Recommendation: Early in the next decennial cycle, the Secretary of Commerce should direct the Under Secretary of the Economics and Statistics Administration and the Director of the U.S. Census Bureau to plan and execute more flexible, and perhaps smaller, address canvassing test and evaluation activity needed to support key design decisions having significant effect on the cost and quality of the census.

Agency: Department of Commerce
Status: Open

Comments: As of September 2020, the Bureau had not yet begun its 2030 testing and evaluation planning. When we confirm what actions the agency has taken in response to this recommendation, we will provide updated information.

Recommendation: As DOD continues to improve the completeness and transparency of subsequent joint reports' methodologies in order to assist Congress in understanding the basis of the NC3 estimates by documenting the methodological assumptions and limitations affecting the report's estimates for sustaining and modernizing the NC3 system, as we previously recommended, for future joint reports, the DOD CIO should include explanations of how DOD (1) selects program elements for inclusion in its NC3 estimate, (2) determines its weighted analysis ratios, and (3) differentiates its methodology for calculating operation and maintenance estimates from its methodologies for calculating estimates for the other NC3 line items.

Agency: Department of Defense: Office of the Chief Information Officer
Status: Open

Comments: DOD concurred with our recommendation. As of the issuance of the Fiscal Year (FY) 2019 Joint Report, DOD has taken some steps to address this recommendation. For example, DOD provided more information on the methodologies used to develop NC3 budget estimates. However, the methodology reported for NC3 estimates is still not transparent and DOD must still provide additional information beyond what the methodology in the joint report to clarify differences with the FYDP. However, according to DOD officials, actions will be taken to incorporate a more robust methodology that takes into account these issues in the FY2020 Joint Report. We will re-evaluate DOD's implementation of this recommendation as we review future joint reports.

Recommendation: In order to assist Congress in comparing year-to-year cost estimates between joint reports, for future joint reports, the Secretary of the Air Force should provide information about any programmatic changes (i.e., programs being moved from one line item to another) in its estimates and include an explanation of the reasons for those changes and how those changes may affect year-to-year comparisons of the budget estimates.

Agency: Department of Defense: Department of the Air Force
Status: Open

Comments: DOD concurred with our recommendation. In the Fiscal Year 2019 Joint Report issued in November 2018, the Air Force identified some instances of programmatic changes in its estimates. However, not all programmatic changes were identified in the report. We will continue to monitor DOD's response to this recommendation as we review future annual joint budget estimate reports.

Recommendation: To minimize unnecessary overlap and duplication and more efficiently use DOD's U.S. distribution centers, the Secretary of Defense should direct the Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology, and Logistics (or the subsequent Under Secretary for Acquisition and Sustainment), in conjunction with the Director of DLA, and the Secretaries of the Army, the Air Force, and the Navy, to assess and direct the implementation of actions, as appropriate, that can be taken using existing authorities to close, realign, or dispose of existing infrastructure.

Agency: Department of Defense
Status: Open

Comments: DOD concurred with the recommendation. DOD began reviewing its secondary item inventory warehousing in July 2017 to consolidate underused distribution centers. In February 2018, DOD officials stated that the department will conduct three site studies by fiscal year 2019 to assess the viability and any potential savings from consolidation at these locations. In April 2019, DOD officials stated that the site studies had been completed and they anticipate a final report in late May 2019.

Recommendation: To improve insight into cost changes for individual ships in the Ford Class, the program office should prepare cost summary and funding summary sections for each individual ship in the class as part of the SAR for the overall Ford-Class program.

Agency: Department of Defense
Status: Open
Priority recommendation

Comments: In its comments on our draft report DOD disagreed with our recommendation, stating that it currently provides progress reports to Congress on costs for CVN 78 and CVN 79. In July 2020, Navy officials stated that the department continues to disagree with this recommendation. We continue to maintain that Selected Acquisition Reports represent the primary statutorily required means for DOD to report on program status. Grouping average unit costs for all Ford-class ships obscures individual ship cost growth and does not provide Congress with an adequate level of insight to monitor this over $55 billion program. Our recommendation would ensure that Congress receives insight into the costs of each existing and planned Ford-class ship. To fully implement this recommendation, the report should include cost information on individual ships.

Recommendation: To provide additional information for congressional decision makers regarding DOD's budget, the Secretary of Defense should direct the Under Secretary of Defense (Comptroller), in consultation with the OMB, to reevaluate and revise the criteria for determining what can be included in DOD's OCO budget requests to reflect current OCO-related activities and relevant budget policy directing in which budget requests OCO funds may be included.

