Thompson Letter on GPRA - Interior
August 17, 1999
The Honorable Bruce Babbitt
Secretary
Department of the Interior
1849 C Street, NW
Washington, DC 20240
Dear Secretary Babbitt:
As you know, the Congress is focused on ensuring that the federal government delivers better results to its citizens and taxpayers. The Congress has enacted a statutory framework to achieve these results. This statutory framework includes the Government Performance and Results Act (GPRA); financial management statutes, such as the Chief Financial Officers Act; and information resources management statutes, such as the Clinger-Cohen Act. Each of these reforms aims at achieving more efficient and effective performance throughout the federal government.
As part of our oversight agenda, the Committee has developed information on how effectively the Department of the Interior is using the above statutory tools to improve performance in several key areas such as becoming more results-oriented and resolving long-standing problems of fraud, waste, and mismanagement. The purpose of this letter is to share with you the information we have developed and obtain your response to certain questions pertaining to it. With this dialog as a start, we hope to work with you on a continuing basis to ensure that the Department of the Interior delivers the best possible results for the American people.
Performance plan assessment
The Congress continues to look closely at how well departments and agencies are implementing GPRA. At the request of this Committee and others, GAO recently completed an assessment of Interior’s annual performance plan for fiscal year (FY) 2000. According to GAO, "[m]ost of the [component] plans should be useful to decisionmakers in that they address many of the essential issues related to performance-based, results-oriented management."
The FY 2000 plan’s major strengths are that it contains results-oriented goals and quantifiable measures; discusses strategies for achieving intended performance; and follows a consistent format, making it more user friendly than in the past. The extent to which the plan addresses major management challenges is encouraging. For instance, GAO has identified resource management as a major management challenge, and the Departmental Overview plan, as well as those for the National Park Service (NPS) and the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), had goals and measures to address this issue. BLM has a goal to assess riparian areas, key watersheds, and standing wetlands, and use those results to track and manage success in goal achievement.
GAO found that the FY 2000 plan had several key weaknesses. Among those weaknesses are that most of the plans do not provide specific procedures to credibly validate and verify performance information, nor do they identify or recognize issues that would significantly affect data limitations and their implications for assessing whether goals are being achieved. For example, most of the component plans do not discuss the procedures to control data quality, such as those for automated systems.
Need to implement audit recommendations on major management problems
One area in which there have been too few results is solving major management challenges that seem to persist year after year at most agencies, including the Interior Department. Enclosed, you will find a number of recommendations made by the Interior Department Inspector General (IG) and GAO to address major management problems at Interior. These include financial management, range monitoring, land exchanges, and Year 2000 readiness.
A problem area of particular concern is financial management. Although the IG expressed an unqualified opinion on the financial statements of the U.S. Geological Survey, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement, the Bureau of Reclamation, and the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), he also reported conditions affecting the internal control structures of four of these organizational units. For instance, the Bureau of Reclamation’s accounting system eliminated the government or the non-government identifier from the transactions and therefore could not properly summarize the data.
GAO and the Interior IG identify nine major management challenges that are specific to Interior: streamlining agencies, resource management, better guidance and oversight, management of tribal and Indian programs, the BLM/ALMRS project, financial management, land clean-up, revenue collection, and land exchanges. These are in addition to government wide high risk areas, specifically the Year 2000 computer problem and information security, both of which beset Interior.
Interior must be prepared to act on the many substantive, constructive recommendations made to solve such problems. Enclosed, you will find a number of recommendations made by the IG and GAO to address major management problems at Interior.
Need for specific performance goals to address major management problems
I recognize that many high-risk and other major management problems are complex and will take time to resolve. However, it is essential that agency heads and other managers commit themselves to tangible steps that will eventually lead to solutions and that they accept accountability for following through on these commitments. One obvious way to do this is to establish specific and measurable goals in your annual GPRA performance plans. Indeed, Office of Management and Budget (OMB) guidance implementing GPRA states:
Performance goals for management problems should be included in the annual plan, particularly for problems whose resolution is mission-critical, or which could potentially impede achievement of program goals . . .
In its review of Interior’s FY 2000 performance plan, GAO recently evaluated the extent to which the plan contains specific performance goals to address high-risk and the other most serious management problems confronting Interior that GAO and your IG have identified. According to the GAO evaluation, which is enclosed, Interior’s plan contains such performance goals for some of the problem areas. This is a start, and a few of the specific goals appear to address some of Interior’s most serious management problems in meaningful ways. For example, the National Park Service (NPS) has a number of goals and measures dealing with identifying and improving the condition of its resources, as does BLM.
On the other hand, I am concerned about the absence of any specific and measurable goals for many of Interior’s other major problem areas. Without specific and measurable performance goals, it is difficult if not impossible to assess progress in addressing major management problems and to hold agencies accountable. For the reasons stated above, the absence of any goals to resolve Interior’s problems in the area of annual fund distribution to tribes or for the BLM/ALMRS project is inexcusable.
Congressional follow-up
With so many tax dollars being wasted, this Committee expects agencies to take every opportunity to use the many tools available to them, such as GPRA plans, to resolve major management problems. Furthermore, the GAO and your own IG exist to work in partnership with you to solve longstanding issues of waste, fraud, and abuse.
I hope that the information provided with this letter will stimulate you to make greater use of these tools and resources. In this regard, I ask that you review the enclosed information and respond to the following questions:
- Do you disagree with any of the GAO or IG recommendations described in the enclosures? If so, what is the basis for your disagreement?
- Where you agree with the recommendations, what specific actions are you taking to implement each one and how long it will they take to complete?
- Do you disagree with any of the GAO or IG designations of management problems facing Interior? If so, which ones and why?
- Where you agree with the problem designations, are you prepared to establish specific and measurable commitments to address each one of them in your next performance plan?
- If so, could you outline preliminarily what approach you plan to take for each problem?
- If you believe that any of these problems do not lend themselves to specific and measurable performance plan goals, please explain why. Please also explain what alternative steps you are taking to solve the problem.
I would appreciate your early attention to this letter. After receiving your response, I will ask Committee staff to arrange a meeting with your representatives to discuss it. My Governmental Affairs Committee staff contact is Robert Shea.
Sincerely,
Fred Thompson
Chairman
FT/rs
Enclosures
