U.S. Government Accountability Office (U.S. GAO)

The Annual Index is a comprehensive list of all reports, testimony, correspondence and other publications issued by GAO during the fiscal year, grouped according to topics. We assign more than one topic to a report when that makes sense. For example, a report about education for veterans will be categorized as both a Veterans report and an Education report. So, you may see the same report in more than one topic below.

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Agriculture and Food

What GAO Found Under the new Farmers to Families Food Box Program, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) continued to spend funds for food purchases for redistribution to food banks, nonprofits, and other entities. The program was developed in weeks to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic, which caused...

What GAO Found GAO found limited information on the use of alternative drinking water systems serving communities of 500 or fewer people. Alternative drinking water systems are substitute systems (e.g., wells and well systems) or innovative systems featuring advanced methods identified by the Environmental...

What GAO Found Since GAO last reported in 2013, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) has made progress in completing and reporting on reviews to determine if recipients of farm program payments comply with requirements for being actively engaged in farming, including contributions shown in the table....

What GAO Found From fiscal years 2012 through 2019, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) obligated a combined total of $14.7 billion to support operations at the Center for Drug Evaluation and Research, the Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research, and the Center for Devices and Radiological Health....

What GAO Found The roles and responsibilities of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) during a multistate foodborne illness outbreak include analyzing federal foodborne illness surveillance networks to identify outbreaks, leading investigations to determine the food causing the outbreak,...

What GAO Found General information about the process of making cell-cultured meat—food products grown from the cells of livestock, poultry, and seafood—is available. However, no company is commercially producing cell-cultured meat. Specific information about the technology being used, eventual commercial...

What GAO Found The Department of Homeland Security's U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) uses a four-phase process to enforce section 307 of the Tariff Act of 1930, which prohibits imports produced with forced labor, including seafood. CBP's Forced Labor Division, established in 2018, largely carries...

What GAO Found From 2014 through 2018, the United States and other donors provided an estimated total of more than $75 billion in global food security assistance, with the United States accounting for more than $22 billion of this total. Other countries disbursed a total of $40 billion (see figure),...

What GAO Found The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) have taken steps to plan for and implement the successful transfer of the National Bio and Agro-Defense Facility (NBAF) from DHS to USDA for ownership and operation. (See figure.) The facility is to house...

What GAO Found In April 2019, GAO identified 11 priority recommendations for the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). Since then, USDA has implemented two of those recommendations by, among other things, taking actions to help ensure its food safety goals are complementary and mutually enforcing to...

What GAO Found The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) has established business centers to provide consolidated administrative services such as human resources and information technology in each of its eight mission areas, in keeping with reforms called for in a November 2017 memorandum from the Secretary...

What GAO Found The U.S. Department of Agriculture's (USDA) Farm Service Agency (FSA) distributed about $14.4 billion in 2019 Market Facilitation Program (MFP) payments to farming operations in all 50 states and Puerto Rico. According to USDA, these payments were intended to offset the effects of trade...

Auditing and Financial Management

What GAO Found The Cost Accounting Standards Board (the Board) is generally meeting recent legislative requirements and has taken initial steps to assess the extent to which the government's Cost Accounting Standards (CAS) can be conformed with a set of 12commercial financial reporting principles known...

What GAO Found While the use of accounting adjustments is a common practice, the Department of Defense's (DOD) reliance on a large volume of nonroutine adjustments to prepare its financial statements is primarily a result of deficient business processes and limitations in accounting systems that DOD...

What GAO Found GAO found (1) the financial statements of the Deposit Insurance Fund (DIF) and of the Federal Savings and Loan Insurance Corporation (FSLIC) Resolution Fund (FRF) as of and for the years ended December 31, 2019, and 2018, are presented fairly, in all material respects, in accordance with...

What GAO Found To operate as effectively and efficiently as possible, Congress, the administration, and federal managers must have ready access to reliable and complete financial and performance information—both for individual federal entities and for the federal government as a whole. GAO's report...

What GAO Found GAO began 35 new audits that involved the Department of Defense (DOD) in the first quarter of fiscal year 2020. GAO found that DOD generally scheduled entrance conferences within 14 days and held those entrance conferences within 30 days of notification, with the exception of audits for...