Agency: Department of Defense
Status: Open

Comments: In DOD's response to a draft of our report, DOD concurred with our recommendation and stated it planned to propose updated criteria to OMB to reflect current and evolving threats and reflect any changes in OCO policy under the new Administration. In October 2017, a DOD official stated that the department has discussed possible modifications to the criteria with the military departments and combatant commands, but had not made any formal recommendations to the OMB to revise the criteria. In May 2020, DOD officials stated they had re-evaluated the criteria, and were considering modifications that would take into account mission, instead of location, but OMB did not accept the modifications. The National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2018 included a provision requiring DOD and OMB to update their OCO criteria by September 2018. As of May 2020, neither DOD nor OMB has issued updated criteria, and DOD had not made any updates to Volume 12, Chapter 23 of its Financial Management Regulation that governs contingency operations to reflect updated criteria.

Recommendation: To provide the Congress and NASA a reliable estimate of program cost and schedule that are useful to support management and stakeholder decisions, the NASA Administrator should direct the Orion program to perform an updated JCL analysis including updating cost and schedule estimates in adherence with cost and schedule estimating best practices.

Agency: National Aeronautics and Space Administration
Status: Open
Priority recommendation

Comments: NASA partially agreed with this recommendation, stating that the agency reviewed, in detail, the Orion integrated cost/schedule and risk analysis methodology and determined the rigor to be a sufficient basis for the agency commitments. In November 2019, Orion program officials told us that in response to a recent policy change, the program office will update its joint confidence level analysis when the program has its Key Decision Point D review. This review occurs before the program enters the system assembly integration and test, and launch phase and is not scheduled to occur until December 2020. To fully implement this recommendation, NASA will need to provide evidence that it updated its joint confidence level analysis when the Orion program holds its Key Decision Point D review.

Recommendation: To ensure Bureau and congressional confidence that the Bureau's budgeted contingencies are at appropriate levels, the Secretary of Commerce and Under Secretary for Economic Affairs should direct the Census Bureau to improve control over how risk and uncertainty are accounted for and communicated with the Bureau's decennial cost estimation process, such as by implementing and institutionalizing processes or methods for doing so with clear guidance.

Agency: Department of Commerce
Status: Open
Priority recommendation

Comments: Commerce agreed with this recommendation. Specifically, we reported that the Bureau should ensure that its budget for contingencies for the 2020 Census reflect an accurate accounting of risk and uncertainty. In doing this, the Bureau should improve controls over risk and uncertainty in the cost estimate process, and institutionalize these controls by providing clear methods for their use. In July 2018, we completed a review of documentation to support the updated October 2017 cost estimate and found that the Bureau performed uncertainty and sensitivity analysis on the estimate and appropriately added funding into the cost estimate to reflect inherent uncertainty and to account for specific risks. In order to fully implement this recommendation, the Bureau will need to link specific risks to funds set aside in the $1.2 billion general risk contingency fund. Therefore, as of January 2020, this recommendation remains valid and should be addressed: that the Bureau properly account for risk in the 2020 Census cost estimate.

Recommendation: To better ensure that taxpayer funds are being used effectively, Congress should consider permanently rescinding any Treasury-deobligated excess MHA balances that Treasury does not move into the Hardest Hit Fund.

Agency: Congress
Status: Open

Comments: No legislative action identified, as of July 22, 2020. Congress has not yet taken any action to rescind excess MHA balances, as recommended in GAO's March 2016 report. According to Treasury, it took action on July 27, 2018, to deobligate $4.0 billion MHA program funds beyond the $2 billion that it had previously deobligated and transferred to the Troubled Asset Relief Program-funded Hardest Hit Fund in February 2016. As a result of Treasury's deobligated action, Congress now has the opportunity to rescind and use the funds for other priorities.

Recommendation: To provide decision makers with better insight and additional context to identify any significant changes to the estimates in the joint report from the prior year and understand the reasons for such changes, and to improve the completeness and transparency of the budget estimates in the report, we recommend that, for future joint reports, the Secretary of Defense should direct the Secretary of the Air Force, the Secretary of the Navy, and the Department of Defense Chief Information Officer (DOD CIO), and the Secretary of Energy direct the Administrator of the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) to provide more thorough documentation in the joint report on the methodologies used to develop the budget estimates, including information that may be available in related planning documents, and ensure the accuracy and completeness of the information included.

