Recommendation: The VA Under Secretary of Health should use workload data from the most recently completed fiscal year as part of the models that inform VISNs' and medical centers' general purpose funding needs, when doing so would not significantly delay the allocation of funds. (Recommendation 1)

Agency: Department of Veterans Affairs: Veterans Health Administration
Status: Open

Comments: April 2020: GAO will update the status of this recommendation when VA provides additional information.

Recommendation: The VA Under Secretary of Health should establish a formal process to document VHA's review of VISNs' adjustments to medical center allocation levels. (Recommendation 2)

Agency: Department of Veterans Affairs: Veterans Health Administration
Status: Open

Comments: April 2020: GAO will update the status of this recommendation when VA provides additional information.

Recommendation: The VA Under Secretary of Health should revise VHA's existing guidance to require VISNs to provide information on how they determined how much and for what reasons they made adjustments to medical center allocation levels. (Recommendation 3)

Agency: Department of Veterans Affairs: Veterans Health Administration
Status: Open

Comments: April 2020: GAO will update the status of this recommendation when VA provides additional information.

Recommendation: The VA Under Secretary of Health should revise its existing guidance to require VISNs—in conjunction with medical centers—to develop and submit approaches to improve efficiency at medical centers with declining workload that received adjusted funding levels. These approaches could include adjusting the level of services offered. (Recommendation 4)

Agency: Department of Veterans Affairs: Veterans Health Administration
Status: Open
Priority recommendation

Comments: April 2020: GAO will update the status of this recommendation when VA provides additional information.

Recommendation: The VA Under Secretary of Health should require VISNs to provide explanations on the amount of funds redistributed between VISNs and medical centers and VHA to document its review of these redistributions. (Recommendation 5)

Agency: Department of Veterans Affairs: Veterans Health Administration
Status: Open

Comments: April 2020: GAO will update the status of this recommendation when VA provides additional information.

Recommendation: The Secretary of Defense should ensure that the Chief of the National Guard Bureau take steps to ensure it issues a manual to accompany Chief National Guard Bureau Instruction 3100.01A, National Guard Counterdrug Support, by June 2019. (Recommendation 3)

Agency: Department of Defense
Status: Open

Comments: DOD concurred with our recommendation and stated that the National Guard Bureau had begun updating Chief of the National Guard Bureau Instruction 3100.01A to comply with the most recent published Secretary of Defense guidance and that they planned to expedite the issuance of the accompanying manual. In August 2020, DOD provided GAO with a draft of the manual; however, officials from the Office of the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Counternarcotics and Global Threats noted that the manual was still being reviewed within DOD and expected that it would be finalized by the end of December 2020.

Recommendation: The Secretary of Defense should ensure that the Office of the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Counternarcotics and Global Threats, in coordination with the Chief of the National Guard Bureau, assess the revised process for reviewing states' plans for their counterdrug activities, and take actions based on the assessment to ensure the plans are approved by the Secretary of Defense before funding is provided to state counterdrug programs, as statutorily required. (Recommendation 4)

Agency: Department of Defense
Status: Open

Comments: DOD concurred with our recommendation and stated that the Office of the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Counternarcotics and Global Threats would continue to work with the National Guard Bureau to improve the State Plans review process for fiscal year 2020 and beyond. DOD's response noted that State Plans Guidance will reiterate that, in accordance with statute, funding may not be provided for a State's counterdrug program until the Secretary of Defense has approved its plan. In September 2019, DOD officials from the Office of the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Counternarcotics and Global Threats provided information showing improvements in the timing of the review process for approval of the State Plans, but noted more needed to be done in order to ensure all State Plans were approved by the Secretary of Defense prior to funding being provided to State counterdrug programs. In January 2020, officials from the Office of the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Counternarcotics and Global Threats stated they were continuing to monitor the updated process for fiscal year 2021 and hoped for further improvements.

Recommendation: The Secretary of Defense should ensure that the Chief of the National Guard Bureau incorporate the strategic counternarcotics priorities, to be outlined in DOD's counternarcotics and global threats strategic framework, into the National Guard Bureau's funding distribution process. (Recommendation 5)

Agency: Department of Defense
Status: Open

Comments: DOD concurred with our recommendation and stated that officials from the Office of the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Counternarcotics and Global Threats would work with the National Guard Bureau to support its efforts to incorporate and align DOD strategic priorities into its planning and resource allocation processes. In February 2020, DOD documents noted that this recommendation was assigned to the Counterdrug Advisory Counsel and Threat Based Resourcing Model Target Team for action and estimated a December 2020 completion date.

Recommendation: To help achieve EQIP's purpose of optimizing environmental benefits, the Secretary of Agriculture should direct the Chief of the Natural Resources Conservation Service to direct EQIP program managers to coordinate with the leaders of USDA's CEAP to help ensure that CEAP studies consider the practical limitations and trade-offs faced by program managers and to provide program managers with better information to target EQIP funds where they will optimize environmental benefits.

Agency: Department of Agriculture
Status: Open

Comments: As of May 2020, the agency has not taken action. When we obtain information from the agency, we will update the status of this recommendation.

