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As of May 9, 2024, there are 5108 open recommendations that still need to be addressed. 412 of these are priority recommendations, those that we believe warrant priority attention. Learn more about our priority designation on our Recommendations page.

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5021 - 5040 of 5108 Recommendations, including 412 Priority Recommendations

2012 Annual Report: Opportunities to Reduce Duplication, Overlap and Fragmentation, Achieve Savings, and Enhance Revenue

GAO-12-342SP
Janet St. Laurent, Zina Merritt
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5 Open Recommendations
1 Priority
Agency Recommendation Status
Office of Management and Budget
Priority Rec.
To improve performance through greater coordination among the many federal programs that support employment for people with disabilities, the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) should consider establishing measurable, government-wide goals for employment of people with disabilities. Given the number of federal agencies and approaches involved in supporting employment for people with disabilities, government-wide goals could help spur greater coordination and more efficient and economical service delivery in overlapping program areas. To determine whether these goals are being met, agencies should establish related measures and indicators and collect additional data to inform these measures.
Open

OMB neither agreed nor disagreed with this recommendation, but reported in March 2024 that it does not plan to establish government-wide goals for the employment of people with disabilities. OMB cited the difficulty of setting goals for more than 40 programs with different designs and target populations. Instead, to enhance federal coordination, OMB staff previously noted that the Department of Labor's (DOL) Office of Disability Employment Policy led an interagency subcommittee on employment of people with disabilities. However, in April 2024, OMB officials said that the subcommittee had
Congress Congress may want to consider requiring the Department of Homeland Security to report on the results of the Federal Emergency Management Agency's (FEMA) efforts to identify and prevent unnecessary duplication within and across its preparedness grant programs, and consider these results when making future funding decisions for these programs.
Open

No legislative action has been identified as of March 2024. FEMA's efforts to identify and prevent unnecessary duplication within and across four large preparedness grant programs are ongoing, and include planned upgrades to its grants management systems. According to FEMA officials, these system upgrades will allow FEMA to better collect and compare project-level data for all of its preparedness grant programs. Until FEMA completes these efforts, the congressional action above remains warranted.
Congress Until the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) completes its assessment, Congress may wish to consider limiting the use of federal preparedness grant programs to fund only projects to fill identified, validated, and documented capability gaps that may (or may not) include maintaining existing capabilities developed.
Open – Partially Addressed

FEMA concurred with the recommendation and has taken steps to implement it. First in 2022, FEMA developed the National Stakeholder Preparedness Review (National SPR) is a first-of-its-kind federal self-assessment of capabilities. The National SPR goals are to gauge the Nation's readiness for catastrophic disasters, to identify national-level emergency management capability gaps and planning assumptions for all hazards and specific scenarios, and to inform preparedness efforts. Next, FEMA drafted the Concurrence of the Target Gap Overviews (previously called the capability assessment sheets)
Congress To optimize the federal role in rural housing, the Congress may wish to consider requiring the Department of Agriculture (USDA) and the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) to examine the benefits and costs of merging those programs that serve similar markets and provide similar products. As a first step, Congress could consider requiring USDA and HUD to explore merging their single-family insured lending programs and multifamily portfolio management programs, taking advantage of the best practices of each and ensuring that targeted populations are not adversely affected.
Open

As of March 2024, no legislation had been enacted or was enacted. A draft bill introduced in 2018 would have established HUD's Federal Housing Administration (FHA) as an agency separate from HUD and transferred it to USDA's Rural Housing Service (RHS) programs. H.R. 6746, 115th Cong. (2018). After the bill was referred to committee, no further action was taken.
Congress Congress may wish to require the Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security to adjust the air passenger immigration inspection fee as needed so that collections are aligned with total inspection costs, if it is determined that total immigration fee collections do not cover total immigration inspection costs.
Open – Partially Addressed

As of March 2024, Congress had not enacted legislation to adjust the air passenger immigration fee, as GAO suggested in February 2012. However, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Protection (CBP) identified the extent to which collections are aligned with total immigration inspection costs. ICE reported in its 2012 fee review that, based on its legal review of the Immigration and Nationality Act, it is authorized to use its air passenger and sea vessel passenger inspection collections to reimburse its immigration inspection activities. ICE's and CBP's combined

VA Health Care: Methodology for Estimating and Process for Tracking Savings Need Improvement