Agency: Department of Defense
Status: Open

Comments: DOD concurred with our recommendation. In the Fiscal Year 2019 Joint Report issued in November 2018, DOD had taken some steps to address this recommendation. For example, DOD provided more information on the methodologies used to develop budget estimates. However, DOD did not provide complete documentation of the methodologies used to determine budget estimates in the Joint Report. Specifically, DOD provided additional methodological information not included in the Joint Report to GAO in order to fully account for the estimates presented in the FY 2019 Joint Report. Both the Navy and the Air Force stated they would provide the additional methodological information in the FY 2020 Joint Report. In addition, we again identified some instances in which the Air Force's underlying budget information did not match its estimates in the Joint Report. Air Force officials explained that these discrepancies were due to an accounting error in the internal funding system and that the errors will be rectified in the FY 2020 Joint Report. We will continue to monitor DOD's response to this recommendation as we review future Joint reports.

Recommendation: To provide decision makers with better insight and additional context to identify any significant changes to the estimates in the joint report from the prior year and understand the reasons for such changes, and to improve the completeness and transparency of the budget estimates in the report, we recommend that, for future joint reports, the Secretary of Defense should direct the Secretary of the Air Force, the Secretary of the Navy, and the Department of Defense Chief Information Officer (DOD CIO), and the Secretary of Energy direct the Administrator of the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) to provide more thorough documentation in the joint report on the methodologies used to develop the budget estimates, including information that may be available in related planning documents, and ensure the accuracy and completeness of the information included.

Agency: Department of Energy
Status: Open

Comments: The Department of Energy (DOE) concurred with our recommendation and has taken steps to address it. In both the fiscal year 2018 Joint Report and the fiscal year 2019 Joint Report, DOE included significantly more information on the methodologies used to develop its budget estimates. However, in the fiscal year 2019 Joint Report, DOE did not provide complete information on budget estimates over a 10-year period. Instead, it provided 5 years of budget estimates. We will re-evaluate DOE's implementation of this recommendation as we review future joint reports.

Recommendation: To provide decision makers with better insight and additional context to identify any significant changes to the estimates in the joint report from the prior year and understand the reasons for such changes, and to improve the completeness and transparency of the budget estimates in the report, we recommend that, for future joint reports, the Secretary of Defense should direct the Secretary of the Air Force, the Secretary of the Navy, and the DOD CIO, and the Secretary of Energy direct the Administrator of NNSA to provide comparative information on changes in the budget estimates from the prior year and explain the reasons for those changes.

Agency: Department of Energy
Status: Open

Comments: DOE concurred with our recommendation. However, as of the issuance of the fiscal year 2019 Joint Report, DOE had not taken steps to address this recommendation. The fiscal year 2019 Joint Report did not provide comparative information on changes in NNSA program costs relative to costs in prior joint reports. We will re-evaluate DOE's implementation of this recommendation as we review future joint reports.

Recommendation: To improve the reliability of its cost estimates, as NRC revises its cost estimating procedures, the NRC Chairman should ensure that the agency aligns the procedures with relevant cost estimating best practices identified in the GAO Cost Estimating and Assessment Guide and ensure that future cost estimates are prepared in accordance with relevant cost estimating best practices.

Agency: Nuclear Regulatory Commission
Status: Open
Priority recommendation

Comments: In August 2019, NRC staff reported that the Commission had directed them to revise the guidance and resubmit it to the Commission by January 2020. In February 2020, the NRC staff submitted the revised guidance to the Commission. NRC staff said that following Commission review and approval, they will publish the guidance. We will review the cost-benefit guidance when it is released and determine if it responds to this recommendation.

Recommendation: Because ROI provides insights on the productivity of a program and is one important factor in making resource allocation decisions, the Commissioner of Internal Revenue should calculate actual ROI for implemented initiatives, compare the actual ROI to projected ROI, and provide the comparison to budget decision makers for initiatives where IRS allocated resources.

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

Comments: No executive action taken as of December 2019. While IRS agreed that having actual ROI data for implemented initiatives would be useful, it did not believe it was feasible to produce such estimates, as GAO recommended in June 2014. GAO maintains that IRS should be able to provide some information on past initiatives, such as whether funds requested were used in the manner originally proposed. As of December 2016, IRS officials reported there is no timeline for full implementation. Comparing projected ROI to actual ROI can help hold managers and IRS accountable for the funding received.

