<DOC>
[106th Congress House Hearings]
[From the U.S. Government Printing Office via GPO Access]
[DOCID: f:73593.wais]
THE U.S. GENERAL ACCOUNTING OFFICE
=======================================================================
HEARING
before the
SUBCOMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT MANAGEMENT,
INFORMATION, AND TECHNOLOGY
of the
COMMITTEE ON
GOVERNMENT REFORM
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED SIXTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
__________
JULY 18, 2000
__________
Serial No. 106-243
__________
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
__________
U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE
73-593 WASHINGTON : 2001
_______________________________________________________________________
For sale by the Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Printing
Office
Internet: bookstore.gpo.gov Phone: (202) 512-1800 Fax: (202) 512-2250
Mail: Stop SSOP, Washington, DC 20402-0001
COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT REFORM
DAN BURTON, Indiana, Chairman
BENJAMIN A. GILMAN, New York HENRY A. WAXMAN, California
CONSTANCE A. MORELLA, Maryland TOM LANTOS, California
CHRISTOPHER SHAYS, Connecticut ROBERT E. WISE, Jr., West Virginia
ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN, Florida MAJOR R. OWENS, New York
JOHN M. McHUGH, New York EDOLPHUS TOWNS, New York
STEPHEN HORN, California PAUL E. KANJORSKI, Pennsylvania
JOHN L. MICA, Florida PATSY T. MINK, Hawaii
THOMAS M. DAVIS, Virginia CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York
DAVID M. McINTOSH, Indiana ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, Washington,
MARK E. SOUDER, Indiana DC
JOE SCARBOROUGH, Florida CHAKA FATTAH, Pennsylvania
STEVEN C. LaTOURETTE, Ohio ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland
MARSHALL ``MARK'' SANFORD, South DENNIS J. KUCINICH, Ohio
Carolina ROD R. BLAGOJEVICH, Illinois
BOB BARR, Georgia DANNY K. DAVIS, Illinois
DAN MILLER, Florida JOHN F. TIERNEY, Massachusetts
ASA HUTCHINSON, Arkansas JIM TURNER, Texas
LEE TERRY, Nebraska THOMAS H. ALLEN, Maine
JUDY BIGGERT, Illinois HAROLD E. FORD, Jr., Tennessee
GREG WALDEN, Oregon JANICE D. SCHAKOWSKY, Illinois
DOUG OSE, California ------
PAUL RYAN, Wisconsin BERNARD SANDERS, Vermont
HELEN CHENOWETH-HAGE, Idaho (Independent)
DAVID VITTER, Louisiana
Kevin Binger, Staff Director
Daniel R. Moll, Deputy Staff Director
James C. Wilson, Chief Counsel
Robert A. Briggs, Clerk
Phil Schiliro, Minority Staff Director
------
Subcommittee on Government Management, Information, and Technology
STEPHEN HORN, California, Chairman
JUDY BIGGERT, Illinois JIM TURNER, Texas
THOMAS M. DAVIS, Virginia PAUL E. KANJORSKI, Pennsylvania
GREG WALDEN, Oregon MAJOR R. OWENS, New York
DOUG OSE, California PATSY T. MINK, Hawaii
PAUL RYAN, Wisconsin CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York
Ex Officio
DAN BURTON, Indiana HENRY A. WAXMAN, California
J. Russell George, Staff Director and Chief Counsel
Heather Bailey, Professional Staff Member
Bryan Sisk, Clerk
Trey Henderson, Minority Counsel
C O N T E N T S
----------
Page
Hearing held on July 18, 2000.................................... 1
Statement of:
Bowsher, Charles, former Comptroller General of the United
States (1981-1996)......................................... 65
Ink, Dwight, president emeritus, Institute of Public
Administration............................................. 74
Staats, Elmer, former Comptroller General of the United
States (1966-1981)......................................... 63
Walker, David, Comptroller General of the United States,
General Accounting Office, accompanied by Gene Dodaro,
Chief Operating Officer.................................... 6
Letters, statements, etc., submitted for the record by:
Bowsher, Charles, former Comptroller General of the United
States (1981-1996), prepared statement of.................. 67
Horn, Hon. Stephen, a Representative in Congress from the
State of California, prepared statement of................. 3
Ink, Dwight, president emeritus, Institute of Public
Administration, prepared statement of...................... 77
Turner, Hon. Jim, a Representative in Congress from the State
of Texas, prepared statement of............................ 5
Walker, David, Comptroller General of the United States,
General Accounting Office, accompanied by Gene Dodaro,
Chief Operating Officer, prepared statement of............. 13
THE U.S. GENERAL ACCOUNTING OFFICE
----------
TUESDAY, JULY 18, 2000
House of Representatives,
Subcommittee on Government Management, Information,
and Technology,
Committee on Government Reform,
Washington, DC.
The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 10 a.m., in
room 2154, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Stephen Horn
(chairman of the subcommittee) presiding.
Present: Representatives Horn, Biggert, Ose, Turner, and
Maloney.
Staff present: J. Russell George, staff director and chief
counsel; Heather Bailey, professional staff member; Bonnie
Heald, director of communications; Bryan Sisk, clerk; Elizabeth
Seong, staff assistant; Will Ackerly and David Hulfish,
interns; Trey Henderson, minority counsel; Mark Stephenson,
minority professional staff member; and Jean Gosa, minority
assistant clerk.
Mr. Horn. The subcommittee will come to order.
Today's hearing on the General Accounting Office is
especially important because of the agency's vital and unique
role in the Nation's legislative process and in Congress's
oversight of government operations. Today, the subcommittee
will review the GAO's ongoing programs and the agency's vision
for the future.
Since its establishment in 1921, the role of the General
Accounting Office has evolved from one of auditing agency
vouchers to its present role of providing in-depth studies upon
which Congress bases its legislative and oversight agenda. The
GAO is a key investigative resource for the legislative branch
of government.
The question naturally arises: How has the GAO transitioned
from its 20th century functions to those of the 21st century?
We are very fortunate to have before us today a number of
witnesses who are in a unique position to answer that question.
Our first presenter is the current Comptroller General of the
United States, David Walker. Since assuming this office in
November 1998, the Comptroller General has initiated a number
of reforms that we look forward to hearing more about today.
His testimony will be followed by a panel of witnesses
whose insights are invaluable to the subcommittee as we
consider the subject before us. We will hear from the honorable
Elmer Staats, who served as Comptroller General from 1966 until
1981. We will also hear from Mr. Staats' successor, former
Comptroller General Charles Bowsher, who served from 1981 until
1996. In addition, we are pleased to have before us a familiar
voice, that of Dwight Ink, president emeritus of Institute for
Public Administration.
We welcome all of our witnesses today, and look forward to
their testimony.
I am now delighted to give time to the ranking member of
this subcommittee, the gentleman from Texas, Mr. Turner, who
has been a wonderful colleague to have with this group. I know
that he shares the respect for the General Accounting Office
and the Comptroller Generals that I do. Mr. Turner.
[The prepared statement of Hon. Stephen Horn follows:]
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3593.001
Mr. Turner. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
It is good to have General Walker here this morning and to
be able to hear from the General Accounting Office. I think we
share respect for the good work that the GAO has done for us
throughout the years.
GAO I know was founded in 1921. Its mission is to help
Congress oversee Federal programs to ensure accountability to
the American people. Over the years, Congress has expanded the
GAO's statutory authority to reflect the growing complexity of
government and of our society. GAO's evaluators, lawyers,
economists, public policy analysts, information technology
specialists and other multidisciplinary professionals seek to
enhance the economy, the efficiency, the effectiveness and the
credibility of the Federal Government, both in fact and in the
eyes of all American people.
The GAO is able to accomplish its mission through a variety
of activities, including financial audits, program reviews,
investigations, legal support, and policy and program analysis.
I am very pleased to note that for fiscal year 1999 the
General Accounting Office's work resulted in more than $20
billion in financial benefits to the Federal Government and
over 600 actions leading to a more effective government. It is
without question that the General Accounting Office has been
extremely helpful to our subcommittee, and I again commend
General Walker and his staff for the good work that they do on
behalf of the Congress.
We are here to learn more about the challenges facing the
agency and what we in Congress can and should do to ensure that
we receive the type of credible, unbiased data that the GAO has
constantly provided us in the past. I commend Chairman Horn for
calling the hearing, and I welcome each of our witnesses. I
want to conclude by saying that the General Accounting Office
is an agency which is truly dedicated to good government, and
for that I am very appreciative.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
[The prepared statement of Hon. Jim Turner follows:]
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3593.002
Mr. Horn. I thank the gentleman, and we will now swear in
the witnesses.
[Witnesses sworn.]
Mr. Horn. The clerk will note that the witnesses affirmed
the oath.
We will start with the Comptroller General of the United
States, Mr. Walker, now. And you have a wonderful 40-page,
single-spaced document which is already headed for the
Government Printing Office; and I know that you have a very
good slide presentation. If you can do it in 15 to 20 minutes,
we would be appreciative, because we would like to have a
dialog.
STATEMENT OF DAVID WALKER, COMPTROLLER GENERAL OF THE UNITED
STATES, GENERAL ACCOUNTING OFFICE, ACCOMPANIED BY GENE DODARO,
CHIEF OPERATING OFFICER
Mr. Walker. I will be happy to do that.
First, let me say that I am pleased to be here. As you
know, Mr. Chairman and Ranking Member Turner, I am now one and
a half years into a 15-year term as Comptroller General, 10
percent down, 90 percent to go.
I am proud to be the head of GAO. I believe GAO is one of
the best agencies in the Federal Government, and one of the
best accountability organizations in the world, if not the
best. There is a simple reason for that. We are the best
because we have the best people. We do, however, have a number
of people or human capital challenges that I will mention later
in my testimony that need to be addressed with a matter of
urgency.
As you noted, I have submitted my full statement for the
record; and I am going to cover it in a PowerPoint
presentation. But, before I do, I would like to note for the
record that Gene Dodaro, who is Chief Operating Officer, to my
right, has joined me. Bob Murphy, who is our General Counsel,
is behind me. Sallyanne Harper, who is our Chief Mission
Support Officer, is to my right. The four of us make up the
Executive Committee for GAO.
In addition to that, I am pleased that we have 10 to 12
members of the Employee Advisory Council in row two. They
represent a diverse group of GAO employees. We get together
periodically to discuss mutual issues of interest and concern,
and I am pleased to say that we have talked about a number of
human capital issues together. I look forward to working with
them on these and other issues.
If I can, the first slide, please.
As both of you noted, GAO was formed in 1921 and is headed
by the Comptroller General of the United States. I am the
seventh Comptroller General in the approximately 80-year
history of GAO.