Recommendation: To help achieve EQIP's purpose of optimizing environmental benefits, the Secretary of Agriculture should direct the Chief of the Natural Resources Conservation Service to revise guidance on state offices' EQIP allocation processes, stipulating that data on environmental concerns, where available, should be a primary factor influencing allocations within states.

Agency: Department of Agriculture
Status: Open

Comments: As of May 2020, the agency has not taken action. When we obtain information from the agency, we will update the status of this recommendation.

Recommendation: To help achieve EQIP's purpose of optimizing environmental benefits, the Secretary of Agriculture should direct the Chief of the Natural Resources Conservation Service to establish a review process at the regional level for review and concurrence of EQIP payment rates above a threshold (e.g., rates greater than 50 percent, with justification).

Agency: Department of Agriculture
Status: Open

Comments: As of May 2020, the agency has not taken action. When we obtain information from the agency, we will update the status of this recommendation.

Recommendation: To help achieve EQIP's purpose of optimizing environmental benefits, the Secretary of Agriculture should direct the Chief of the Natural Resources Conservation Service to modify guidance and ranking tools so that they more accurately value an EQIP application's anticipated environmental benefits relative to estimated costs.

Agency: Department of Agriculture
Status: Open

Comments: As of May 2020, the agency has not taken action. When we obtain information from the agency, we will update the status of this recommendation.

Recommendation: To enhance the budget process and to improve transparency, the Commissioner of Internal Revenue, to the extent feasible, should ensure that the CJ includes data by appropriation account on the amount of funding requested to maintain current services for each future state theme.

Agency: Department of the Treasury: Internal Revenue Service
Status: Open

Comments: In its fiscal year 2017 congressional justification, IRS modified how its budget data were organized, including linking requested increases to future state themes, but did not clarify how current spending by themes relates to appropriation accounts. Information on current spending by theme and account is important to ensure transparency on the current funding levels to assist Congress in making informed budget decisions. As reported in October 2018 in GAO-19-108R, the themes under the Future State vision are now being pursued as part of IRS's strategic plan for fiscal years 2018 to 2022-issued in May 2018. IRS has been phasing out the use of the term Future State and did not include it in its fiscal year 2020 congressional justification. Including data on the themes in the strategic plan would provide additional transparency and improve the quality of the information available to Congress for budget deliberations.

Recommendation: As Treasury works with IRS to improve the quality and accuracy of budget data, the Secretary of the Treasury should ensure sufficient controls are in place to make certain that the information technology investment reports generated from the SharePoint Investment Knowledge Exchange are accurate. This includes, for example, taking steps to reduce the need for manual corrections to the data.

Agency: Department of the Treasury
Status: Open

Comments: As of November 2017, Treasury Department officials took steps to address the need to manually correct budget data for the fiscal year 2017 budget request. However, as of October 2019, we have not received documentation that they have done so for future budget years. Improved information would help Treasury and IRS better account for information technology resources. We will continue to monitor Treasury's progress.

Recommendation: To help IRS improve its process for determining IT funding priorities and to provide timely information on the progress of its investments, the Commissioner of IRS should direct the Chief Technology Officer to establish, document, and implement policies and procedures for selecting new and reselecting ongoing business systems modernization activities, consistent with IRS's process for prioritizing operations support priorities, which addresses (1) prioritization and comparison of IT assets against each other, (2) criteria for making selection and prioritization decisions, and (3) ensuring IRS executives' final funding decisions on IT proposals are based on IRS's prioritization process.

Agency: Department of the Treasury: Internal Revenue Service
Status: Open

Comments: In September 2018, IRS provided GAO a slide deck titled "Prioritization Process for the Business Systems Modernization (BSM) Program/Projects" which describes a process for prioritizing BSM investments and capabilities within the investments. However, the slides were labeled "pre-decisional." In addition, they did not include specific procedures for prioritizing investments. In April 2020, IRS informed us that it had moved its target for fully implementing the recommendation to November 2020. We will continue to monitor IRS's efforts to implement the recommendation.

Recommendation: To help IRS improve its process for determining IT funding priorities and to provide timely information on the progress of its investments, the Commissioner of IRS should direct the Chief Technology Officer to modify existing processes for Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA) and Return Review Program (RRP) for measuring work performed by IRS staff to incorporate best practices, including accounting for actual work performed and using the level of effort measure sparingly.

Agency: Department of the Treasury: Internal Revenue Service
Status: Open

Comments: In May 2018, IRS told GAO it had implemented the recommendation. As supporting evidence, the agency provided an April 2018 update to its Investment Performance Tool user guide along with briefing slides specifying actions taken to modify its processes to measure work performed by IRS staff. We reviewed the evidence provided and determined that it was not sufficient to close the recommendation as implemented. Specifically, while the Investment Performance Tool user guide included updated procedures for measuring work performed by IRS staff which aligned with best practices, it did not clearly state that earned value (or work performed) during an iteration should always be based on to the percentage of planned features or user stories that were completed for that iteration. In addition, IRS did not provide evidence that it had used its updated procedures for the Return Review Program investment. We followed up with IRS to obtain this documentation. The agency subsequently provided the requested documentation to us and, as of July 2020, we were reviewing it to determine the extent to which it addresses the recommendation.

