IGs? Mr. Gianni. I think that's a very good question that hasn't been answered. Now I can attempt to give you some ways of looking at the performance of an IG. Clearly, I believe that many of my colleagues, if not all, are trying to operate in accordance with the spirit and intent of the Results Act, developing strategic plans, sharing those strategic plans as they develop them with both the Congress and their agency, coming up with annual performance plans as to what they expect to accomplish with their budgets, showing how their funds are being allocated among the various functions that they are performing and then reporting on an annual basis back to both their agency and the Congress about how well they have done. That gives at least some transparency of what an IG is accomplishing. The accomplishments between and among IGs vary greatly depending on their mission, depending on the mission of their agency. If you have an agency that has a lot of contract money, you have an opportunity for having high dollar savings or findings of fraud. On the other hand, if you are a regulatory agency, you might not have as much of an opportunity. In my particular institution, when banks fail, oftentimes, fraud is associated with the banks that fail. My investigators will work with the Justice Department to pursue the people who committed the frauds. From a criminal standpoint, we get judgments, we get restitution orders from the courts. Those are financial measures that show we are doing something. Now will all that money return to the government? Probably not. Some of it has been spent, some of it has been hidden, and it is very difficult to trace back. But these are the types of measures. On the other hand, much of our audit work deals with improving systems, making recommendations for strengthening internal controls. It's very difficult to put costs on that. Even GAO has that as one of their measures, number of recommendations that an agency acted on; and there may not be any dollars associated with it or it's difficult to quantify. So we use that as a measurement for our performance. So there's a variety of measures out there, and we hope we're doing a good job. Mr. Cooper. Perhaps if we are able to codify the professional council of the IGs themselves maybe they will get together and vote on those individuals who are considered to be truly outstanding, and maybe there's an IG hall of fame. I am sure there's a spot for you in heaven somewhere. But maybe that's a way of evaluating true quality performance. Mr. Gianni. We as a community this year have--we have our annual awards ceremony. This year we developed three new awards: one, service to the Congress; one was a good governments award; and the other was service to the administration. As for the award for service to the administration, after the nominations were vetted within the IG community, they were presented to Clay Johnson and the President's Management Council to review those actions by the Offices of Inspector General to decide which one, in their judgment, was the most significant accomplishment. So we're trying to get other input into our assessments of how well we're doing. Mr. Cooper. That sounds very helpful. Mr. Johnson mentioned that Federal acquisition officers have no codified council, and he implied at least that might be something we could look at or a step we could take. I'm not even sure this committee has jurisdiction over those folks--we do. Are you familiar with their professional group? Mr. Gianni. They were just recently reorganized, and I haven't--I think they were reorganized for a reason, and their effectiveness goes in peaks and valleys. The CFO, I believe, is codified. The CIO may not be codified as far as the three councils, and I know that the President's Management Council is not a codified council. But I think--and I said this previously--the reason why we are seeking codification is because of our dual role both with the administration and with the Congress, and we want to bring that congressional element as a part of our council activities. Mr. Cooper. To me it's an essential part of preserving your independence not as individuals but as a professional group so that you are not subject to the whim of an administration who may find fault with one of your members or may have a political vendetta. I think this administration has been very fair. It's good to have things set. Mr. Gianni. I agree with you, and I would like to take this opportunity to again thank you for your interest in the community and your interest in fostering some legislation to help us as a community. We certainly look forward to working with you, sir. Mr. Cooper. I am honored by your hard work. To find $72 billion in a year for taxpayers in potential savings is amazing; and to catch over 10,000 bad guys, I wish some of our other agencies could be as effective. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Platts. Thank you, Mr. Cooper. I think your earlier point, that it's kind of a good news, bad news story, it's good we are catching them but bad that there are many out there that have to be caught. I want to maybe just touch on two more areas before we wrap things up here. One is, I didn't get to ask the Comptroller General about a recommendation that was made 5 years ago. Given I have been here 3 years and it was prior to my time on this subcommittee, but GAO recommended that the IGs be more thorough in developing their strategic plans for each of their individual offices. I wonder if you could tell us your respective offices, where you are with strategic plans and what your mission is and how you are pursuing that mission and your evaluation of the effectiveness of your efforts. Mr. Snyder. It's one that we do. We have a 4-year horizon. We update it every year. We even use it to report in our semi- annual report our goals and objectives so both the board and the Congress can see what our plan is, where our objectives are, and what we are doing under each one. Mr. Platts. Do you share that with GAO as you are developing it to get their comments? Mr. Snyder. We seek their input in various forms in terms of where their priorities are going to be, what things you may be asking them to do. The IG Act requires us to coordinate with them, so it's part of that coordination that we do. It is somewhat informal. As part of the working group that Gaston alluded to earlier, the IGs or the regulatory agencies get together I think every quarter or so. We invite the gentleman from GAO who has responsibility for this area to meet with us, and we talk about what's going on and the future direction and what the congressional interest is, and we share what we're doing. So I think there's a dialog that goes on. It's not that formal, but I think there is a dialog that's there. Mr. Gianni. Mr. Chairman, I would like to take perhaps a different approach on this. Clearly, we are mandated to coordinate with GAO; and many of my colleagues do that. I would classify our coordination as passive coordination, that we make our decisions and we share our decisions with GAO for informational purposes. What the Comptroller General was talking about in his testimony was having some more