Every Comptroller General has made noteworthy contributions
to our agency and to the country. I am especially pleased and
honored to appear here today with my two immediate
predecessors, Elmer Staats and Chuck Bowsher. Both made
significant contributions to GAO and our country, and I have
noted several of them in my written statement.
GAO has changed significantly over the years, both as to
size, scope and focus over the years. The agency almost tripled
its size in World War II in order to preaudit all government
payments. The agency was reduced in size after World War II but
broadened in both its range of services and the scope of skills
that its staff possessed. The resulting expansion in scope of
services since World War II served to reinforce the fact that
we are about accountability, not accounting.
Most recently, the agency was forced to downsize by
approximately 40 percent in the 1990's due to budget cuts; and
there are some scars that resulted from that, which I will
touch on in a few minutes.
Next slide.
As you can see, the size of GAO has changed over the years.
I have picked three dates for illustrative purposes: 1966,
which was the first year that Elmer Staats was Comptroller
General; 1981, which was the first year in which Chuck Bowsher
was Comptroller General; and 1999, which was the first fiscal
year in which I served as Comptroller General. And you can see
the size has fluctuated over the years. When Elmer Staats took
over GAO, there were just over 4,000 personnel; when Chuck
Bowsher took over the agency, it had grown to over 5,000; and
when I took over the agency we had an authorized staff of
3,275.
Next slide, please.
There has been a significant change over the years in the
mix of GAO's work. It has changed dramatically over time. When
Elmer Staats took office in 1966, 90 percent of GAO's work was
research and development or self-initiated work; and there were
no congressional mandates. When Chuck Bowsher took over the
office, the percentage of research and development or self-
initiated work had declined to 65 percent; and mandates were
becoming more common but they were still new on the scene, only
representing about 2 percent of GAO's work.
When I took over the Office of Comptroller General in late
1998 or fiscal year 1999, only 5 percent of our work was R&D or
self-initiated and 23 percent related to mandates. Stated
differently, 95 percent of the work that GAO did was either
based on mandates or specific congressional requests.
Next slide, please.
The next slide shows the dramatic decline in our field
office presence. It has declined dramatically from 46 offices
in 1984 to 16 today, and effective November 2000 we will go
down to 11 field offices. This decline is due to a variety of
reasons, in some cases budget cuts, but also because of
economy, efficiency, effectiveness and technology reasons.
Next slide, please.
As Mr. Turner mentioned, GAO has always provided the
Congress and the American people with an outstanding return on
their investment. This slide shows the financial benefits that
GAO has returned since 1966 on an annual basis as well as the
4-year average.
I am pleased to say in fiscal year 1999 we had $20.1
billion in financial benefits. In some cases, that represents
costs reduced; in other cases, it is asset recoveries enhanced;
spending deferred; or reserves reclaimed. There are a number of
different things that come under the definition of financial
benefits, and I am happy to answer questions on that if you
would like. But the bottom line is this: The Congress and the
American people had a return in 1999 of $57 for every dollar
invested, probably No. 1 in the world.
The next slide, please.
GAO has also made a number of contributions over the years
in the area of improved government operations. The adoption of
GAO recommendations not only serve to accrue financial benefits
but also nonfinancial benefits such as improved government
operations in the area of computer security, airline safety,
sustainable development and national security, etc. A number of
examples are included in our 1999 accountability report, which
I know has been provided to the committee as well as the
Congress at large.
The trend in nonfinancial benefits has been up over the
last several years, but we did have particularly impressive
years in 1998 and 1999 due to the Y2K involvement that we had
and the many, many recommendations associated with that effort.
The Y2K effort is an example of what government can do if the
executive branch and the legislative branch work together in a
concerted and constructive fashion to address a known problem
with a positive outcome, and hopefully we can learn from that
in the future.
The next slide, please.
One of the basic market tests that we can look to for the
value of GAO is how many times the Congress requests GAO
representatives to testify on a wide variety of issues. This
next chart shows that our numbers have been impressive in that
regard, that we have, on average, testified over 200 times a
year before the House and the Senate on a wide variety of
topics; and I myself typically will testify about 25 times a
year. We expect for our fiscal year 2000 numbers to exceed the
1999 level, even though this is an election year and a
shortened legislative year.
The next slide, please.
Timeliness is critical, especially for the Congress. The
Congress is our client. We have had a concerted effort since
1996 to significantly enhance the timeliness of the work that
we do for the Congress, namely to try to be able to deliver
when we promise that we will deliver, and you can see there has
been a dramatic improvement in our timeliness. But,
importantly, it is not just whether or not we deliver when we
promise that we are going to deliver; it is also whether or not
we deliver within the timeframes that the Congress needs it in
order to be able to make informed decisions. So we are looking
to refine these measures and enhance these measures, as we will
continue to do in the future.
The next slide, please.
Both of you mentioned GAO's mission. GAO exists to support
the Congress in meeting its constitutional responsibilities and
to help improve the performance and accountability of the
Federal Government for the benefit of the American people. We
are truly about good government; and, in fact, I would say our
vision is to simply make government work better for all
Americans.
The next slide, please.
In order to do that, we have to do our work in accordance
with applicable professional standards as well as a specific
set of core values that I worked with our executive team as
well as others to come up with shortly after becoming
Comptroller General. We have three core values that drive
everything that we do, both internally and externally. The
first is accountability, the second, integrity; and the third,
reliability.
With regard to accountability, that word describes what we
do. We are called the General Accounting Office, but that is
really a misnomer. Only about 25 percent of what we do deals
with traditional accounting and financial management; 75
percent deals with program evaluation, policy analysis, legal
research, a whole range of activities, investigations, etc. As
a result, the common denominator is the word accountability and
in some ways you can say we are the government accountability
office is more descriptive of what we do.
Integrity describes how we must do our work. We must be
professional, objective, fact-based, nonpartisan,
nonideological, fair and balanced. We must say what we mean,
mean what we say, provide the facts and let the elected
officials decide what to do once they have the facts. We must
provide those facts in advance before issues reach crisis
proportions. In fact, I think one of the advantages of having a
15-year term and an agency being headed by a nonpartisan
professional is to look longer and broader and to bring matters
to the attention of Congress before they represent crises. That
is critically important.
The third core value is the word reliability which
describes how we want our work to be received--timely,
accurate, useful, clear, and candid. Now, I would like to be
able to add the word concise, Mr. Chairman; and we are working
on that. That is why we have a PowerPoint executive summary,
rather than the 40-page written testimony.
Next slide, please.
This represents a summary of our strategic plan. This
represents a framework for everything that we do at GAO, both
internally and externally. We develop the strategic plan
through extensive outreach efforts with the Congress. Yes, this
is GAO's strategic plan, but it is our plan to serve our
client, the Congress and the American people, and it was put
together with extensive consultations with our client.
We voluntarily have complied with GPRA. As you know, we are
not subject to GPRA, but we believe it makes sound business
sense to comply with GPRA for a variety of reasons. In
addition, we believe, as the leading accountability
organization in the United States, we have a responsibility to
lead by example. We should be as good or better than anybody
else we evaluate, otherwise we are hypocrites, and we don't
ever want to be called a hypocrite. So we have focused on our
mission.
We have four goals. The first two goals are tied to the
Constitution of the United States. We know that there can be a
lot of disagreement in Washington nowadays, but we believe that
the Constitution has stood the test of time and to build our
first two goals on the Constitution is both prudent and
appropriate. The third goal is based upon a recognition of a
global trend at Federal and State and local levels, and that is
to the push for more results-oriented and accountable
government. And fourth is for us to seek to lead by example, to
be a model organization, to practice what we preach.
We have got six themes underneath that that have no
boundaries. They have no boundaries globally, domestically, or
within the Congress, within the executive branch or within GAO.
They deal with issues like changing demographic trends, like
increased globalization, different quality of life
considerations, emerging security threats, rapidly evolving
technology and, again, the move toward a desire for a more
results-oriented and accountable government.
We have 17 objectives that tie in most cases very closely
to the committees and the various departments and agencies. And
last but not least, as I mentioned before, the foundation of
everything that we do represents our core values.
The next slide, please.
If I can, Mr. Chairman and Mr. Turner, let me now change to
some of the challenges that we face in the human capital area.
As I mentioned, people represent our most valuable asset. We
are a knowledge business. In fact, I would say, with all due
respect, that there is probably a broader range of skills and
knowledge in GAO than any organization on Earth, bar none. Let
me repeat that. There is probably a broader range of skills and
knowledge in GAO than any organization on Earth and a
tremendous amount of institutional knowledge that is critically
important to the Congress and the Nation.
But the fact of the matter is that we have a number of
human capital challenges in a post-downsizing era. We are
smaller and out of shape, as this chart shows. Only 11 percent
of our personnel are at the lower levels, as compared to about
27 percent in 1989. In addition, we are heavy in certain other
areas. We need to address these imbalances over time through a
variety of management actions and other types of activities. It
is important that we get in shape for the future. We are in
shape to do our job today, but we are not well positioned to be
able to do our job in future years.
The next slide, please.
This next chart shows our appropriation and FTE level since
1992. We have had a significant decline in our budget. We
experienced that in the mid-1990's. This resulted in an
approximate 40 percent reduction in the size of GAO. There were
a number of RIFs that had to be run. Offices were closed, all
or nothing; and whole units were abolished. The fact of the
matter is, is that we have not had reasonable resource
stability for several years. And while last year was the first
year in 10 years that we received a resource allocation in
excess of our mandatories, this year again there is a debate as
to how much resources GAO will receive.
The House has us for a 2 percent cut without considering
inflation or other mandatories; the Senate has us for a 2.5
percent increase. We can live with the Senate number, but the
House number would force us to run RIFs again or otherwise to
freeze hiring, which would be totally unacceptable and would
further mortgage our future. We are hopeful that the Senate
numbers will prevail in Congress, with all due respect to the
House.
It is critically important that we have reasonable
stability in funding and not have to fight these annual battles
over what our budget is going to be, especially given the
return on investment that we are bringing to the taxpayers.
Having to fight the annual battles and deal with the annual
uncertainty over what our budget is going to be has an
extremely deleterious affect on morale as well as our ability
to attract and retain a qualified work force.
We had a virtual 5-year hiring freeze from 1993 to 1997.
This served to mortgage our future in certain ways. The average
age of GAO has increased 6 years in the last 6 years. The
average age of GAO is 48. Mr. Chairman, Mr. Turner, that is my
age. We cannot continue to repeat hiring freezes. That would
only serve to further mortgage our future.
The next slide, please.
