From the U.S. Government Accountability Office, www.gao.gov Transcript for: Comptroller General Testifies to U.S. House on GAO's 2016 Duplication Report Description: In his April 13, 2016 testimony to the U.S. House, Comptroller General Gene Dodaro introduces GAO's 2016 Duplication and Cost Savings Report. Related GAO Work: GAO-16-579T: Government Efficiency and Effectiveness: Opportunities to Reduce Fragmentation, Overlap, and Duplication and Achieve Other Financial Benefits and GAO-16-375SP: 2016 Annual Report: Additional Opportunities to Reduce Fragmentation, Overlap, and Duplication and Achieve Other Financial Benefits Released: April 2016 [First Screen] [Silence] House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, [Second Screen] [Silence] Government Efficiency and Effectiveness: Opportunities to Reduce Fragmentation, Overlap, and Duplication and Achieve Other Financial Benefits [Third Screen] [Silence] U.S. Comptroller General Gene L. Dodaro Opening Statement April 13, 2016 Chairman Chaffetz: But Mr. Dodaro, you're now recognized for 5 minutes. Mr. Dodaro: Thank you very much Mr. Chairman. Good morning to you, Ranking Member Cummings, members of the committee. We're very pleased to be here today to discuss GAO's sixth annual report on overlap, duplication, and fragmentation in the federal government and also other opportunities to achieve cost savings and revenue enhancements. In this report, we introduce 92 new actions that the Congress and the executive branch can take in 37 different areas. And to give you some examples in the overlap, duplication, fragmentation area, we highlight 12 areas. For example, we found that the Defense department is procuring commercial services for satellites and then the billion dollars that they spent, about 30 percent of that was spent outside their central procurement agency by the different services and other agencies throughout the department, and as a result in this central agency, the costs were about 15 percent less than purchasing it outside that central offices so we think there's better money to be saved there, tens of billions of dollars. We also found that nine referral programs at IRS for whistleblowers and others to report improper activities that would give IRS some tips to follow up for tax enforcement purposes and potentially produce billions of dollars in additional revenue owed the government but these systems were manually operated. They were fragmented, they weren't coordinated, and there are a lot of opportunities to streamline and provide better communication to the people providing tips. Also, we found there was a potential for duplicative healthcare spending between people who are on Medicaid or in the state exchanges. There’s some amount of transfer time that could be made if people's income levels change or they become eligible for Medicaid or the services, but we found the activities outside that normal transition period and we recommended that in order to minimize any duplicate federal spending, a better coordination would need to be take place and better oversight by CMS over the Medicaid programs at the state level and with the exchanges. In areas of cost savings, revenue enhancements, we've got a number of recommendations this year that are new. We have opportunities to save a lot of money in overpayments for disability programs by the Social Security Administration. There are billions to be saved and we're vamping some of the payment policies that guide Medicare spending. There's greater need for oversight to save. You could save hundreds of millions of dollars, if not billions, by greater oversight of CMS over Medicaid spending and the states' activities. There's also millions that could be saved by the federal agencies having better access to excess personal property at DOD and ammunition that's discarded but could be used by other federal agencies so we -- you know, don't have to buy it twice in that process. And there's some fees that could be raised that haven't been raised in over 20 years to help provide more resources in particular to deal with deferred maintenance in our national parks. To date, as Mr. Chairman mentioned, Mr. Cummings in their opening statements, Congress and the administration have acted on many of our recommendations. Of the 544 that we've had made previously, 41 percent have been implemented, 34 percent partially, 20 percent not yet implemented at all. There are tens of billions of dollars in additional savings to be had and in the offing here, if those recommendations are fully acted upon. To date, as you mentioned, Mr. Chairman, your opening statements, about $125 billion that have been saved or will be saved over the coming years, we're pleased that the Congress has taken action. A lot of the large dollar savings have come from congressional action and also in a number of areas where the agencies have taken action that's because of congressional urging as well. So -- but there's a lot more that could be done. I'm very pleased to be here today to talk about those opportunities in addition to the new areas that we've added to the list. Thank you for holding this annual hearing. It makes a big difference in getting support and I will pass on to our staff your thanks and appreciation for their hard work, Mr. Chairman, Congressman Cummings, thank you for your comments and be happy to answer questions at the appropriate point. Chairman Chaffetz: Thank you.