What GAO Found During its audit of the Internal Revenue Service's (IRS) fiscal years 2019 and 2018 financial statements, GAO identified new control deficiencies in IRS's internal control over financial reporting that although not considered a material weakness or significant deficiency, nonetheless warrant...

What GAO Found During GAO's audit of the Schedules of Federal Debt managed by the Department of the Treasury's Bureau of the Fiscal Service (Fiscal Service) for the fiscal years ended September 30, 2019, and 2018, GAO determined that information system control deficiencies—primarily unresolved deficiencies...

What GAO Found During fiscal year 2019, GAO identified six new information system control deficiencies relevant to the Schedules of the General Fund: three related to access controls, one to configuration management, and two to segregation of duties. In a separately issued LIMITED OFFICIAL USE ONLY report,...

What GAO Found Based on the limited procedures GAO performed in reviewing the independent public accounting firm's (IPA) financial audit of the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute's (PCORI) fiscal year 2019 financial statements, GAO did not identify any significant issues related to the financial...

What GAO Found Agency-reported improper payment estimates for fiscal year 2019 totaled about $175 billion, based on improper payment estimates reported by federal programs, an increase from the fiscal year 2018 total of $151 billion. Of the $175 billion, about $121 billion (approximately 69 percent)...

What GAO Found Five out of six agencies used their improper payment estimation results to identify the root causes for the eight programs GAO reviewed. However, the Department of the Treasury (Treasury) used 2006 through 2008 taxpayer data to identify root causes of fiscal year 2018 Earned Income Tax...

What GAO Found This testimony summarizes information contained in GAO's March 2020 report, entitled The Nation’s Fiscal Health: Action Is Needed to Address the Federal Government’s Fiscal Future (GAO-20-403SP). Long-term fiscal projections by GAO, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), and in the...

The nation faces serious economic, security, and social challenges that require difficult policy choices in the near term in setting national priorities and charting a path forward for economic growth. This will influence the level of federal spending and how the government obtains needed resources....

Annual Index of Reports, Testimony and Correspondence (FY2020)

Agriculture and Food

Opportunities Exist for USDA to Identify Successes and Challenges of the Farmers to Families Food Box Program to Inform Future Efforts

Use by Very Small Communities, Related Cost Savings, and Technical Assistance Provided by EPA and USDA

USDA Has Improved Its Completion of Eligibility Compliance Reviews, but Additional Oversight Is Needed

Formal Policies Could Enhance FDA's Property Management Efforts

CDC Could Further Strengthen Its Efforts to Identify and Respond to Foodborne Illnesses

FDA and USDA Could Strengthen Existing Efforts to Prepare for Oversight of Cell-Cultured Meat

Better Communication Could Improve Trade Enforcement Efforts Related to Seafood

Information on Spending and Types of Assistance Provided by the United States and Other Donors

DHS and USDA Are Working to Transfer Ownership and Prepare for Operations, but Critical Steps Remain

U.S. Department of Agriculture

More Could Be Done to Assess Effectiveness and Impact of Business Centers

Information on Payments for 2019

Auditing and Financial Management

Board Has Taken Initial Steps to Meet Recent Legislative Requirements

Actions Needed to Reduce Accounting Adjustments

Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation Funds’ 2019 and 2018 Financial Statements

FY 2019 and FY 2018 Consolidated Financial Statements of the U.S. Government

Status of DOD's Efforts to Schedule and Hold Timely Entrance Conferences

Improvements Are Needed to Enhance the Internal Revenue Service's Internal Control over Financial Reporting

Improvements Needed in the Bureau of the Fiscal Service's Information System Controls Related to the Schedule of Federal Debt

Improvements Needed in the Bureau of the Fiscal Service’s Information System Controls Related to the Schedules of the General Fund

Review of the Audit of the Financial Statements for FY 2019

Federal Agencies' Estimates of FY 2019 Improper Payments

Selected Agencies Should Improve Efforts to Evaluate Effectiveness of Corrective Actions to Reduce Improper Payments

Action Is Needed to Address the Federal Government's Fiscal Future

Action Is Needed to Address the Federal Government's Fiscal Future