We have serious succession planning challenges. We must
begin to prepare for our future. Thirty-four percent of all of
GAO personnel are eligible to retire within 4 years--4 years,
34 percent. Fifty-five percent of our SES members are eligible
to retire in 4 years. That is a tremendous amount of
institutional knowledge and expertise. We must become more
actively involved in succession planning. The combined effect
of past hiring freezes, budget cuts and the current RIF rules
have put this agency at risk; and we need to address them.
The next slide, please.
GAO contracting. While our FTE levels have gone down, our
contracting has gone up, in part to recognize that there are
certain aspects that the private sector can do more effectively
and, in addition, there are certain areas where we need
assistance or expert assistance or we are not going to have the
ability to attract, retain and motivate an adequate number of
people. So we are going to have to go to the private sector
from time to time to do that, and we will be prudent about how
we do that.
The next slide, please.
A few summary points.
What are some of the GAO challenges that we face?
First, supply and demand imbalances. We have significantly
increased demand from the Congress and significantly reduced
supply in the form of human as well as financial resources. We
have got to work together to achieve a better balance.
Second, we critically need stability in our annual resource
levels. Failure to have that undermines our ability to attract
and retain a motivated and skilled work force. We need to have
flexibility to do some self-initiated R&D work. It is
unreasonable to expect that the Congress will identify all of
the issues that need to be focused on. And, in fact, it is
important that we be able to look at some issues before they
reach crisis proportions and to bring those to the attention of
the Congress before they are immediate crises. Having some type
of reasonable flexibility to do that is essential in order for
us to accomplish our mission.
We both need to work together, meaning the Congress and
GAO, to reinvigorate and to improve congressional oversight. We
need to work in a bicameral, nonpartisan manner to form a
partnership in order to be able to buildupon the management
reforms of the 1990's, the skills and knowledge and
institutional expertise of GAO; and we have got some ideas
about how to do that that we would like to work with you and
others on.
We critically need the Congress's help in the area of human
capital. We need to enact our human capital legislation. It has
been passed in the Senate. It is scheduled to go to conference
as part of the appropriations process. Chairman Burton and
Ranking Member Waxman support the legislation that is in the
budget process. We critically need that legislation to help
prepare GAO for the future, but, in addition, we need the
Congress to consider other areas that we are happy to work with
you on.
We need to look at the possibility of debt relief for new
hires. We already have a compensation differential between the
private sector options and in the government, but, in addition,
over half of GAO's employees are Master's and Doctor degree
candidates. They often come out of college with significant
debt. They face a double whammy. They face less compensation
and tremendous debt loads. We need to do something like the
military to be able to try to deal with that in a reasonable
manner.
We need to work to change our pension laws, the
government's pension laws, to allow people to retreat into
retirement rather than forcing them to go all or nothing. We
have a lot of skills and knowledge and expertise. Many people
want to start working part time and retreat into retirement,
but then they can't access their pension. We need to figure
out, just as the private sector is doing, to allow more
flexibility to retain that knowledge, given work force
imbalances, skill shortages and other factors.
We need to move, over time, to a more reasonable
compensation approach that is focused more on skills and
knowledge and performance; and we need to look at some things
that don't sound that significant but they add insult to
injury. Things like frequent flyer miles. The private sector
has for years allowed individuals who fly on their own time to
keep their miles. You know the burdens of flying nowadays--it
is not a pleasant experience. In times of budget deficits it is
understandable how you might want to recapture those miles, but
our people are already underpaid, overtraveled, overworked, and
now we have a budget surplus. It almost adds insult to injury
to say you need to give those miles back. We need to revisit
that policy in order to be more competitive going forward.
Last, records access issues. More and more of what
government is doing involves a partnership between Federal,
State and local levels as well as public private. We are seeing
more and more that the issues that we are being asked to
address are requiring us to access records outside the Federal
Government--at the State and local level, and the private
sector. This is going to be an issue that is going to be
increasingly important that we need to work with Congress on
how best to address with regard to proposed expansion of
Federal programs. For example, prescription drugs, where a lot
of research and analysis needs to be done, is not in the
Federal Government. It is in the private sector, and it is in
the State and local government areas.
Mr. Chairman, that concludes my summary. I very much
appreciate your time, both your time and attention; and I am
more than happy to answer any questions that you might have.
Thank you.
Mr. Horn. Well, we thank you. That is a very fine
statement.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Walker follows:]
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Mr. Horn. We are now going to have a dialog between we
members and you, and it will be 5 minutes between each of us.
Let me ask you about the institutional memory situation. I
think that is a very crucial matter.
What is your intent as to try and get that type of wisdom
that people have over time? Is it to have opportunities for a
half load and half retirement or fourth load, fourth
retirement? Some institutions do that.
Are we doing oral histories of a lot of people when they
retire? It seems to me that is a--for historians such as White
in the 1930's, looking at the administrations from George
Washington up, it seems to me that would be a very useful file
for GAO, the archives, the Library of Congress, whatever, to
have them in the days of disks that you can find any particular
thing on a disk. That might be one possibility. I just would be
wondering, what are you thinking of?
Mr. Walker. We are doing a number of things.
First, we have embarked on an aggressive succession
planning effort to try to ascertain how many of our people plan
to retire and when. I mentioned that 55 percent of our
executives are eligible to retire within 4 years. We have met
with each of those executives and covered a number of issues.
Fortunately, many of those individuals want to work past
retirement eligibility, and that is great. We need to do the
same thing at other levels, and we need to tap and understand
what skills and knowledge that we have.
We just rolled out an electronic skills and knowledge form
that every GAO employee will fill out. Therefore, we will have
electronically what skills and knowledge we have within our
building and how we can better deploy those skills and
knowledge and capitalize on it. We need to look at mentoring by
capturing this institutional knowledge and passing it on to
others.
In addition, we need to look at what I mentioned about
changing the pension laws, about retreating into retirement. We
can allow people to work part-time right now, and we do, and we
can experiment with certain policies, but there are real
economic barriers and disincentives under current law that need
to be addressed. They are being addressed in the private
sector. In fact, there is legislation pending in Congress now
to change the private pension rules. The prospects look good to
allow in-service distributions for people that work part time
after a certain age. We need to do the same thing in the public
sector.
So these are just a few of the things that I think we can
and should do, and we will do whatever it takes.
Mr. Horn. What about the idea of research and development?
I would be curious in 1966 what do we mean by that and what do
we need now between the two predecessors and Mr. Staats. It
went from 90 percent research and development in 1981 to 65
percent and now 5 percent. How is that defined?
Mr. Walker. Let me clarify how we define it. You may want
to ask Comptroller Generals Staats and Bowsher how they define
it.
The previous term was self-initiated work. That doesn't
engender a positive response on behalf of a number of parties;
and, therefore, we recharacterized it as R&D work. Basically,
what that says is when Mr. Staats came in as Comptroller
General, 90 percent of the work that GAO did was at its own
initiative. It determined what functions needed to be looked at
and provided to the Congress.
That, over the years, has changed dramatically. There are
more and more mandates. Sometimes we are consulted on a
mandate; sometimes we are not. Sometimes we get the resources
we need, and sometimes we don't. Sometimes there are
independent issues that don't get adequately considered. What
has happened in part is because of increasing congressional
requests, which is good. We are a client service organization.
On the other hand, the combination of increased requests and
the downsizing of the agency has meant that what gives is the
self-initiated work or the R&D work. That is what is left over,
and some of that can be critically important. Because, quite
frankly, many of the challenges that our Nation faces are not
immediate. They are challenges at the horizon and beyond
because of changing demographics, because of environmental
issues and other things that we need to be looking at before
they become a crisis.
Mr. Horn. In my last 19 seconds here I am going to ask you,
on the mandates, were those saved from the appropriators? And
that was an annual report that you needed to do time and again.
Does anybody ever ask if they read it or need it? Some of these
things are stuck automatically in appropriations bills.
Mr. Walker. I am going to ask Gene Dodaro to comment.
Because, as our Chief Operating Officer, he is into the details
on some of these things.
Mr. Dodaro. We look every week at potential mandates that
are coming to the forefront in legislation, both in
appropriations and in the authorizing process. They come in
both forms.
Within the last 2 years, we went back and looked at all of
the preexisting mandates to see if they were still relevant,
and consulted with the committees; and, in fact, indeed a lot
of them were sunsetted. Very few of them are dated, although
some date back, for example, to the 1994 requirement to audit
the financial statements of the Federal Government. But we are
trying to work early with committees on potential mandates.
Most of them fall in areas where we think there are legitimate
issues and which correspond to items that are actually in our
strategic plan. Others are event driven, like the Los Alamos
fires.
Mr. Horn. I thank you.
Mr. Turner, 5 minutes for questioning the Comptroller
General.
Mr. Turner. It is amazing, General Walker, to notice the
increase in the number or the percentage of requests from
Members and from committees. Quantify that for me. How many
requests do you get a year from committee chairs? How many
requests do you get from rank-and-file Members?
Mr. Walker. In a given week, we typically get 40 to 50
requests a week. Most of our requests are either from the
chairman or the ranking member of a committee or subcommittee.
They receive a priority with regard to resource allocation.
The next priority would be Members that are on a relevant
committee of jurisdiction, and the last priority would be
Members who are not on a relevant committee of jurisdiction.
I think unless something gives we are going to have to
relook at whether or not we are going to be able to deal with
individual Members' requests. The statute only requires us to
deal with mandates and committee requests. We have tried to
deal with individual Members' requests as we have the resources
and will continue to, but the squeeze continues.
Mr. Turner. When you get a request just from a Member--I am
sure you get all kinds of requests--do you try to work with
that Member to narrow that request or make it where it is
something that you can have a little more management control
over?
Mr. Walker. We have instituted a new process where we have
an engagement acceptance meeting, and I will ask Gene if he
wants to elaborate because he chairs it every week. We look at
every request--what is it? What are they asking us to do? Is it
within our scope and competency? What kinds of resources and
skills will it take? How much risk is associated with the
assignment, complexity, degree of difficulty, political
contentiousness, if you will; and in some situations they will
ask us to do things that we don't think are appropriate. In
some cases, they will ask us where the scope is too broad; and
we will work to narrow that scope.
Yes, we have an ongoing and interactive exchange with both
committees and Members in conjunction with requests.
Mr. Dodaro. What we try to do, along the lines that Dave is
talking about, is that, for many requests that we get from
individual Members we may already be doing that scope of work
for a committee. So we try to marry up the requests from the
Member with the committee. And in some cases they just want
some help answering a request from a constituent. We will look
into the matter quickly.
