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Recommendations Database

GAO’s recommendations database contains report recommendations that still need to be addressed. GAO’s priority recommendations are those that we believe warrant priority attention. We sent letters to the heads of key departments and agencies, urging them to continue focusing on these issues. Below you can search only priority recommendations, or search all recommendations.

Our recommendations help congressional and agency leaders prepare for appropriations and oversight activities, as well as help improve government operations. Moreover, when implemented, some of our priority recommendations can save large amounts of money, help Congress make decisions on major issues, and substantially improve or transform major government programs or agencies, among other benefits.

As of October 25, 2020, there are 4812 open recommendations, of which 473 are priority recommendations. Recommendations remain open until they are designated as Closed-implemented or Closed-not implemented.

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Results:

Subject Term: "Employee compensation"

5 publications with a total of 10 open recommendations including 2 priority recommendations
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U.S. Secret Service: Investigative Operations Confer Benefits, but Additional Actions Are Needed to Prioritize Resources
GAO-20-239, Jan 22, 2020
Director: Gretta L. Goodwin
Phone: (202) 512-8777

4 open recommendations
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Recommendation: The Director of the Secret Service should identify which types of investigations and activities best prepare special agents for protective responsibilities. (Recommendation 1)

Agency: Department of Homeland Security: United States Secret Service
Status: Open

Comments: The agency has submitted a 180-day letter describing actions it is planning to take in response to this recommendation.
Recommendation: The Director of the Secret Service should develop a framework to help ensure special agents have an opportunity to work, to the extent possible, investigations and activities that best prepare them for protection. (Recommendation 2)

Agency: Department of Homeland Security: United States Secret Service
Status: Open

Comments: The agency has submitted a 180-day letter describing actions it is planning to take in response to this recommendation.
Recommendation: The Director of the Secret Service should establish a documented process to ensure that Office of Investigations resources are aligned with priority criminal threats. The process should outline key information to be included in plans for addressing priority threats. (Recommendation 3)

Agency: Department of Homeland Security: United States Secret Service
Status: Open

Comments: The agency has submitted a 180-day letter describing actions it is planning to take in response to this recommendation.
Recommendation: The Director of the Secret Service should identify investigations that address priority criminal threats agencywide and collect data on the resources expended to investigate the threats. (Recommendation 4)

Agency: Department of Homeland Security: United States Secret Service
Status: Open

Comments: The agency has submitted a 180-day letter describing actions it is planning to take in response to this recommendation.
U.S. Postal Service: Additional Guidance Needed to Assess Effect of Changes to Employee Compensation
GAO-20-140, Jan 17, 2020
Director: Lori Rectanus
Phone: (202) 512-2834

1 open recommendations
Display
Recommendation: The Postmaster General should direct executive leaders to develop guidance for cost savings estimates related to employee compensation specifying that analysis used to calculate estimates should, to the extent possible, include significant factors, such as work hours, tenure, and turnover. (Recommendation 1)

Agency: United States Postal Service
Status: Open

Comments: USPS accepted this recommendation and said, in July 2020, that it was developing internal guidance for cost savings estimates to ensure appropriate factors are considered when evaluating changes to employee compensation. USPS estimates that this guidance will be complete by October 31, 2020.
Energy Employees Compensation: Labor Could Better Assist Claimants through Clearer Communication
GAO-19-90, Nov 7, 2018
Director: Chelsa Gurkin
Phone: (202) 512-7215

1 open recommendations
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Recommendation: The Secretary of Labor, in conducting any assessment of its staff training designed to improve clarity of communication with claimants, should ensure that the assessment considers claimants' challenges with understanding DOL's written communications on the evidence needed to successfully reopen or otherwise support a claim.

