Consumer Price Index: Impact of Commodity Analysts' Decisionmaking Needs to Be Assessed

Following the issuance of GAO's report, BLS formed a task team to pilot and test options for meeting GAO's recommendation. In December 2000, this task team recommended that BLS develop written guidelines to assist commodity analysts' decision-making for certain groups of items in the CPI. In addition, the team made recommendations for periodic supervisory review. These recommendations were developed by a second task team that refined and piloted additional options. In April 2002, the second task team recommended that standard written documentation be developed for all the groups of items in the CPI, that the documentation be updated regularly, and that it be used by commodity analysts' in their decision-making. Furthermore, the team's report called for monthly supervisory review of the commodity analysts' decisions. GAO followed up in June 2003, and agreed with BLS to keep the recommendation open for another year. In July 2004, BLS reported that written documentation had been developed for 273 of its items and that it planned to develop documentation for the remaining 8 in the near future. Furthermore, a process for the monthly review of commodity analysts' decisions had been in place for 13 months, and had been reported on. Based on the fact that BLS had developed documentation for almost all its commodities, and was practising monthly supervisory review, we decided to close this recommendation as implemented.