Also, it might be something that is within the scope of the
responsibilities of the Inspector General, say, for example,
looking at a particular contract award at DOD. Our goal is to
try to help answer a request from every Member in some way,
manner, shape or form, even if we can't undertake the
assignment ourselves. But we actively manage that process and
get back to everybody quickly to try to get a good outcome and
try to get the information that people need.
Mr. Turner. I was looking at page 13, human capital
profile; and it might help if you would explain these bands
that are listed here, what category of employee is represented
there. I assume the very top category is the executive staff.
Where are the researchers?
Mr. Walker. This represents pay bands. We went to broad
banding, which is a compensation structure, in the 1990's under
Comptroller General Bowsher's tenure. Band 3 represents a GS-
15. It is either management personnel or very senior
specialist. A band 2 represents 14, 13, 12 level. And a band 1
is below that in a professional category. The other would
represent the General Counsel's Office or Office of Special
Investigations. And then the mission support would be just
that. It would be individuals who contribute to our mission but
aren't in a line function. They are more in a staff function.
Mr. Dodaro. Just to give you a benchmark, for example, at
the SES, a senior executive would be someone like a Joel
Willemssen; and he leads a whole body of work. And then the
researchers at the band 2 and band 3 level and band 1 actually
conduct the audits and the investigations. So the people who
really do the work and go out and interview people and go
through the files and records are at the 2 and 1 level. And the
band 3s are issue area experts. We will have an expert in
housing, transportation, etc. So we try to maintain expertise
at the senior level; and the researchers, auditors, and
investigators are at the band 2 and band 1 level. That is why
band 1 is so important, because that is where we begin to
develop good institutional knowledge in the long run. We are
trying to do a lot of things to retain senior executives, to
hang on to institutional memory, but there is no substitute for
having a good pipeline of people coming through the
organization that are going to be here beyond Dave's tenure and
mine.
Mr. Turner. So the chart is designed to show that you would
prefer to have a profile that looks like the 1989 profile as
opposed to what you have today?
Mr. Walker. I think the actual profile is between 1989 and
1999, but closer to 1989 than 1999; and we need to do that over
time. We are taking management action, but we need to continue
to hire and recruit, we need to do succession planning, and we
also need the human capital legislation.
Mr. Turner. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Horn. I thank the gentleman. And now 5 minutes for my
colleague from California, Mr. Ose.
Mr. Ose. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
My question really boils down to one that I have asked
previously and that is, at least from my experience, there are
just two irreplaceable assets I have access to, one is GAO and
the other is CRS. Great resources. In both cases, I am
concerned about retaining personnel who have been trained,
level 1, level 2, what have you. Tell us about the challenges
you face there as it relates to retention of people who have
started----
Mr. Walker. Well, we face serious challenges. One of the
ways that we face a serious challenge is because we don't have
stability in our budget. Every year there is debate about what
we are going to get for a budget and whether or not we are
going to get inflation. That creates instability and
uncertainty on behalf of our current people regarding RIFs.
Mr. Ose. Let me take you a slightly different direction. In
terms of the people who work at GAO, obviously they have
options from an employment standpoint. Your options might be
Arthur Andersen, it might be some consulting firm, what have
you. What kind of competitive environment are you having to
confront in terms of retaining those people?
Mr. Walker. An increasingly competitive environment with
regard to new hires. For example, many of the major public
policy schools--the Kennedy School at Harvard, the Maxwell
School at Syracuse, Berkeley, etc.--a significant percentage of
their graduates who they thought were going to go into public
service end up going into the private sector, and that is an
increasing challenge. I think we have to recognize that the
government will never be competitive from the standpoint of
compensation. Stated differently, you are always going to be
able to make more money in the private sector if that is what
you want to do.
However, the government does offer some things that the
private sector can't offer as much of--the challenge, the
diversity, the ability to make a difference for the country.
Therefore, what we have to do is identify top-flight people who
are motivated toward those types of things and to make sure
that we have the tools available to attract them and to retain
them. It is also critically important that we get resource
stability because when we go out to hire a new person, if they
know that they are the first person that is going to get let
go, that is a real disincentive for them to come with us.
Mr. Ose. Do you see a difference--obviously, you are the
legislative branch people, but do you see a difference in terms
of our ability to retain people on the legislative side as
opposed to the executive side?
Mr. Walker. I think the GAO has a greater ability to retain
people; and, in fact, statistics show that. We have very low
turnover. After 3 years, our turnover is about 4 percent a
year, and that also counts retirements. But for the newer
people, the first 3 years, the turnover is much higher. It is
double digit--around 15 to 18 percent a year. The new
generation, the graduates of today, are more mobile than they
have been in the past. We have to recognize that and do what we
can to minimize turnover, but we are going to have more
turnover. I have a 26-year-old and a 23-year-old, and I can
assure you that there is going to be more mobility among their
age group.
One of the things that GAO has to offer is that you can
have lifelong learning at GAO. We deal with everything that the
Federal Government does anywhere in the world and so you can
move into different areas, different specialties, different
issues, different geographic areas without having to change
employers and still be challenged. That is an advantage that
many government agencies don't have.
Mr. Dodaro. One of the most critical things for retention,
particularly of highly skilled people, is additional training.
They really want to keep their skills current, and we are
trying to find more money available to provide training to
them. And that, coupled with the diversity of the work and the
interesting nature, of assignments really is the key to holding
people, because they want to be known in the professional
communities in which they have studied and do the work.
Mr. Ose. Mr. Chairman, are we going to have a second round?
Mr. Horn. We are.
Mr. Ose. Thank you.
Mr. Horn. Let me ask about the SES staff. I notice on your
chart, page 13, it represents roughly 2.8 percent and 3.7
percent of all employees through fiscal year 1989 through
fiscal year 2000. I wonder to what degree can SES be rotated
within the executive branch and do you have any difficulties in
getting them for a year or 2 years or 3 years when you see
something coming up that they might have the expertise to do.
Have we had any examples like that?
Mr. Walker. We have not had that happen with great
frequency in the past. We have had people come from the
executive branch to GAO. In particular, when we had our first
SES candidate development class, we had a number of applicants
from the executive branch apply because they view GAO as a very
good place to work.
One of the things that we need to look at with increasing
frequency is, not only with regard to the government but also
the private sector, the opportunity to do rotations and
fellowships and that type of activity. Obviously, we are going
to have to be careful, because there are potential conflict
issues which we need to carefully monitor in that regard. We
need to look at that more.
Mr. Horn. Also, on the education aspects, the military does
a wonderful job in this town of keeping their people moving and
letting them go off for masters degrees or doctorates. Are you
thinking of doing that essentially at GAO?
Mr. Walker. Most of our people already have a masters or
doctorate, but I think, because of the competitive pressures in
the marketplace, we may end up having to hire more people with
a bachelor's degree who may want to obtain a masters. That is
something I would like to be able to consider as well as the
personal debt relief, etc. Part of the difficulty is not just
whether or not we have the authority but whether or not we have
the resources to do that.
Mr. Horn. What other things do you think are worthwhile
that are not always seen when you recruit somebody? It is a
good environment, you meet a lot of interesting people and so
forth. Where is the weak spot, if any?
Mr. Walker. Where is the weak spot? Well, part of the weak
spot is that a lot of people that come into government come
into government to make a difference, to learn, lifelong
learning and for a better quality of life and for better job
security. The last two have been significantly eroded in the
last 10 years. We are asking our people to do more and more
with less and less. In many cases, they are working as many or
more hours than the private sector dues--and I was a global
partner with Arthur Andersen for 10 years--with much less
compensation. The increased uncertainty about what our
resources are going to be has a deleterious effect. So I would
say those last two factors, work/family and job security
considerations that are beyond our control, have declined
significantly. Something needs to be done about that.
Mr. Horn. We had, as you know, in the Supreme Court case
about 20 years ago a sweeping away of about 200 laws that
permitted the Congress to get into the hair of the executive
department is I guess putting it bluntly. To what degree do you
feel that GAO might well be utilized in some type of
arrangement where the Congress, the executive branch, might
find that useful? Are there any situations like that that you
are thinking about?
Mr. Walker. In what regard, Mr. Chairman?
Mr. Horn. Advisory board or something like that?
Mr. Walker. There is an increasing range of activities that
the Congress is asking either GAO as an institution or the
Comptroller General as a position to get involved with. For
example, we have been asked in the past to do--the Comptroller
General has been asked to chair a panel on the Cost Accounting
Standards Board. There is now pending legislation to ask the
Comptroller General to chair a commission on A-76.
In addition, there are requests from time to time to expand
our responsibilities to get into regulatory reviews and other
types of activities. I think there is a lot of things that we
can do. I think the real key is, A, do we have the resources to
do it; B, to be able to consider what, if any, independence
implications there are before Congress acts so that there are
not any surprises in that regard.
Mr. Horn. I thank the gentleman.
We now have the vice chair with us, Mrs. Biggert, the
gentlewoman from Illinois; 5 minutes for questioning.
Mrs. Biggert. Thank you.
Since the time I have been here I certainly appreciate all
that GAO has done; and I think particularly for this committee
and walking into something like Y2K and all of the things that
we had to deal with in that, we certainly got to know Mr.
Willemssen very well; and he did a great job.
Mr. Walker. Mr. Willemssen won the gold medal last year on
congressional hearings, and I had to take the silver because he
was so popular last year.
Mrs. Biggert. Mr. Walker, when you get something to do for
either a Member of Congress or however it comes about, do you
have any peer review of your work? When you do the oversight
for some many other----
Mr. Walker. We have internal quality reviews, and we have
peer reviews. With regard to all of the work that we have, we
are moving toward what I would call a second partner review
where we will have at least one other SES person involved as a
second set of eyes to take a look at the work. We have
extensive quality assurance mechanisms with regard to all of
our work. In addition, in connection with certain types of
engagements where they are highly technical and complex and
where we may not have adequate expertise internally, we have
and will continue from time to time to have expert panels,
groups of people from the outside who are expert. It has to be
balanced, and we have to be concerned with any potential
conflicts.
We also have a formal peer review in financial auditing.
KPMG Peat Marwick does that, and we are also looking at working
with other colleagues, other auditor generals around the world
to do peer review of our evaluation work. I have met with a
number of my colleagues within the last 6 months, and we are
going to try to do a peer review of each other's institutions.
Mrs. Biggert. Where do the outside experts come from, the
private sector or other agencies?
Mr. Walker. It could be a combination. It could be the not-
for-profit sector, it could be the private sector, or other
agencies. When we do that, we need to be careful that we know
about whether or not there are any potential conflicts, that we
have balance from the standpoint of the issue. But sometimes,
as you can imagine when you are dealing with experts, just like
when you are dealing with advisory councils, sometimes you will
get people who are integrally involved with an industry and get
comfortable with the conflicts and disclose them.
