From the U.S. Government Accountability Office, www.gao.gov

Transcript for: Reducing Government Duplication and Saving Tax Dollars

Description: Audio interview by GAO staff with Nikki Clowers, Director,
Financial Markets and Community Investment.

Related GAO Work: GAO-14-343SP: 2014 Annual Report: Additional
Opportunities to Reduce Fragmentation, Overlap, and Duplication and
Achieve Other Financial Benefits

Released: April 2014

[ Background Music ]

[ Narrator: ] Welcome to GAO's Watchdog Report, your source for news and
information from the U.S. Government Accountability Office. It's April
2014. GAO is releasing its fourth annual look at the duplication,
overlap, and fragmentation across the federal government as well as
opportunities for cost savings and revenue enhancements. A team co-led
by Nikki Clowers, a director in GAO's Financial Markets and Community
Investment team conducted this latest review. GAO's Sarah Kaczmarek sat
down with Nikki to talk about what they found.

[ Sarah Kaczmarek: ] This report identifies areas of duplication,
overlap, and fragmentation among federal programs. Can you talk a bit
more about these findings?

[ Nikki Clowers: ] We identify 11 new areas in which we found evidence
of fragmentation, overlap, or duplication. And maybe it would be helpful
to provide some definitions along with some examples of those findings.
First we have fragmentation, in which multiple agencies or programs are
focused on a specific broad area of national need, which can lead to
inefficiencies. So for this year for example, we are reporting on the
fragmented approach that the Department of Defense uses for contracting
for healthcare professionals. We found instances in which multiple task
orders were issued for the same services within a single military
department. We recommend that increasing the use of joint-use contracts
could result in cost savings and other improved efficiencies. So
identifying the fragmentation is important to eliminate any potential
inefficiencies. But it's also important to identify and weed out
fragmentation because it can be a harbinger for overlap and duplication.
By overlap I mean multiple agencies or programs are working on similar
goals or have programs targeted to the similar populations. For example,
this year we discuss overlap between the disability insurance and
unemployment insurance programs. Under current law, individuals can
receive concurrent payments from these two programs. And as a result the
government is replacing a portion of lost wages not once, but twice.
Addressing this overlap could save the government about $1.2 billion
over 10 years. And finally we found instances of duplication, which
occurs when multiple agencies or programs are focused on the same goals
or the same populations. For example, we found eight different
organizations within the Department of Defense are responsible for
accounting for missing warriors. We found this fragmentation led to
overlap and potential duplication. We recommend examining the current
structure and clarifying the roles of these organizations, which would
enhance the effectiveness in which this work is carried out.

[ Sarah Kaczmarek: ] Your team also identified additional cost saving
opportunities for the federal government. What sorts of opportunities
did you find there?

[ Nikki Clowers: ] In this year's report we identify 15 new areas in
which the government could achieve cost savings or enhance revenue
collections. For example, we recommend that Congress rescind the
remaining $4.2 billion in credit subsidies for the Advanced Technology
Vehicles Manufacturing Loan Program. This program was designed to
encourage the development of advanced technologies, but we found that
there was insufficient demand for this funding for a variety of reasons.
Unless the Department of Energy can demonstrate a demand for this
funding, Congress should rescind the remaining $4.2 billion in subsidy.

[ Sarah Kaczmarek: ] Can you talk a little bit about what kinds of
progress you found across the government since GAO started this work?

[ Nikki Clowers: ] We report that executive branch agencies in Congress
have made progress in addressing issues that we had previously
identified. In our last three annual reports we identified approximately
380 actions, or you can think of them as recommendations, that executive
branch agencies or Congress should take to address the issues we
identified. This year we're reporting about 30 percent of these actions
have now been addressed. For example, in 2011 we reported that Congress
could save up to $5 billion annually by eliminating or reducing direct
farm payments. These payments are fixed annual payments to farmers based
on a farm's history of crop production. And farmers receive them
regardless of whether they grew crops and even in years of record
income. The recent farm bill eliminated these direct payments.

[ Sarah Kaczmarek: ] For taxpayers interested in understanding how their
taxes could be spent more efficiently and effectively by the federal
government, what do you see as the bottom line here?

[ Nikki Clowers: ] It's always important that the government operate as
efficiently and effectively as possible. But the urgency is even greater
in today's fiscal environment. One way to increase the efficiency and
effectiveness of government is to address opportunities to reduce
fragmentation, overlap, duplication, or achieve other cost savings. Our
body of work in this area provides policymakers with a road map for
doing just that.

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[ 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.