active participation and dialog before decisions are made so when GAO and the IG, as accountability officials, decide what needs to be addressed from an auditing standpoint that we have, at least from our decisional basis, the same knowledge and understanding of the issues. The idea being that the dialog occurs before decisions are made. Then after you have that common understanding and that discussion of what the issues are, what the risks are within the respective areas, then GAO will make their decisions and the IGs will make their decisions as to what they're going to do, and certainly those decisions should be complementary. I agree that coordination is occurring. I would be the first to say that we, as a community and GAO working together, can improve the level of communication; and I think the community will respond to the CG's request that we work together to try to decide how best to accomplish this. We might not get 100 percent buy-in, but we're going to move in that direction because I think it makes good sense. Mr. Platts. I didn't think at the time to ask the Comptroller General, but I would be interested, has he come before your respective councils and kind of made that direct request or, you know, plea to have more communication; and, if not, would you be interested in extending invitations to him? Mr. Gianni. Barry and I both have served and a number of our colleagues have served with GAO in a number of capacities. We have served on the Comptroller General's advisory board for the audit standards, and a number of our colleagues serve on that panel. The intergovernmental audit form that was initiated by GAO has many of our members from our respective IG community participating in it. Now it might not be the Inspector General. It might be the head of their audit organization that participates in that organization. But there is that dialog within the audit community. As far as this strategic area that the Comptroller General put forward before, he has come before us and talked about conceptually the need for us to work better together. Because we--GAO and the IG community--have limited resources and the challenges are great, we need to work together and work smarter so our resources are better used. He has put that forward. We need together, GAO and the IG community, to begin to work that through. One of the observations that I made was that GAO has a protocol for working with the agencies and they have a protocol for working with the Congress. I believe that we need a protocol for the IGs and GAO for working together. So that's going to be one of the things that we're going to be working on in the coming year, to develop with GAO to get that formalized and as a best practice. Mr. Platts. Glad to hear that. As in so many of the hearings we have had, having those more regular and open communications occurring I think benefits all parties and ultimately the public at large. The last question I have relates to--from proposed statutory changes is whether there should be additional specific qualification requirements for IGs put in statute as far as minimum qualifications. Your thoughts on such a proposal. Mr. Gianni. Right now, the law says that it is based on someone of integrity that has a legal background or an auditing background or an investigative background or a management background; and that's pretty much it. Mr. Platts. Should there be more specifics to those? Mr. Gianni. Let me address this another way. I am an auditor by training, by education and by career before I got my position. I spent 33 years in GAO. When I assumed the position of Inspector General for the FDIC, I also had to have investigative responsibilities. The fact that I'm not an investigator doesn't mean that I can't have oversight over an investigative function. What you do is you hire people on your team that know what the responsibilities are, and then you allow them to do their job. So an Inspector General doesn't have to be all those things. I have lawyers on my team who can assist me where I might not have the legal background. Clearly, I have CPAs on my team that can amplify my expertise. One person is not going to have all of the expertise most likely, most likely will not have all of the expertise that's needed to be an Inspector General. What is necessary, in my opinion, is a person who is a good manager and a good leader and a person that has integrity. Mr. Cooper. Mr. Chairman, may I ask a question? Mr. Platts. That concludes mine, so if you have any followups that you would like to ask. Mr. Cooper. When you say they have to have legal, accounting, investigative or management background, does that mean graduate degrees in any of these fields? Mr. Gianni. There are no professional certification requirements. It's educational background. It is not degree oriented. So it could be undergraduate, graduate or doctorate. There are no specific requirements. Mr. Cooper. Would I have a legal background having taken one course in Constitutional law as an undergraduate? Mr. Gianni. I don't believe that would qualify from a legal standpoint. Mr. Cooper. Does it take a JD? Mr. Gianni. That would be an actual practicing lawyer. Mr. Platts. It's not spelled out and subject to interpretation. Mr. Gianni. That's correct. Generally, the community--at least the Presidentially appointed IGs--is generally made up of lawyers, accountants, auditors and investigators and some management-type IGs. Mr. Cooper. I have no more questions, Mr. Chairman. Thank you. Mr. Gianni. One point on that is healthy. The community has the different disciplines in the leadership roles. Collectively, when we get together, it does provide a synergy that you wouldn't get if just one discipline was being represented at the table. Mr. Platts. Well, to our witnesses, I again want to thank you for your preparation for today and the written statements you submitted as well as your testimony here today, your patience while we had our votes. I know that Mr. Cooper and myself, Ms. Blackburn, Mr. Towns, all of us who are here today look forward to working with you and both councils and the administration as we try to move forward, what, if any, statutory changes we are going to change, move not just through this subcommittee but through Chairman Davis' full committee and ultimately to the House floor. So look forward to continuing to work with you. I also want to thank majority and minority staff for their work regarding today's hearing. We'll keep the record open, I guess, 2 weeks as any material to be submitted from our witnesses and followup questions to our first panel that we have to ask them to followup in writing to us. This hearing stands adjourned. [Whereupon, at 5 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.] [Additional information submitted for the hearing record follows:] [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T2126.064 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T2126.065 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T2126.066 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T2126.067 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T2126.068 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T2126.069