Recommendation: To improve subsequent joint reports to Congress on plans for sustaining and modernizing U.S nuclear weapons capabilities and to improve the transparency of the joint report's methodologies, thereby assisting Congress in understanding the basis for DOD's NC3 estimates in subsequent joint reports, the Secretary of Defense should direct the DOD Chief Information Officer to document in the report the methodological assumptions and limitations affecting the report's estimates for sustaining and modernizing the NC3 system.

Agency: Department of Defense
Status: Open

Comments: DOD concurred with our recommendation. In the Fiscal Year 2019 Joint Report issued in November 2018, DOD had taken steps to update its methodology for estimating nuclear command, control, and communications (NC3) funding. For example, DOD provided more information on the methodologies used to develop budget estimates. However, the methodology reported for NC3 estimates is still not transparent and DOD should provide additional information beyond what the methodology in the joint report to clarify differences with the Future Year Defense Program. According to DOD officials, actions will be taken to incorporate a more robust methodology that takes into account these issues in the FY 2020 Joint Report. We will re-evaluate DOD's implementation of this recommendation when we review the FY 2020 joint report.

Recommendation: To provide the Congress with the necessary insight into program affordability, ensure its ability to effectively monitor total program costs and execution, and to facilitate investment decisions, the NASA's Administrator should direct the Human Exploration and Operations Mission Directorate to establish a separate cost and schedule baseline for work required to support the SLS Block I Exploration Mission-2 (EM-2) and report this information to the Congress through NASA's annual budget submission. If NASA decides to fly the SLS Block I beyond EM-2, establish separate life cycle cost and schedule baseline estimates for those efforts, to include funding for operations and sustainment, and report this information annually to Congress via the agency's budget submission.

Agency: National Aeronautics and Space Administration
Status: Open
Priority recommendation

Comments: NASA partially agreed with this recommendation, stating that it defined and documented life-cycle costs for SLS to a first demonstrated capability, consistent with cost estimating best practices and NASA project and program management policy and that it would report costs associated with the second exploration mission via its annual budget submission. In January 2020, NASA stated that it is evaluating changes to NASA Procedural Requirements 7120.5E, "NASA Space Flight Program and Project Management Requirements," to better enable the necessary insight into program affordability and efficient monitoring of total program costs and execution for multi-year, multi-cadence type programs. Further, NASA stated that it is investigating plans to redefine performance expectations for multi-decade programs' formal commitments while maintaining visibility to the entire plan. To address this recommendation, NASA needs to establish separate cost and schedule baselines for work required to support SLS for EM-2, which is now known as Artemis II.

Recommendation: To provide the Congress with the necessary insight into program affordability, ensure its ability to effectively monitor total program costs and execution, and to facilitate investment decisions, because NASA intends to use the increased capabilities of the SLS, Orion, and Ground Systems Development and Operations efforts well into the future and has chosen to estimate costs associated with achieving the capabilities, the NASA's Administrator should direct the Human Exploration and Operations Mission Directorate to establish separate cost and schedule baselines for each additional capability that encompass all life cycle costs, to include operations and sustainment. When NASA cannot fully specify costs due to lack of well-defined missions or flight manifests, forecast a cost estimate range -- including life cycle costs -- having minimum and maximum boundaries. These baselines or ranges should be reported to Congress annually via the agency's budget submission.

Agency: National Aeronautics and Space Administration
Status: Open
Priority recommendation

Comments: NASA partially agreed with this recommendation, stating that it had established separate programs for SLS, Orion, and the ground systems and adopted a block upgrade approach for SLS. In January 2020, NASA stated that it plans to establish an agency baseline commitment for capability upgrades (e.g., Block 1B upgrades, such as Mobile Launcher-2 and Exploration Upper Stage) above the $250 million threshold. A joint confidence level analysis will be performed at key decision points and will include the cost and schedule range estimates for each of these upgrades. To address this recommendation, NASA needs to provide evidence that it established separate cost and schedule baselines for each additional SLS, Orion, and Ground Systems Development and Operations capability blocks that encompass all life-cycle costs, including operations and sustainment.

Recommendation: To strengthen accountability and transparency in FHA's management of the Fund, Congress may wish to consider clarifying (1) the definition of the Fund's capital ratio--specifically, whether the denominator of the ratio was intended to be the amortized insurance-in-force; (2) the definition of the phrase "established target subsidy rate" used in HERA; and (3) the nature and extent of information that FHA should be reporting on subsidy rates pursuant to HERA, recognizing that subsidy rates are generally only reestimated once a year under current budget processes.

Agency: Congress
Status: Open

Comments: As of October 2019, Congress had not acted on this matter for consideration.