From the U.S. Government Accountability Office, www.gao.gov Transcript for: Duplication and Overlap Across the Federal Government Audio interview by GAO staff with Janet St. Laurent, Managing Director, Defense Capabilities and Management Related GAO Work: GAO-12-342SP: 2012 Annual Report: Opportunities to Reduce Duplication, Overlap and Fragmentation, Achieve Savings, and Enhance Revenue Released: February 2012 [ Background Music ] [ Narrator: ] Welcome to GAO's Watchdog Report, your source for news and information from the U.S. Government Accountability Office. It's February 2012. GAO's latest report on improving government efficiency and effectiveness identifies 32 areas of duplication, overlap, and fragmentation across the federal government, as well as 19 additional cost savings opportunities. Janet St. Laurent, Managing Director of GAO's Defense Capabilities and Management team, co-led the team that compiled this year's report. GAO's Jeremy Cluchey sat down with Janet to learn more. [ Jeremy Cluchey: ] This year's report identifies 32 areas of duplication, overlap, and fragmentation among federal programs. Can you talk a bit more about what this means? [ Janet St. Laurent: ] We identified a number of examples of both duplication, fragmentation, and overlap, and these are across a wide range of federal activities, including defense, education, housing, energy, health care, and we found a range of conditions. In some cases we identified fragmentation, meaning that there were multiple agencies conducting programs or activities in the same area, and in some cases those programs weren't well coordinated. In other situations, we found examples of overlap. Actually, this was fairly common, and what we mean by overlap are activities by multiple federal agencies that are similar in nature and similar in scope and also sometimes similar in terms of the beneficiaries or users that those programs serve. And then finally we did find some examples of duplication, meaning that agencies were involved in the same activities or programs for the same purposes. [ Jeremy Cluchey: ] And can you provide a few examples of duplicative, overlapping, or fragmented program areas? [ Janet St. Laurent: ] In the defense area we found that the Department of Defense is developing numerous unmanned aircraft systems and sensors and ground stations to go along with those systems. Much of the software associated with the ground systems is very similar, and yet the services pay numerous times for the development of new grounds stations when they build new aircraft. Our report suggests that DOD should consider establishing a single entity to coordinate these programs in DOD, and that could potentially lead to cost savings. We also found that in the housing area, the federal government spends about $170 billion a year for a number of programs and tax expenditures, as well as loans and guarantees, and we found over 160 programs in this area administered by 20 entities. In particular, we found significant overlap between the Department of Agriculture's rural housing programs and HUD's programs as well, and we're suggesting that Congress should consider requiring Agriculture and HUD to re-examine these programs and look for opportunities to consolidate them. [ Jeremy Cluchey: ] Your team also identified 19 additional cost savings and revenue enhancement opportunities for the federal government. What sorts of opportunities are we talking about here? [ Janet St. Laurent: ] Again, we found a number of examples in the defense area. For example, we found that the Air Force was paying too much for some of its labor at a few of its dining facilities in a pilot project, and we suggested that the Air Force could save more money by re-examining and renegotiating its contracts at all of its dining facilities, and it has agreed with our recommendation. Also, in the Medicare and Medicaid area, we found that Medicaid and Medicare do have a number of important programs going on to try to help detect and prevent fraud and abuse related to improper payments. The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services hope to save more than $21 billion through these efforts, but we found that CMS is significantly behind in meeting its goals for training personnel to use the new systems, so we've recommended a number of steps that we can take and to improve the implementation and conduct the additional training that's needed so that CMS can achieve its goals. We also identified opportunities for revenue enhancements. One included depleted uranium. We found that the government actually has significant stocks of depleted uranium that are no longer needed, and could be processed and lead to revenue worth billions of dollars. So we've suggested that opportunities exist to gain that revenue if Congress clarifies Energy's authority to sell or transfer this uranium. [ Jeremy Cluchey: ] Last year's report on this subject identified 81 total areas for consideration, and a companion report out now follows up on the extent to which progress has been made in those areas. What did you find in that report? [ Janet St. Laurent: ] We found that there's been some progress in the majority of the areas that we examined included in last year's report. There were four areas where the actions that we cited that were needed were fully addressed; however, in most cases actions are still under way. And in a number of cases, there were no actions that have been taken to date. The bottom line is that there are still many opportunities for government agencies to become more efficient, and re- examination of the range of programs and services that they're offering, also greater coordination with other agencies is a key point of the series of reports that we're putting out in this area. Also, we've been finding that many programs need to be more fully evaluated to ensure that taxpayers are getting their full services from those programs. [ Background Music ] [ Narrator: ] To learn more, visit gao.gov and be sure to tune in to the next episode of GAO's Watchdog Report for more from the congressional watchdog, the U.S. Government Accountability Office.