Mrs. Biggert. Do you tend to go back to the same people
when you establish a relationship with the expert?
Mr. Walker. This is one of the things that we are looking
at right now, and one of the things that I have been pursuing
since I became Comptroller General. In the past, each unit did
what they were comfortable with, and one of the things that we
are doing is looking at these issues. What type of criteria are
we using as to when we use expert panels? What type of
procedures do we have in place in order to ensure balance and
be aware of any potential conflicts? Undoubtedly, in the past,
there have been situations where individual units might get
comfortable with certain persons, but we are going to start
looking at this on an agency-wide basis because I think we need
to look at GAO as a whole rather than individual units.
Mrs. Biggert. Do you have to pay a consulting fee to these
experts?
Mr. Walker. It varies. Some do it for their country. The
consulting fee, as you know, is not very high. When I was a
trustee of Social Security and Medicare, I got paid $300 a day
which I gave to my firm. Some are pro bono, and some we will
pay up to around $300 a day.
Mrs. Biggert. Would there be an impact then of the proposed
25 percent reduction in appropriations? Would this make any
change in that?
Mr. Walker. Right now the only thing that is on the table
is the Senate has us for a 2.5 percent increase, the House has
us for a 2 percent cut. We are hopeful that we are going to get
the Senate number, for obvious reasons. We had a significant
cut--the 5 percent you are talking about was a 25 percent cut
that occurred in the 1990's. Obviously, with dramatic
reductions in resources like that, not only do you have RIFs
but you have less ability for contracting.
Mrs. Biggert. What was the impact of that?
Mr. Walker. It was drastic. It was a tremendous loss of
institutional knowledge. It was putting us in a position where
we can get our job done today, but we are at risk of not being
able to get it done in the future. And cutting back on training
and enabling technology, things that you will pay a price for
in the future if you don't reverse it.
Mrs. Biggert. Thank you.
Mr. Horn. Mr. Ose, the Member from California, for pursuing
the questioning.
Mr. Ose. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I want to go back to the issue on the retention of people
as it relates to your proposals. Have you had any reaction from
the executive branch or elsewhere on the hill?
Mr. Walker. With regard to our legislative proposal?
Mr. Ose. Yes.
Mr. Walker. First, OPM is not taking a position on our
legislation because we are a legislative branch agency, there
is a separation of powers, plus we are not proposing any
changes in the Civil Service rules.
Mr. Ose. OPM did not take a position on their proposal
because they are a legislative branch. Mr. Chairman, I wonder
if we can get them to not take a position on anything you and I
put up because we are legislative, too.
Mr. Walker. An innovative thought. But they see us as the
legislative branch. We are not proposing to change the Civil
Service rules, etc.
With regard to the Hill, the situation is as follows: We
have strong bipartisan and bicameral support. We have support
from the Government Reform Committee, the chair and ranking
member. We have support from the Governmental Affairs
Committee, the chair and ranking member. We have support,
strong bipartisan support, in the Senate Appropriations
Committees, because the bill is on the Senate bill that passed.
And we have support in the House as well, and we are very
hopeful that it will be enacted soon.
We do have some concerns that have been expressed by
certain members of the local delegation. That is
understandable. They have many Federal Government employees as
their constituents. Some of their concern is because of
misperceptions. At first, they thought we were talking about
changing the Civil Service rules. We are not. There is some
question about veterans preference. We are maintaining that. So
we are hopeful that we will be able to get everybody on board,
but we critically need this legislation.
Mr. Ose. If I understand correctly--and I want to examine a
couple of these employees' protections. Could you just go
through some of the protections that are built into your
proposal that would help the employees or satisfy the
employees?
Mr. Walker. I appreciate you asking that question. I think
it is critically important that management have reasonable
flexibility, but you also have to have protections to safeguard
employees. We have several internal appeal processes that
individuals can go through. I have proposed and I have stated
publically, since we have to propose regulations, that I would
add an additional appeal as part of that regulatory process
where individuals would have an expedited appeal directly to me
in addition to what their current rights are. In addition, we
have an independent Personnel Appeals Board comprised of three
independent attorneys paid for by GAO but with no relationships
to GAO that individuals can appeal to even after the internal
appeal process. In addition, for certain types of actions, they
can go to Federal court. By the way, we pay for the Personnel
Appeals Board. So there are a number of substantive
protections.
Unlike executive branch agencies which are headed by
political appointees of a particular party, the Comptroller
General has a 15-year term. He is a nonpartisan professional
and therefore must suffer the consequences of whatever he does.
And therefore, given that we are in the people and knowledge
business, I can assure you that my successors would be prudent,
because we would pay the price if we weren't. Plus
congressional oversight obviously serves to keep us in check.
Mr. Ose. My final question, Mr. Chairman, before I offer
one observation at the end of the response, would be that a lot
of what happens up here is either legislative or regulatory.
Does GAO have any authority right now to issue regulations from
a regulatory standpoint to handle this rather than pursuing it
on a legislative basis?
Mr. Walker. We have the authority to do regulations.
However, we are talking about adding some criteria, namely,
skills, knowledge, and increasing the weight of performance
that could be contested if we tried to do it through the
regulatory route. Arguably, we could go that route, but there
are significant litigation risks, my general counsel has told
me, if we go that route. We believe that we prepared a sound
business case, that we have got adequate protections, and we
would respectfully request the support.
Mr. Ose. The reservation that I mentioned moments ago had
to do with following up on comments from my good friend from
Illinois, and that is that Mr. Willemssen has been a star and a
source of great information for me, at least as a Member, and I
want to commend his efforts from you.
Mr. Walker. He received the Comptroller General's Award
last year, which is the highest award we can give, as well as
Helen Hsing, who is head of Congressional Affairs. He is an
outstanding individual.
Mr. Horn. One of the key things in the results-oriented
program that we are pushing and that this has been done on a
bipartisan way 10 years ago, we are trying to make it happen;
and if it is going to happen, we really need a cadre, and maybe
you already have it, that can experiment with different
approaches to how do we measure the effectiveness of Federal
programs. And I just wonder what your thinking is along that
line.
Mr. Walker. It is part of the recent reorganization that I
announced at GAO. One of the things that I am creating is the
Strategic Studies Group; and they have the expertise to do some
of the type of work that you are talking about, Mr. Chairman.
If I can, I would like to mention one other thing before we
wrap up. That is we have not had a Deputy Comptroller General
in GAO for over 20 years. The current statutory framework for
appointing the Deputy Comptroller General has never worked. It
is broken. It needs to be fixed. We need to work together. We
need a Deputy Comptroller General. Gene Dodaro would make an
outstanding Deputy Comptroller General.
Mr. Horn. I think we can all testify to that. He has been
an outstanding witness in the 8 years I have been involved with
this committee.
Well, we thank you, and we hope that you will stay with us
as we get your two predecessors.
We would like at this time to have Comptroller General
Staats and Comptroller General Bowsher and Mr. Ink, President
Emeritus, Institute of Public Administration.
Mr. Walker, you can remain at the table, by the way.
We are delighted to have with us today Elmer Staats, who
has a great reputation in this city, over 40 to 50 years. He
became a member at the Bureau of the Budget in the 1930's, in
1939, and was Assistant to the Director and Assistant Director
of Legislative Reference. I think you followed Roger Jones, I
believe. Or did you precede him?
He has been Executive Assistant to the Director of the
Bureau of the Budget in the late 1940's and Deputy Director in
the 1950's and in the 1960's. Then he was in private industry
for awhile and then he was nominated to be Comptroller General
of the United States and served from 1966 to 1981.
We would appreciate any comments that you might have. You
have watched the agency more than any of us. Anything that you
would like to stay, we would be glad to listen to it.
STATEMENT OF ELMER STAATS, FORMER COMPTROLLER GENERAL OF THE
UNITED STATES (1966-1981)
Mr. Staats. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I do not have any
prepared testimony. I came mostly to answer your questions.
Two things I would like to say: The bottom line for GAO is
its credibility and that has a lot of implications for the
length of term of the Comptroller General and the
bipartisanship. I think that is something that we have to keep
in mind.
The other thing I want to say concerns program results and
program evaluation. President Johnson, when he appointed me,
thought the job of the Comptroller General to involve those
activities--and he had been in the House a long time and in the
Senate a long time. He thought for a moment; and he said, when
Congress passes a bill and I sign it, it is your job to tell
both of us whether that law is being carried out as we intended
it to be carried out. And that is a pretty good definition of
the job of GAO.
GAO has changed a lot since the time I joined it in 1966. I
don't think Comptrollers General could have done all they did
if they didn't have a 15-year term. It takes a long time to
make some of these changes, but it has changed a lot.
When I joined the GAO, the personnel was entirely lawyers
and accountants, so I had a job of convincing people that we
could use other disciplines and other backgrounds. That was a
real problem in recruiting because you have accounting in the
name of your organization and you have to tell them, no, we are
an accountability organization. We even thought some about
changing the name of GAO. If you look at the rest of the world,
most of the people in comparable jobs are called Comptrollers
General or auditors general, and so we decided to stick with
the title General Accounting Office.
A couple of comments. I think Congress is making a big
mistake in cutting back on the staff of GAO--an organization
that is putting more money in instead of taking it out. If you
look at the cost and benefits of what comes out of GAO--I think
Congress tends to look at GAO as they would any operating
agency in the executive branch. There are obvious ways to save
money. Here you are dealing with an organization whose sole job
is to try to make government more efficient; and to save money
and to cut GAO--I think it is a little like a penny-wise/pound-
foolish approach, to be very blunt about it.
On the whole, I had pretty good success in persuading
Congress. We were not always happy, but most of the times we
were. I think Congress tends to look at the GAO from the
standpoint of an operating agency, like the Pentagon or
something else, but what can Congress get from the GAO that is
going to help them do their job, and that is what GAO is about.
I am little concerned about the fact that GAO has no--has
less freedom to initiate work of their own. When I was at GAO,
less than 10 percent of our work was requested by Congress; and
the answer that I got from Members of Congress was we know that
GAO is a good organization but not really relevant for what we
need. From the time I left in 1966 we were up to a little over
40 percent.
Now you can look at that both ways. If the GAO keeps in
touch with the Congress as to its work plans, a lot of its work
plans will be accommodated to the committees of Congress. So
part of our objective was we worked to contact all of the
committees and Members and to see what they thought about, so a
lot of our priorities were established by consultation, and
that tended to relieve some of the congressional requests.