Agency: Department of Labor
Status: Open

Comments: DOL neither agreed nor disagreed with this recommendation. However, DOL acknowledged that it plans to focus its staff training efforts on a variety of needed training topics, including improving the quality of written communications. DOL further noted that its recently hired training analyst will be responsible for, among other things, designing assessment measures to gauge the quality of training and the effect it has improving the overall quality of claim outcomes. We encourage DOL to continue designing its assessment so that it considers claimants' challenges in understanding the evidence needed. As of July 2019, DOL said it will soon contract with a training vendor to help update training materials and expects training to be rolled out in fiscal year 2020. In addition, DOL said it has conducted hands-on staff training that includes providing claimants with a clear understanding as to why a claim is accepted or denied. We will consider closing this recommendation pending implementation of the updated training and efforts to assess it.
Overseas Allowances: State Should Assess the Cost-Effectiveness of Its Hardship Pay Policies
GAO-17-715, Sep 13, 2017
Director: Courts, Michael J
Phone: (202) 512-8980

3 open recommendations
including 2 priority recommendations
Display
Recommendation: The Director of the Office of Allowances (ALS) should clearly document how the conditions at relevant posts meet the criteria for Director Points to ensure that hardship pay rates for overseas posts are consistently determined across posts and tenures of ALS Directors. (Recommendation 1)

Agency: Department of State
Status: Open

Comments: In commenting on our report, State concurred with our recommendation. As of January 2020, the Director of ALS has not granted any Director Points since the subject GAO review was completed. According to State officials, should points be necessary in the future, ALS will document why the conditions at relevant posts require the use of Director Points connected with hardship pay rates. We will continue to follow-up on this.
Recommendation: The Undersecretary of Management should assess the cost-effectiveness of State's policies and procedures for stopping and starting hardship pay for employees who temporarily leave their assigned overseas posts. (Recommendation 2)

Agency: Department of State
Status: Open
Priority recommendation

Comments: State concurred with this recommendation, and reported that the department is taking a two-pronged approach to reviewing the issue. First, the Department is conducting a comprehensive review of all costs associated with the processing of hardship and other associated allowance and differential cables through reviews of post-level and central expenditures. This review is expected to be complete by October 2020. Second, the Department is costing out alternative methods of addressing allowance and differential costs that reduce the manual effort on the Department but address the need to support costs incurred by Foreign Service Officers overseas. Meetings with Foreign Service Officer staff to understand variances in the current model were held in the summer of 2019. Highlights from those sessions are being incorporated into a proposal to coincide with the review of costs from the first phase. The final proposal is expected to be complete by the end of 2020.
Recommendation: The Department's Comptroller should analyze available diplomatic cable data from overseas posts to identify posts at risk of improper payments for hardship pay, identify any improper payments, and take steps to recover and prevent them. (Recommendation 3)

Agency: Department of State
Status: Open
Priority recommendation

Comments: State concurred with this recommendation. According to State, it continues to identify and seek repayment of improper payments and communicate the importance of timely actions to the regional bureaus and posts to ensure improper payments do not occur. In addition, the Bureau of the Comptroller and Global Financial Services (CGFS) supports the roll out of the Overseas Personnel System, which will centralize the collection of arrival and departure data for the calculation of improper payment notification and risk analysis. To fully implement the recommendation, the Bureau of Human Resources (HR) must complete worldwide deployment of the Overseas Personnel System, and both HR and CGFS would need to complete integration work to enable arrival and departure data to flow in an automated fashion between the two systems. CGFS would then need to provide documentation that the system allows it to more easily identify and prevent improper payments. Preliminary development of the integration will begin in the summer of 2020 while the OPS roll-out continues.
Federal Employees' Compensation Act: Case Examples Illustrate Vulnerabilities That Could Result in Improper Payments or Overlapping Benefits
GAO-13-386, Apr 3, 2013
Director: Bagdoyan, Seto J
Phone: (202) 512-4749

1 open recommendations
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Recommendation: Congress should consider granting Labor the additional authority it is seeking to access wage data to help verify claimants' reported income and help ensure the proper payment of benefits.

Agency: Congress
Status: Open

Comments: No legislation introduced as of March 20120. The Workers' Compensation Reform Act of 2015 (S. 2051, title V) was introduced in the 114th Congress. It would have allowed DOL to access wage data, as GAO suggested in April 2013, from the National Directory of New Hires to improve the integrity of the Federal Employees' Compensation Act program, among other actions. If similar legislation were introduced in the 116th Congress and enacted, this legislation could help to prevent and detect improper payments in the Federal Employees' Compensation Act program.