GAO-12-305
Randall B. Williamson
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2 Open Recommendations
Agency Recommendation Status
Department of Veterans Affairs The Secretary of Veterans Affairs should develop a detailed process for tracking VA's actual savings resulting from those operational improvements for which we identified concerns. This process should provide detailed written guidance for those responsible for tracking the savings, which outlines the methodology for calculating savings.
Open

In February 2012, we recommended that the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) develop a detailed process for tracking VA's actual savings resulting from those operational improvements for which we identified concerns. While VA partially concurred with this recommendation, in June 2016, VA reported that it has no future plans to fully implement this recommendation.
Department of Veterans Affairs In order to better inform future budget requests, the Secretary of Veterans Affairs should develop a sound methodology for estimating savings from new operational improvements. This methodology should include: (1) an explanation of how savings from each operational improvement will be achieved; (2) an explanation for the basis of any assumptions included in the savings estimates; and (3) an implementation plan that includes a realistic timeline for implementation, to help ensure that savings can be achieved within the targeted time frame.
Open

In February 2012, we recommended that the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) develop a sound methodology for estimating savings from new operational improvements in future budget submissions. While VA concurred with this recommendation, in June 2016, VA reported that it intends to implement this recommendation when new operational improvements are proposed in the budget. However, recent budget submissions have not included operational improvements.

Federal Statistical System: Agencies Can Make Greater Use of Existing Data, but Continued Progress Is Needed on Access and Quality Issues

GAO-12-54
Robert N. Goldenkoff, Ronald S. Fecso
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2 Open Recommendations
Agency Recommendation Status
Office of Management and Budget In order to maintain progress in maximizing the efficiency of existing data sources, and to improve the broader efficiency of the federal statistical system and improve communication among agencies and others, the Director of OMB, in consultation with the Chief Statistician, should work with the ICSP, when OMB next updates guidance on agency survey and statistical information collection and dissemination methods, to include additional details on actions agencies can take to meet requirements to identify duplication, to consult with persons outside of the agency, and address other requirements as appropriate.
Open

In July 2022, OMB staff reported that the Interagency Council on Statistical Policy was developing plans to establish a website that would support agency Statistical Officials, a position required in the Evidence-Based Policymaking Act of 2018, and that the website would help to address this recommendation. As of May 2023, the website has not yet been established.
Office of Management and Budget In order to maintain progress in maximizing the efficiency of existing data sources, and to increase the reliability of the information presented on the Reginfo.gov website and in OMB's internal system, the Director of OMB, in consultation with the Chief Statistician, should work with the ICSP to implement quality-control procedures designed to identify and remedy any differences between cost and burden information provided on the website and in the related supporting statement documentation that underlies this information.
Open

OMB staff reported in July 2022 that because it publishes cost and burden information in Federal Register notices, PRA statements, and on RegInfo.gov, the public is able to identify discrepancies and bring them to OMB's attention. We continue to believe that the responsibility for identifying these discrepancies should belong to OMB and not the public.

Embassy Management: State Department and Other Agencies Should Further Explore Opportunities to Save Administrative Costs Overseas

GAO-12-317
Michael J. Courts
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1 Open Recommendations
Agency Recommendation Status
Congress In order to contain costs and reduce duplication of administrative support services overseas, Congress may wish to consider requiring agencies to participate in ICASS services unless they provide a business case to show that they can obtain these services outside of ICASS without increasing overall costs to the U.S. government or that their mission cannot be achieved within ICASS.
Open

As of March 2024, no legislative action has been identified. Congress has not required agencies to participate in ICASS absent a business case that shows that they can obtain services outside ICASS without additional cost to the U.S. government, as GAO suggested in January 2012. In January 2014, the joint explanatory statement regarding the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2014, included a direction that the Secretary of State develop, in coordination with the ICASS Service Center and participating agencies, an efficient process by which an agency participating in the ICASS program provides a

Medicare: Use of Preventive Services Could Be Better Aligned with Clinical Recommendations

GAO-12-81
James Cosgrove
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1 Open Recommendations
Agency Recommendation Status
Congress To further align Medicare beneficiary use of preventive services with Task Force recommendations, Congress may wish to consider requiring beneficiaries who receive services with a grade of 'D" to share the cost, notwithstanding that cost sharing may not be required for other beneficiaries receiving the same services.
Open

As of March 2024, Congress has not yet taken action to require beneficiaries who receive services with a Task Force grade of "D" to share the cost.