There is always the question, how does GAO decide what it
is going to work on? I don't think that it is right for
Congress to deny GAO to initiate its own work. GAO is intended
to be an independent auditor of the Federal Government. If you
are an independent auditor, you have to make your judgment as
to whether or not what you are going to do is going to be the
correct thing to do. Independence is kind of the keystone of
what we are talking about. This 15-year term, the fact that GAO
is given a lot of freedom to initiate work, these are all parts
of it.
I think the GAO is always going to be in a position of
trying to anticipate, I call it early warning, where we can
look down the road and see what is going to be important before
it reaches the stage of having legislation or a hearing and so
on. I think we can--GAO can do a lot of that. But they don't do
that unless they have a little freedom to do it.
When I went to GAO, I found that Congress had not mandated
any work for IRS. We didn't have any authority. We didn't have
any authority to do anything with respect to the Federal
Reserve Board. The international lending agencies, those were
out of our providence. So we had the job of trying to persuade
Congress that they overlooked something. Generally, we had
pretty good cooperation from Congress on that.
I came to Congress to get GAO its own personnel system. It
didn't make any sense for GAO to be under the rules of the
executive branch in that respect. I had some opposition to that
in the executive branch, but it has worked out all right. GAO
needs that kind of flexibility to write its own rules as far as
its own work force is concerned.
There are two or three things that I want to say and then
maybe answer your questions.
Mr. Horn. I would like you to confirm or deny the following
statement. As I remember the LaFollette-Monroney Act that
created the CRS, the research service for Congress, there was
also a hope of professionalism on the part of the staffs.
Before that, they had a clerk that was sort of keeping the show
running, but they didn't have a professional staff until the
LaFollette-Monroney Act was recognized in both the office and
the committee.
As I remember, there was a role for GAO, and that was to
get into the programmatic review. And yet your predecessors
could not implement that because Mr. Rayburn did not think it
was a good idea; and neither did Clarence Cannon, the chairman
of the Appropriations Committee. Both of them, I believe, were
dead before you got there; and I think, under your leadership,
the GAO moved into programmatic analysis. And I think that is
exactly what they ought to be doing, along with the fiscal
debt, and they don't that much. You contract a lot of it out. I
just wondered, am I correct on that bit of history or am I
wrong?
Mr. Staats. The first Comptroller General was under
President Roosevelt, and he decided a lot of things that
Roosevelt was doing was illegal.
Mr. Horn. Wasn't that Mr. McCarl?
Mr. Staats. Yes. So that the relationship between the
executive branch and GAO at that time couldn't be worse. But he
stuck it out for 15 years. He never was convinced that the
Roosevelt program was the right thing to do. He tried to find
some way to make it illegal. The GAO does have some authority
to pass on the legality of funds, there is no question about
that, but I think he overdid it.
I think the--in general, the Congress has been very
supportive of the GAO. I say that as a general statement. I had
a problem with the budget and their approach to it. GAO is
different from CRS and the CBO. Their whole job is to help
Congress. GAO has also the role of being an independent
auditor. That means you seek out things that need to be done
and look at it and report to Congress on it. So it is a very
different relationship. There has to be some coordination
obviously.
In general, I would like to say if Congress looks at the
GAO in the same way it looks at CRS and CBO, I think they
overlook something.
Mr. Horn. To what degree do you believe the existence of
inspectors general that Congress put in everywhere 20 years
ago, did that, in essence, do some of the work that ordinarily
the General Accounting Office would take care of?
Mr. Staats. I was concerned about that when the law was
passed, but it didn't turn out to be a matter of concern. For
one thing, the inspectors general are dealing with a lot more
internal problems than we are. Very rarely do they deal with
problems of interagency concern or governmentwide concern. They
were looking primarily at issues pertaining to that agency. It
didn't turn out to be a real problem. I think, on the whole, it
has been a good development.
Mr. Horn. Well, let's call on Mr. Bowsher; and then we will
have questions from all members of the panel.
Mr. Bowsher, it is a pleasure to see you. You were also a
complete 15 years. So it must be a healthy job. It is like
being President.
STATEMENT OF CHARLES BOWSHER, FORMER COMPTROLLER GENERAL OF THE
UNITED STATES (1981-1996)
Mr. Bowsher. It is a very healthy job. My predecessors all
lived to be into their 80's, and so I have confidence that this
has been a good job for my health.
Let me just say that I think the Comptroller General job is
really one of the great jobs in government. I have been working
recently with Dave Ruder, who was chairman of the SEC for a
period of time and was a dean at Northwestern Law School; and
he always introduces me as having one of the best jobs in
Washington and the GAO as one of the great agencies in the
government.
I think the mission that the GAO has, which is we have to
look at all of the various programs of the Federal Government
is something that attracts the outstanding talent that does
come to GAO; and I know Dave is right at this moment in time,
because of the competitiveness, the strong economy, the big
salaries that the private sector is offering that it is harder
to get talent. But I am sure that GAO will be able to attract
really talented people and keep them over the years because of
the mission and the work that they get to do at the GAO.
I would strongly urge that the Congress give the
Comptroller General and the GAO budget stability. I had it for
10 years. The first 10 years I was in office, Vic Fazio was the
chairman of my subcommittee in the House Appropriations; and
Jerry Lewis was the ranking person; and they gave me budget
stability. And I always remember saying to them, if you can do
that for me I will run a great GAO; and we made a lot of
progress at the GAO in those 10 years.
When the budget deficits got so large and we had to take a
cut, I remember saying to Connie Mack, if you let us do it the
right way, we will be able to bring the organization down in
the right way, and that was a big help. I will always be very
grateful to Senator Connie Mack. And Bill Clinger, too, was
very helpful at that point.
But Dave is right. I think today there has to be some
rebalancing at the GAO for the 21st century, and I would hope
that the Congress could give them that kind of support.
The GAO is an agency that is like very few others. It is a
much smaller agency today than it was years ago, and yet it
produces so much more, so many more reports and testimony, so
many more dollars saved. It is a real tribute to this agency
that they can compare themselves to the best in the private
sector.
I remember working with Booz Allen at the end of my 15-year
term on a management review of another agency, and the managing
partner at Booz Allen said I never saw an agency in the
government and very few in the private sector that have a
better work ethic than the GAO. The people worked hard and did
it on a timely basis.
And one time I had Dr. Demming at the GAO on a Saturday. He
said he would come for nothing if we would meet on Saturday or
he would charge me $10,000 if it was on a weekday. I said, I'll
take the Saturday option.
John Sawhill came, a former partner of McKinsey; and he was
amazed what a breadth of testimonies and reports that our SES
members had to handle. He compared it to the partners at
McKinsey. I was a former partner at Arthur Andersen. I too,
knew that the leadership of GAO carries a very big load and
does it extremely well.
So I think if the Congress can support the current
Comptroller General and the GAO, I tell you, you are going to
get a good payoff. I will conclude on that note.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Bowsher follows:]
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Mr. Horn. Let's turn to Dwight Ink, who has been a regular
helper on this subcommittee, president emeritus of the
Institute of Public Administration and formally in all types of
roles under numerous presidents.
STATEMENT OF DWIGHT INK, PRESIDENT EMERITUS, INSTITUTE OF
PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION
Mr. Ink. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I did not serve in the
GAO, which I guess is why I am not listed as honorable on the
witness list here, but I did serve in the Executive Office of
the President and a number of other agencies. My perspective is
from that type of service.
I certainly think highly of the General Accounting Office.
It has an extremely important role to play, and it has provided
strong leadership under both Mr. Staats and Mr. Bowsher in
improving management. But Congress needs to take great care to
make sure that its own actions support a highly skilled agency
that can function effectively in a rapidly changing
environment, and that is important. I have found the GAO staff
to be competent, dedicated; and there have been occasions when
I thought that the GAO was really about the only ally I had in
addressing management problems and mismanagement in particular.
Over the years, the General Accounting Office has made a
particularly enormous contribution in financial management.
Great as those contributions are, I have on occasion felt that
they could make an even greater contribution if Congress let
them be more selective in its work regarding departmental
management and focus more heavily on basic issues and the root
causes of these problems. I give some examples in my written
testimony, in one of which Mr. Bowsher believes I have
overlooked some early reports by the GAO on the S&L problem. I
will go back and look at that, Chuck.
But I have found as I picked up responsibility for various
agencies and bureaus, very useful GAO reports about their
accounting systems. But it has been very difficult for the GAO
to have the resources, particularly now, to devote to the more
basic problems and issues.
I mention the Community Service Administration, for
example, where it was clear that there were financial problems,
clear that financial management was not good. But the IG
reports and GAO reports didn't really get to the depth of the
problems, such as the fact that no program manager was
permitted to know his or her unobligated balance, which is
pretty fundamental. No career person was permitted to make
recommendations with respect to major contracts or grants in
order to ease the rewarding of political friends. Those are
basic building blocks for corruption, and it is important that
GAO be given the kind of flexibility and the ability to
initiate its own work, so that it can choose these kinds of
targets early on and devote whatever resources are necessary to
deal with them.
With respect to cross-cutting issues among government
agencies, GAO has not been able to devote the kinds of
resources I think it needs to address directly issues such as
the difficulties in the executive branch in implementing
effectively the Civil Service Reform Act of 1978. Yet that
legal framework, and the concepts behind the legal provisions,
are extremely important for effective execution of the laws
passed by Congress.
Neither has the GAO been able to look in depth at the
management performance of the Office of Management and Budget.
You may recall when this committee asked the GAO to review the
management impact of the most recent OMB reorganization, the
GAO declined and opted instead to look just at its effect on
the budget operations. I would like to see the General
Accounting Office be in a position to address these very broad
cross-cutting issues that have such a tremendous impact on
government operation as a whole.
I opposed the GAO having to follow the executive branch
reinventing government policy of reducing staff levels simply
on the ideological notion that government is too big and the
best way to reduce it is to make staff cuts without first
looking at what can be done differently and where such cuts
might best be applied. Thanks to Mr. Bowsher, there was some
attention in this instance given to at least alleviating the
worse impact of these cuts, something which did not occur in
the executive branch agencies.
I want to stress the support that I have for the move by
Mr. Walker to increase training and development within GAO as a
part of his very welcome emphasis on human capital management.
Again, this is an area which in the executive branch, outside
of the military, has declined when it should be increasing.
With the different roles of the employees and their different
focus and their different culture, you need greater emphasis,
not less emphasis, on employee development and training.
Mr. Chairman, it seems like I am always commending you and
this committee on holding hearings; and I do it again today.
The interest that this committee shows in the General
Accounting Office it is very important, because the interest in
Congress as a whole is often very much focused on an individual
problem or individual issue, so that Congress really doesn't
deal with the health of the General Accounting Office as a
whole and its overall ability to help and respond to Congress.