Recommendation: To improve transparency in allocating its limited resources, and to help ensure that its resource allocation decisions are the most effective ones for fulfilling its missions given existing risks, the Commandant of the Coast Guard should document how the risk assessments conducted were used to inform and support its annual asset allocation decisions.

Agency: Department of Homeland Security: United States Coast Guard
Status: Open

Comments: In February 2018, the Coast Guard liaison stated that Coast Guard management made a decision to not to address this recommendation within the annual Strategic Planning Direction (SPD) or Operational Planning Direction (OPD) products as previously planned, but rather within the Standard Operational Planning Process/Global Force Management Process Guide. The liaison further stated that both of these documents are currently under revision and expected to be completed by March 31, 2018. On October 11, 2018, the Coast Guard liaison stated that The Standard Operational Planning Process/Global Force Management Instruction is in routing for edits, comment, and final approval. The new estimated completion date is the 2nd quarter of FY 2019. GAO sent an inquiry to the Coast Guard on April 24, 2019 and is awaiting a reply. On March 30, 2020, the Coast Guard liaison informed GAO that the update to the Standard Operational Planning Process (SOPP)/Global Force Management (GFM) Instruction, which includes the addition and test of Strategic Priorities Planning Guidance and the new Coast Guard Force Allocation Matrix, was further delayed due to recent discussions of changing to a 2-year SOPP planning cycle to align with the Department of Defense Global Force Management process. This change would further require an update of the SOPP/GFM Instruction. The COVID-19 crisis as well as the need to finalize the Strategic Planning Direction by June 2020 are also factors in this delay. New Estimated Completion Date (ECD): June 30, 2021.

Recommendation: To ensure that high priority mission activities are fully supported with the appropriate number of staff possessing the requisite mix of skills and abilities, the Commandant of the Coast Guard should develop a systematic process that prioritizes manpower requirements analyses for units that are the most critical for achieving mission needs.

Agency: Department of Homeland Security: United States Coast Guard
Status: Open

Comments: On December 14, 2016, the Coast Guard noted that it submitted two FY 2019 Resource Proposals to staff and equip the Manpower Requirements Determination Division to conduct the analysis as described in the recommendation. In April, 2016, the Coast Guard liaison stated that, resources permitting, the Coast Guard is to address the following steps: (1) Validate the "unit-type" list so that it encompasses the vast majority of active duty and civilian billets in a logical framework that can be readily analyzed, review/update the list as changes (e.g., asset mix, organizations) occur. (2) Develop the requirements for the envisioned Manpower Analysis & Simulation Tool (MAST). (3) Prioritize unit list according to strategic alignment and risk assessment (4) Conduct the manpower requirements analyses (MRA) in accordance with established priorities. As of August 2020, the Coast Guard reported it had not implemented the actions. Specifically, the Coast Guard reported that in response to GAO's February 2020 modernization report (GAO-20-223, rec#2), it was developing new guidance for executing the manpower requirement determination process. Officials told us that the new guidance would include a systematic process for prioritizing manpower analysis. In this way, the actions for implementing the GAO-20-223 recommendation may also serve to meet the intent of the recommendation for GAO-16-379. Officials told us the Coast Guard estimated implementing the actions by December 31, 2020.

Recommendation: To improve the strategic allocation of assets, the Commandant of the Coast Guard should incorporate field unit input, such as information on assets' actual performance from Operational Performance Assessment Reports and Planning Assessments, to inform more realistic asset allocation decisions--in addition to asset performance capacities currently used--in the annual Strategic Planning Directions to more effectively communicate strategic intent to field units.

Agency: Department of Homeland Security: United States Coast Guard
Status: Open

Comments: In February 2018, the Coast Guard liaison stated that Coast Guard management made a decision to not to address this recommendation within the annual Strategic Planning Direction (SPD) or Operational Planning Direction (OPD) products as previously planned, but rather within the Standard Operational Planning Process/Global Force Management Process Guide. The liaison further stated these documents are under revision and expected to be completed by March 31, 2018. On October 11, 2018, the Coast Guard liaison stated that The Standard Operational Planning Process/Global Force Management Instruction is in routing for edits, comment, and final approval. The new estimated completion date is the 2nd quarter of FY 2019. GAO sent an inquiry to the Coast Guard on April 24, 2019 asking for an update. On March 30, 2020, the Coast Guard liaison informed GAO that the update to the SOPP/GFM Instruction, which includes the addition and test of Strategic Priorities Planning Guidance and the new Coast Guard Force Allocation Matrix, was further delayed due to recent discussions of changing to a 2-year SOPP planning cycle to align with the Department of Defense Global Force Management process. The liaison stated that the COVID-19 crisis as well as the need to finalize the Strategic Planning Direction by June 2020 are also factors in this delay. The new estimated completion date for this recommendation is June 30, 2021.