Medicare Advantage: CMS Should Improve the Accuracy of Risk Score Adjustments for Diagnostic Coding Practices

GAO-12-51
James Cosgrove
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1 Open Recommendations
1 Priority
Agency Recommendation Status
Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services
Priority Rec.
To help ensure appropriate payments to MA plans, the Administrator of CMS should take steps to improve the accuracy of the adjustment made for differences in diagnostic coding practices between MA and Medicare FFS. Such steps could include, for example, accounting for additional beneficiary characteristics, including the most current data available, identifying and accounting for all years of coding differences that could affect the payment year for which an adjustment is made, and incorporating the trend of the impact of coding differences on risk scores.
Open – Partially Addressed

CMS indicated in March 2021 that, given the complexity of measuring coding changes attributable to plan behavior and the difficulty of measuring countervailing factors, there is not a single correct factor within the viable range of adjustment factors. In addition, the agency noted that there is policy discretion with respect to the appropriate adjustment factor for the payment year. CMS applied the statutory minimum adjustment of 5.90 for calendar year 2023. As of February 2024, CMS had not provided any documentation of its analysis and the basis for its determination. Although the

2011 Tax Filing: Processing Gains, but Taxpayer Assistance Could Be Enhanced by More Self-Service Tools

GAO-12-176
James R. White
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1 Open Recommendations
Agency Recommendation Status
Internal Revenue Service The Commissioner of Internal Revenue should develop a new refund timeliness measure and goal to more appropriately reflect current capabilities.
Open

As of April 2024, IRS had not developed a new measure and goal for refund timeliness. During fiscal year 2023, individual taxpayers filed about 91 percent of returns electronically, and as a means to set taxpayer expectations, IRS publicly reported that about 90 percent of taxpayers owed a refund received it in less than 21 days. However, IRS does not set expectations for taxpayers that file on paper or have other situations that could result in longer processing times. In February 2023, IRS provided us with its analysis of refund timeliness that detailed the number of days IRS took to issue

Medicaid: Prototype Formula Would Provide Automatic, Targeted Assistance to States during Economic Downturns

GAO-12-38
Carolyn L. Yocom
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1 Open Recommendations
Agency Recommendation Status
Congress To ensure that federal funding efficiently and effectively responds to the countercyclical nature of the Medicaid program, Congress may wish to consider enacting an FMAP formula that is targeted for variable state Medicaid needs and provides automatic, timely, and temporary increased FMAP assistance in response to national economic downturns.
Open

As of March 2024, no legislation had been enacted. GAO has testified on at least one bill that had been introduced in the Congress that would implement this Matter for Congressional Consideration. On February 10, 2016, GAO testified on considerations related to the Medicaid funding formula. See Medicaid: Changes to Funding Formula Could Improve Allocation of Funds to States GAO-16-377T January 26, 2016. We also cited this report in our discussion on Medicaid funding during economic downturns in Medicaid: Key Policy and Data Considerations for Designing a Per Capita Cap on Federal Funding (GAO

E-Filing Tax Returns: Penalty Authority and Digitizing More Paper Return Data Could Increase Benefits

GAO-12-33
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1 Open Recommendations
Agency Recommendation Status
Congress Congressmay wish to consider amending the Internal Revenue Code to authorize IRS to assess penalties on preparers for failure to comply with section 6011(e)(3).
Open

A bill was introduced on June 28, 2011, which would have amended electronic filing requirements for paid preparers. This included language amending section 6695 of the Internal Revenue Code to include a penalty of $50 for failure to electronically file returns under section 6011 (e)(3). However, this bill was never enacted. As of March 2024, there are no bills pending that would provide IRS with authority to penalize paid preparers for failure to electronically file returns as GAO recommended.

Drug Pricing: Manufacturer Discounts in the 340B Program Offer Benefits, but Federal Oversight Needs Improvement

GAO-11-836
Debra A. Draper
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2 Open Recommendations
Agency Recommendation Status
Department of Health and Human Services PPACA contained several important program integrity provisions for the 340B program, and additional steps can also ensure appropriate use of the program. Therefore, the Secretary of HHS should instruct the administrator of HRSA to issue guidance to further specify the criteria that hospitals that are not publicly owned or operated must meet to be eligible for the 340B program.
Open