Congress has a responsibility to discipline itself in what
it asks GAO to do. The large volume of individual and committee
requests that we have heard this morning has reduced the
capacity of the General Accounting Office to pursue important
avenues that it believes needs attention. Its capacity to
pursue the basic problems and root causes of systemic
shortcomings such as I have mentioned has been sharply limited
by a combination of these many congressional requests and the
ill-advised reduction in staff of several years ago. Congress
must address both of these issues.
I suggest this committee work with GAO in exploring ways in
which individual congressional requests might be better
screened or required to meet certain conditions. I also urge
this committee to provide support to the General Accounting
Office in giving greater priority to those issues which the
General Accounting Office leadership regards as the most
serious problems facing the departments and their root causes.
In other words, permit the General Accounting Office to do more
self-initiated work as it did through much of its earlier
history.
In conclusion, let me reiterate the high regard in which I
hold the General Accounting Office, its leadership and its
staff; and I wish Mr. Walker well as he moves ahead with a new
vision for GAO. Thank you.
Mr. Horn. Well, we thank you. You've always been a very
sound voice before the committee.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Ink follows:]
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Mr. Horn. I would like to call on my colleague, Mrs.
Biggert, the vice chair of the subcommittee and the gentlewoman
from Illinois.
Mrs. Biggert. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Walker had a chart that I believe he went over a little
bit, but I would like to ask Mr. Bowsher and Mr. Staats about
it. It looks like in 1966, when Mr. Staats had this office,
that 90 percent of the work conducted for Congress was research
and development and then 10 percent was committee and Member
requests.
By 1981, when Mr. Bowsher took over, 65 percent research
and development, 33 percent committee and Member requests, and
then a small little portion came in there of 2 percent of
mandates, and then now it is 72 percent committee/Member
requests and a small portion of research and development and 23
percent for mandates.
I guess I am wondering how research and development really
differed from committee or Member requests and why there was
such a dramatic change in these charts since the period of time
that you started, Mr. Staats, and then pretty much of a change
in 1981 until today when we have 72 percent for committee and
Member requests? Or what is the difference I guess between
research and development and committee and Member requests?
Mr. Staats. I have a little trouble with the research and
development term as such because the General Accounting Office
is supposed to take the initiative on anything that it sees
that needs to be looked at. Research and development, I would
prefer to call research and development in the training of the
staff. GAO has done a very limited job in terms of training.
When I was there, very little was done. We didn't have the
staff to do the training. So I looked to the consulting firms
and the public accounting firms. They are spending a lot of
money, in some cases as much as 25 percent of their total
budget, on training. That is what I call capital investment.
That is kind of the key to the diversification that you need
for the GAO's work. I had actuaries, I had all kinds of
disciplines, but you have to do a lot of training to accomplish
that.
Mrs. Biggert. Mr. Bowsher.
Mr. Bowsher. When Elmer Staats first came into office, the
Congress was saying that the GAO is a good organization, but it
doesn't work on the issues that we find important. He got it
going in the right direction. When I came into office, GAO was
working more and more on the important issues in the eyes of
the Congress, and that trend continued during my tenure.
Also, a lot of the self-initiated work that had previously
been done with very little communication with Congress really
became, lots of times, congressional requests. In other words,
when we would do our planning in the housing or in the
agriculture area, then we would come over and show it to the
committees. They would say, that is good, let me send you a
request. So I guess I never worried about it getting too high a
percent as long as I always said to my SES leaders, is there
any important work that we are not doing right now because we
have too many congressional requests? And there were a couple
of times when we had to come to the chairmen of the committees
and ask them to be more of a referee as to some of the requests
coming over.
But, on balance, in my 15 years I thought we were able to
do the important work. Most of it ended up being congressional
requests. I think Dwight Ink is right. It is one of the things
that you have to be concerned about. Because if you are getting
congressional requests but not doing the important work, that
is not good.
The S&L crisis, we did not expect to spend as much time on
the S&L area as we did for 5 years, so we had to move our
talent over into that area. And I think we did tremendous work
in the S&L area. I think the Japanese have found out by not
addressing the issue directly it has caused a tremendous drag
on their economy.
So those are the problems that you face as the Comptroller
General working I think with the leadership of the Congress,
but I think it can be worked out. I really do.
Mrs. Biggert. Then maybe you could just comment on
mandates. How does that differ from the other work that is
done? Or what do you do with mandates?
Mr. Bowsher. Mandates are a little tougher because that
gets into legislation. If I understand the Comptroller General
here and his deputy, Mr. Dodaro, they are going to work on that
to make sure that doesn't get too large and doesn't get too
repetitive. We did review the mandates every so many years and
say are there things that were needed at one time and maybe we
can go back to the committee and not have to provide that on a
contention basis. So I think mandates to me is more of a
concern than the other issue.
Mrs. Biggert. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Horn. We are now delighted to have the ranking member,
who has been with this committee over the years; and we are
delighted that she can be here today, the gentlewoman from New
York, Mrs. Maloney.
Mrs. Maloney. I made a special point of being here when I
heard that the Honorable Elmer Staats, who came here during the
New Deal and watched us progress--it is a great honor to
welcome you and Mr. Bowsher, with whom I worked when I first
came to Congress, and now Mr. Walker and Mr. Ink.
Page 14 shows the number of your staff falling. I am all
for reinventing government and being more productive, but you
have to have enough people to get the job done. The last
hearing I had in this committee, we had one from the McIntosh
subcommittee which would have GAO doing a cost-benefit analysis
on the private sector for any changes in bills or regulations.
That is going to cause your workload to go much higher, and so
my question really is a budgetary one. I would like to know how
much is in your budget--and it hasn't gone through the
appropriations process yet. What is the funding in the Senate?
What is the funding in the House? Why is your personnel
dropping?
With the new demands--I know that I put a lot of them on
you, Mr. Dan Miller and myself from the Census Committee, we
have been asking for all kinds of things. Do you have enough
people to get the job done? I would like to understand your
staffing.
I don't know if you have had a chance to review the
McIntosh bill, and it appears to me that is going to require
even a greater professional attention from your group.
I just want to use my 1 second here to congratulate the
General Accounting Office. I think you do a fantastic job. You
provide a service to the American people and to both sides of
the aisle, an impartial, professional analysis so our
decisionmaking is better. I think you are great.
But I would like you to comment on your own paperwork here
and let us know where you are in the budget process. Why is
your personnel falling?
Mr. Walker. Mrs. Maloney, thank you for your kind comments.
The Senate bill has us for a 2 percent increase over our
current year appropriation level.
Mrs. Maloney. How much is that?
Mr. Walker. It is about $380 million.
The House bill has us for a 2.5 percent decrease over this
year's budget. We are hopeful, with all due respect to the
House, that the Senate number will prevail. We think that is
critical in order for us----
Mrs. Maloney. What is the dollar amount in the House?
Mr. Walker. It is about 4.5 percent. It is about $15
million less, something like that.
Mrs. Maloney. OK.
Mr. Walker. I will be happy to provide those numbers for
you. I think it may go to conference as quickly as this week.
With regard to staffing, the primary reason we have had a
significant reduction in staffing is because of budget cuts
over the 1990's. Eighty-four percent of our budget is for
people. We don't have a whole lot of flexibility for that other
16 percent. There are certain things that you just have to pay
for. It is critically important that we obtain budget
stability.
With regard to the McIntosh proposal, clearly we are
capable of doing that work, but one of the issues that we have
raised is resources.
Mrs. Maloney. Do you need more resources to do that work?
Mr. Walker. Yes. The comparable bill in the Senate provides
for supplemental resources for us to be able to do that work.
We think that is important.
Mrs. Maloney. How much more do you need to do that work?
Mr. Walker. The Senate has provided $5 million for the
amount of work that they are requesting that we do. The scope
and timing are different, and obviously they have provided for
a resource allocation, so resource only represents one
difference regarding the specific numbers, the House mark is
$379 million and the Senate mark is $387 million, for a
difference of $16 million.
Mrs. Maloney. Now, is that sufficient to do your work? Is
that what you requested? Is that what was in the President's
budget?
Mr. Walker. No, that is not what we requested. We are in
the legislative branch, and we requested $399 point something
million. That is what we felt we needed. The Senate bill,
obviously, is below that; and it is vastly superior to the
House proposal. The House proposal notes if we impose another
hiring freeze we could avoid another reduction in force. We had
a virtual 5-year freeze in the 1990's. That served to mortgage
the future. We cannot return to those ways.
Mrs. Maloney. How is your turnover? Do you keep a
professional staff? How is your staffing in terms of----
Mr. Walker. It splits by level of experience. For
individuals with 3 or more years of experience, we have very
low turnover. It is about 4 percent a year. That includes
retirement. But we have a big retirement bulge coming up.
Younger, it is 15 to 18 percent; and obviously there are
reasons for that. That is one of the reasons that we are trying
to focus on human capital.
Mrs. Maloney. Are you backlogged in your requests for
analysis?
Mr. Walker. Constantly--in some areas more than others.
Health care, we are way oversubscribed in health care. Other
areas, we don't have as large a backlog, and we are constantly
trying to set priorities.
Mr. Horn. We now call on Mr. Ose, the gentleman from
California, for 5 minutes.
Mr. Ose. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Walker, I am confused about something. You testified in
your verbal testimony about access or problems accessing State
and local records, and I went through your testimony trying to
find the written reference, and I couldn't. I am trying to make
sure that I understand your point there. Could you elaborate on
that, please?
Mr. Walker. Basically more and more of the work that we are
being asked to do involves multiple government agencies,
multiple levels of government and, as Mr. Staats mentioned,
sometimes multiple national governments.
In addition, more and more work is involving both the
public and private sector. For example, in the health care
area, much of health care is provided by private sector
parties, whereas HCFA is a financing mechanism. They don't
provide the benefits.
My only point is that----
Mr. Ose. They don't provide the service?
Mr. Walker. That is correct. They have a regulatory----
Mr. Ose. They pay for the benefits?
Mr. Walker. Right, but they don't provide the service, etc.
My point is, if you look at our strategic plan going
forward, we are going to be asked to do more things, not only
with regard to existing government programs but proposed
government programs, for example, prescription drugs for
Medicare, that are going to involve us having to obtain access
to records that we currently don't have the statutory authority
to obtain. That is something that we need to work on. We don't
have express statutory authority. Therefore, we have to rely
upon cooperation.
On page 38 of the testimony--and I agree, I didn't
elaborate significantly in the testimony--but the second from
the last full paragraph provides just a few--a couple of
examples that might be helpful.
