From the U.S. Government Accountability Office, www.gao.gov Transcript for: 2018 Duplication and Cost Savings Report Description: GAO issues a yearly report identifying duplication, overlap, and fragmentation in federal programs - as well as opportunities for the federal government to save money and increase revenue. So, what's new this year? Related GAO Work: GAO-18-371SP: 2018 Annual Report: Additional Opportunities to Reduce Fragmentation, Overlap, and Duplication and Achieve Other Financial Benefits Released: April 2018 [ Background Music ] [ Jessica Lucas-Judy: ] Implementing our actions has resulted in about $178 billion in financial benefits. [ Matt Oldham: ] Welcome to GAO's Watchdog Report, your source for news and information from the U.S. Government Accountability Office. I'm Matt Oldham. It remains the case that the federal government spends more money than it brings in, and GAO has a mandate to explore areas in the federal government where billions of dollars can be saved by minimizing fragmented, overlapping, or duplicative activities and through cost-saving and revenue-enhancing measures. I sat down with Jessica Lucas-Judy, a director in our Strategic Issues team, to talk about her team's annual review. Jessica, how many new areas did you report on this year? [ Jessica Lucas-Judy: ] In 2018, we're reporting on 68 new actions in 23 new areas, and these are areas where Congress or executive branch agencies could take action to better manage or reduce fragmentation overlap or duplication, or achieve some kind of financial benefits, or collect additional revenue. [ Matt Oldham: ] Are there any remarkable or standout examples in this year's report? [ Jessica Lucas-Judy: ] We have a number of different examples that span areas including agriculture, energy, law enforcement. But one example that I wanted to highlight is for Coast Guard boat stations. Now, this is an area, as you can imagine, where some level of duplication, some level of overlap is actually a good thing. You want the Coast Guard to be able to respond in search and rescue operations if there's an emergency. In 2013, the Coast Guard reviewed its boat stations and determined that there were 18 that it could close without having any kind of negative effect on its mission. So GAO recommended that the Coast Guard put together a plan for closing those boat stations and implement the plan, and we think that that could save potentially millions of dollars. This report is our eighth in a series. We've been reporting every year since 2011. And in that time, we've identified more than 700 actions for Congress or executive branch agencies. [ Matt Oldham: ] And what sort of effect have those actions had from those reports over the years? [ Jessica Lucas-Judy: ] During that time, more than half of the actions that we've identified have been fully addressed, and another 100 or so are what we call partially addressed, where Congress or an executive agency has taken some action, but maybe it's not complete yet or there's more that they could do. Implementing our actions has resulted in about $178 billion in financial benefits. So for example, by August of 2017, agencies had consolidated more than 5,800 data centers, resulting in about $3.9 billion in cost savings or cost avoidances. In another example, GAO's reported for years on fragmented leadership in government acquisition of space programs. These are things like satellites or ground control systems for weather, for GPS, for missile warning systems, and other things. And that fragmentation resulted in program delays and significant cost escalations. In 2017, the president revived the National Space Council to coordinate national space policy and strategy. [ Background Music ] [ Matt Oldham: ] As fiscal responsibility becomes a bigger issue, we're finding that every penny does actually count in the federal government. And savings of more than $100 billion, well, that's a lot of pennies. So Jessica, not everything GAO has found over the years has been applied. How many of these actions has the federal government not addressed? [ Jessica Lucas-Judy: ] There's still 365 actions that are open. And we think that addressing those could result in tens of billions of dollars of additional benefits. So, for example, Congress could allow the Department of Energy to use alternative treatments for certain waste with low levels of radioactivity and that could potentially save tens of billions of dollars and also reduce certain risks. In addition, addressing these actions could also help make sure that government resources are used more effectively. So in another example, the Departments of Health and Human services, Veterans Affairs, and others spend billions of dollars on education - graduate medical education - for physicians' so-called residency training. And GAO found that oversight of those programs was fragmented. So we've identified some actions for improving information that's needed to evaluate the government's' investment in that education. [ Matt Oldham: ] So it sounds like there are plenty of areas where we have found that the federal government can save money, and it sounds like there's still some work to do. Jessica, what is the bottom line of the report? [ Jessica Lucas-Judy: ] Bottom line, in a time of constrained resources, GAO's 2018 report offers hundreds of actions that Congress and executive agencies can take to make more efficient use of taxpayer dollars and make government more effective. [ Matt Oldham: ] Jessica Lucas-Judy is a director in our Strategic Issues team and led the group responsible for writing this year's Duplication and Cost-Savings Report. Thank you for your time, Jessica. [ Background Music ] [ Matt Oldham: ] Thanks for listening to the Watchdog Report. To hear more podcasts, subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts. [ Background Music ] [ Matt Oldham: ] For more from the congressional watchdog, the U.S. Government Accountability Office, visit us at gao.gov.