In January 2017, HRSA withdrew proposed guidance that included additional specificity regarding hospital eligibility. In March 2021, HRSA reported that it conducted an evaluation of its audit process and other program integrity efforts and determined that guidance does not provide the agency with appropriate enforcement capability. Therefore, HRSA indicated it would not be pursuing new guidance under the Program. In March 2024, HRSA noted that its existing regulatory authority to issue guidance is subject to ongoing legal challenges. HRSA officials told us that since FY2017 it had requested
Department of Health and Human Services PPACA contained several important program integrity provisions for the 340B program, and additional steps can also ensure appropriate use of the program. Therefore, the Secretary of HHS should instruct the administrator of HRSA to finalize new, more specific guidance on the definition of a 340B patient.
Open

In January 2017, HRSA withdrew proposed guidance that included further specificity on the definition of 340B patient. In March 2021, HRSA reported that it conducted an evaluation of its audit process and other program integrity efforts and determined that guidance does not provide the agency with appropriate enforcement capability. Therefore, HRSA indicated it would not be pursuing new guidance under the Program. In March 2024, HRSA noted that its existing regulatory authority to issue guidance is subject to ongoing legal challenges. HRSA officials told us that since FY2017 it had requested

Preventing Sexual Harassment: DOD Needs Greater Leadership Commitment and an Oversight Framework

GAO-11-809
Brenda S. Farrell
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1 Open Recommendations
1 Priority
Agency Recommendation Status
Department of Defense
Priority Rec.
To enhance oversight of the department's program to help prevent and to address incidents of sexual harassment involving servicemembers, the Secretary of Defense should direct the Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness to ensure that the Office of Diversity Management and Equal Opportunity develops and aggressively implements an oversight framework to help guide the department's efforts. At a minimum, such a framework should contain long-term goals, objectives, and milestones; strategies to accomplish goals; criteria for measuring progress; and results-oriented performance measures to assess the effectiveness of the department's sexual harassment policies and programs. Such a framework should also identify and include a plan for ensuring that adequate resources are available to carry out the office's oversight responsibilities.
Open

DOD concurred with our recommendation and stated that as part of its revised guidance it proposed to strengthen and institutionalize the responsibilities and authorities needed for successful implementation of the department's sexual harassment policies. In February 2018, DOD took action toward addressing this recommendation and issued an update to DOD Instruction 1020.03, Harassment Prevention and Response in the Armed Forces, that directs DOD's Office of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion to ensure that DOD components' harassment prevention and response programs incorporate , at a minimum, (1)

Financial Derivatives: Disparate Tax Treatment and Information Gaps Create Uncertainty and Potential Abuse

GAO-11-750
James (Jay) R. McTigue, Jr
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1 Open Recommendations
Agency Recommendation Status
Department of the Treasury To better ensure that economically similar outcomes are taxed similarly and minimize opportunities for abuse, the Secretary of the Treasury should undertake a study that compares the current approach to alternative approaches for the taxation of financial derivatives. To determine if changes would be beneficial, such a study should weigh the tradeoffs to IRS and taxpayers that each alternative presents, including simplicity, administrability, and economic efficiency.
Open

Treasury disagreed with this recommendation based on the fact that many outside studies already exist and IRS did not comment. The Inflation Reduction Act enacted in August 2022 did not include any requirements that Treasury study alternative approaches for the taxation of financial derivatives. However, members of Congress in the 118th have discussed a mark-to-market tax system and the taxation of financial derivatives. GAO continues to maintain that further study is needed in coordination with IRS and will continue to monitor proposals for such a study.

Federal Reserve System: Opportunities Exist to Strengthen Policies and Processes for Managing Emergency Assistance

GAO-11-696
Orice Williams Brown
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1 Open Recommendations
Agency Recommendation Status
Board of Governors While creating control systems at the same time that the emergency programs were being designed and implemented posed unique challenges, the recent crisis provided invaluable experience that the Federal Reserve System can apply in the future should the use of these authorities again become warranted. Going forward, to further strengthen policies for selecting vendors, ensuring the transparency and consistency of decision making involving the implementation of any future emergency programs, and managing risks related to these programs, the Chairman of the Federal Reserve Board should direct Federal Reserve Board and Reserve Bank staff to document the Federal Reserve Board's guidance to Reserve Banks on types of emergency program decisions and risk events that require approval by or consultation with the Board of Governors, the Federal Open Market Committee, or other designated groups or officials at the Federal Reserve Board.
Open

We most recently sought information from the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System in June 2021 regarding the status of the recommendation but did not receive any new information. Therefore, the recommendation remains open.
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