Mr. Ose. I knew Mr. Dodaro would find it.
Mr. Walker. That is why I did an executive summary.
Mr. Ose. Is it your concern that, in terms of GAO
performing its statutory duty, when the delivery of the benefit
is, if you will, block granted out, or whatever the appropriate
phrase is, when that burden is placed on the local or State
agency, the only way for GAO to make sure that those agencies
at the State or local level are complying with Federal intent
is to have access to the records?
Mr. Walker. Well, I think in certain regards we will try to
partner with the State auditors who clearly do have access, and
we are trying to do that more and more, but there could be
circumstances when we are not able to do that in that regard. I
think we need to talk in more detail about what the nature and
extent of our challenges are. But I see this as an emerging
issue. I don't think it is critical right now but in the years
ahead could become so.
Mr. Ose. I don't like chasing my tail, so my next question
is, are you suggesting that we need to consider legislation now
in anticipation of this challenge?
Mr. Walker. I am suggesting that what we ought to do is
have the staff for the committee, for the subcommittee, get
together with our staff to explore this issue further to make
sure that there is an understanding of the nature and extent
and timing of the challenge, and while we may not need it today
we may well need it in the not-too-distant future.
Mr. Ose. And you are saying current statutory authority
does not give you the ability to obtain this information?
Mr. Walker. That's correct. We can request it, and in many
cases we are successful, but not in all.
Another example is, to the extent that you are talking
about prescription drugs and to the extent that we are trying
to analyze the cost of prescription drugs, the cost of
prescription drugs through VA versus DOD versus Medicaid versus
the Federal health plan versus other nonFederal payers, and
trying to understand whether or not the Federal Government is
getting the best price which it is supposed to get under
certain contracts, it is tough to do that if you don't have
access to records that are nonFederal payers.
Mr. Ose. Does GAO have the ability to subpoena such
information?
Mr. Walker. No, we do not. We do not at the present point
in time.
Mr. Ose. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Horn. That is a very good question that you just asked,
and that is one I was going to use. To what sense do you feel,
now that you are in there a couple of years, that GAO sometimes
does not really want to press the executive agency, feeling
that they might not be given information, than other times?
What can we do about that?
Mr. Walker. One of the things that we are doing at GAO is
we are looking at records access under current law. We do have
certain statutory authorities right now. For example, I can
issue as Comptroller General a demand letter which is very
similar to a subpoena in its effect.
I have found over the years that many times we have had
difficulties obtaining records from existing executive branch
agencies where we do have the authority to obtain it and there
is resistance to try to push them. We have implemented a
process where that gets surfaced a lot quicker, and we make
conscious decisions whether we are going to escalate it to
higher levels within the respective department and agency and
under what circumstances we would issue a demand letter.
I have already had personal conversations with either the
secretary or deputy secretary of three Cabinet departments that
were reluctant to provide us information and provided it within
a short timeframe after I got on the phone with them.
I don't like issuing demand letters. I think it should be a
last resort. But we need to have mechanisms in place where we
can get it within a reasonable period of time so we can meet
our client's needs.
Mr. Horn. Looking at the Inspectors General and their role,
do you feel they get the information when they do internal
studies? Some of them are very critical, and I just wondered,
do you feel that you are both being treated the same way or
does the inspector general have an edge on GAO?
Mr. Walker. Candidly, Mr. Chairman, I am not in a great
position to answer that. I would need to outreach more on that
specific area.
I will tell you that we are taking a number of steps to
increase our coordination and cooperation with the inspector
general community and the State and local audit community.
Because, to me, where we can have the most value is cross
governmental and intergovernmental areas as well as longer-
range issues, and that requires more coordination, and so I
will followup on that.
Mr. Ink. Mr. Chairman, I think you will find that this
varies considerably from agency to agency, in part because of
different types of leadership. Some agencies have a better
understanding of the role and the importance of providing this
kind of information to GAO and inspectors general. Also, there
is considerable difference among the inspectors general and how
they use that information. Some of them use it more responsibly
than others. I think the General Accounting Office is a much
more stable organization, and resulting in more consistency in
the way in which the agencies deal with the GAO.
Mr. Walker. Mr. Chairman, I would agree. It is clear, based
on my experience to date, that there is a significant
difference between different offices of Inspector General and
how they approach their work and whether or not they are likely
to have problems.
I would like to add for the record, as you know, we have
recently published some congressional protocols which are now
in the trial stage where we set our priorities and note what
our obligations are with regard to our client. We plan to do
the same thing with regard to departments and agencies, and
records access will be part of that as to what our policies
will be with regard to that.
Mr. Staats. I would like to comment on the access to
records, Mr. Chairman.
It is true that agencies, unless they cooperate, can almost
turn off your water. I think they have to have a feeling that
you are dealing with them fairly and openly and giving them
access to your draft reports and have an opportunity to present
their own views alongside the GAO. If you do that, I don't
think that you are going to have problems. But, legally, GAO
can still take agencies into court to get access to records if
they need them.
Mr. Horn. I am glad to hear that, because I think that is
what they ought to do.
The gentleman from California, do you have any more
questions?
Mr. Ose. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I do have one on the
issue.
As I move from being a young man to a confused middle-aged
man, I have often wondered where is my path going to take me as
I move into more senior years. If I look beyond my longer term
in office, I am curious what the panel's perspective might be
what GAO might evolve into?
Let me just construct a particular situation or scenario.
With the advancement in information technology, there are
people in my office who may very well have access to records
they have never had access to before, and they may come to my
office with training of a nature that might otherwise have
previously qualified them to only work at GAO, in other words,
a very refined set of qualifications. Twenty-five or 50 years
from now, I would appreciate your perspective on what your view
on what GAO might be--their role or status or construction,
what have you?
Mr. Walker. Let me take a shot, and I am sure my colleagues
would like to add to that.
I think our role should be the same, but how we do our role
will evolve. We are about maximizing government performance and
accountability. I think we will do work on two sides, what
government does and how government does business. I think
technology clearly will play a major role.
But let me articulate why I think GAO is going to be more
important in the years ahead. Right now, there is an absolute
information overload. You can obtain information that would
absolutely drown you. There are unlimited assertions on the
Internet, and that is exactly what they are. They are
assertions--unvalidated assertions. There is an infinite amount
of information on the Internet.
On the other hand, what GAO does in a vast array of areas
is to convert assertions and information into facts and
knowledge such that Congress can make informed judgments about
what government should do, what is working, what isn't and how
it should be changed and how government should do business.
I believe today we are a multidisciplinary professional
services organization. We are a wholly owned subsidiary of the
Congress. We will have to do business differently, but I think
we are going to be more important, and that is because more and
more issues we have to address involve multiple skills and
multiple governmental entities, multiple perspectives, and we
can pull it all together.
Mr. Ose. Mr. Bowsher.
Mr. Bowsher. I also believe that one of the great problems
in government and has been for a number of years is the budget
process. The budget systems are very antiquated and people hold
back information thinking that it gives them power. In other
words, I won't show you my numbers until later on and things
like that. And that works all of the way.
I served as Assistant Secretary of the Navy for 4 years, I
was the Chief Financial Officer of the Navy, and one of the
problems was getting the information up through the system. I
remember working with John Chafee and John Warner. They were
the Secretary and Under Secretary. They couldn't believe how
that information would get buried and then all of a sudden
popped up, and the same in relation to the Congress.
I have always felt in this modern day and age of computers
and communications that one of the things that government has
to do is to modernize the budget and accounting system to the
point that everybody can have the information on their PC and
therefore get away from all of the waste of time that there is
meetings, debating the numbers and also the waste of time for
the auditors to sort it all out. So, in addition to what Dave
is saying, which I think is right on the mark for GAO, I think
one of the great things for government in total is this
modernization of the Government and Accounting Act so the
Federal Government looks like a modern corporation. They just
don't spend that kind of time massaging all of the numbers that
the government does.
Mr. Walker. One quick point on that. One of the biggest
challenges we face in the Nation is the fact that today--and
CBO just came out at 9 this morning with a revised budget
forecast which shows higher estimated surpluses for a longer
period of time. But our budget simulations show that, because
of known demographic trends, the fact that we have gone from 16
workers paying into Social Security to 1 in 1950 to 3.3 to 1
today, and we are going down to 2 to 1 by 2025, we are going to
have renewed budget deficits as sure as the sun rises in the
morning, especially if we end up spending the on-budget
surplus, and it looks like that is going to happen sooner or
later, a variety of different ways.
We need to look at our budgeting system so people can make
more informed judgments about not just whether or not we can
afford things today but can we afford it tomorrow because we
have mortgaged the future. If we are not careful, we will
reload the debt.
Mr. Staats. One thing which would be helpful is getting the
committees to more clearly articulate what they want in
legislation. We would have to go back in committee reports and
see what Congress intended to do. Sometimes the House had one
idea and the Senate had a different idea. It is hard to
evaluate a program unless you know what Congress intended.
Mr. Ose. Mr. Staats, the Senate is wrong in those
situations.
Mr. Staats. I remember in one case the committee said, if
we had any idea what we were doing, we wouldn't have done it.
Mr. Ose. Mr. Ink.
Mr. Ink. Being a non-GAO person, I won't try to predict
where it will be 50 years from now.
Another handicap which has not been mentioned, however. GAO
would be well served if it had a much stronger partner in OMB
possessing more effective managerial component. A great deal of
information can be shared back and forth, which is available
now on only a very limited basis because the OMB has such a
very limited management capacity to address broad problems.
When Mr. Staats was Comptroller General, we in Bureau of
the Budger had conversations with him going on all the time. We
had meetings going on all of the time. Remember, Elmer, we met
with Senator Proxmire; and that is what led to the productivity
program getting going. The real initiative came from Mr.
Staats, the Comptroller General. I, representing the President,
took the leadership in moving forward with implementing it.
That degree of cooperation is very difficult today. The
initiative of Mr. Horn for an office of management would be
very helpful in that respect.
Mr. Ose. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Horn. We thank you.
Let me thank the staff that have put this fine hearing
together.
On my left, your right, J. Russell George, the staff
director and chief counsel of the subcommittee. In back of him
is Heather Bailey, professional staff member; Bonnie Heald,
director of communications; Bryan Sisk, our clerk; Elizabeth
Seong, staff assistant; Will Ackerly, a faithful intern; and
Davidson Hulfish, a faithful intern. This is the summer, when
we get free labor and bright people.
For minority staff, we have Trey Henderson, counsel, and
Jean Gosa, minority clerk.
And Doreen Dotzler, the court reporter, who is getting an
education in government sitting with this committee.
We thank you all, and we thank you all for coming. We are
adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 12:03 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]
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