Thompson Letter on GPRA - DOT
August 17, 1999
The Honorable Rodney E. Slater
Secretary
Department of Transportation
400 Seventh Street, SW
Washington, DC 20590
Dear Secretary Slater:
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 Transportation is using the above statutory tools to improve its 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 Transportation Department 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. Past Congressional and GAO reviews indicate that the Transportation Department is one of the most successful federal agencies in implementing GPRA. I am pleased to see that your Department has maintained its role as a leader in these efforts.
At the request of this Committee and others, GAO recently completed an assessment of the Transportation Department’s annual performance plan for fiscal year (FY) 2000. By way of summary, GAO concluded that the Department "has clearly made good progress in implementing performance-based management." With regard to the FY 2000 plan, GAO found:
Overall, DOT’s performance plan for fiscal year 2000 should be a useful tool for decision makers. It provides a clear picture of intended performance across the Department, a specific discussion of the strategies and resources that the Department will use to achieve its goals, and general confidence that the Department’s performance information will be credible.
According to GAO, the plan’s major strengths are that it contains results-oriented goals and quantifiable measures; discusses strategies and resources for achieving intended performance; and describes efforts to verify and validate performance data and the data’s limitations. Among the plan’s key weaknesses are that it does not consistently explain coordination strategies with outside organizations and does not consistently include goals and measures for addressing the Department’s major management problems. The most serious of these problems relate to financial management. These and other major management problems are discussed in more detail below.
I congratulate you on the fine work you, Deputy Secretary Downey, and many others at the Transportation Department are doing to implement GPRA. I hope that you will continue to build on the strengths in your GPRA plans and work on the areas that need improvement.
Need to implement audit recommendations on major management problems
One area where improvements are needed is solving major management challenges that seem to persist year after year at most agencies, including the Transportation Department.
There are two current GAO-designated "high-risk" areas that are specific to Transportation: Air Traffic Control (ATC) modernization and Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) financial management. In addition, the government-wide high-risk problem of information security has been a particular concern at FAA.
The ATC modernization program, which was added to the high-risk list in 1995, involves acquiring new air traffic control facilities as well as a vast network of radar, automated data processing, navigation, and communications equipment, with an expected total cost of $42 billion through 2004. The modernization program has experienced cost overruns, schedule delays, and performance shortfalls of large proportions. Currently, there are 22 open GAO recommendations related to systems architecture, software acquisition capabilities, cost estimating and accounting practices, computer security, and an at-risk system development effort. Ten key open recommendations are described in an enclosure to this letter.
FAA financial management was added to the high-risk list this year. According to GAO and your Inspector General (IG), financial management weaknesses render FAA vulnerable to fraud, waste, and abuse; undermine FAA’s ability to manage its operations; and limit the reliability of financial information provided to decision-makers. FAA has been unable to pass financial audits, in part because property and equipment valued at about $12 billion and inventory reported at $764 cannot be verified. As described in the enclosure, there are two open GAO recommendations directed at this problem area. An enclosure describes another three open GAO recommendations dealing with computer security at FAA.
According to information provided to the Committee by your I G and GAO, there are a number of unresolved audit recommendations addressing other major management problems at the Department as well. Another enclosure describes 51 such open IG recommendations. For example, the IG has identified revenue diversions by airports that amounted over $200 million. However, FAA has yet to act on IG recommendations to recover some of these diversions and has been slow to implement recent legislation to address this problem. Another area of concern is failure to fully implement IG recommendations to improve inspections of trucks entering the United States. According to the IG, only one percent of trucks entering the United States from Mexico were inspected and 44 percent of those that were inspected did not meet U.S. safety standards.
Still another enclosure describes 30 open GAO recommendations addressing major management problems at Transportation other than the high-risk areas previously discussed. A number of these are directed at aviation safety and security programs.
Need for specific performance goals to address major management problems
It is essential that agency heads and other managers commit themselves to tangible steps that will lead to solutions and that agency heads 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 . . .
GAO recently evaluated the extent to which Transportation’s FY 2000 performance plan contains specific performance goals to address the 14 high-risk and other most serious management problems confronting the Department that GAO and your IG have identified. According to the GAO evaluation, which is detailed in an enclosure, the Department’s plan contains such performance goals for 6 of the 14 problem areas.
Some of these goals are excellent, such as reducing various categories of transportation-related accidents and fatalities by specified amounts. On the other hand, I am concerned over the absence of any specific and measurable goals for more than half of your major problem areas. In particular, I note the absence of such goals addressing the Department’s two high-risk 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.
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 will it take to complete them?
- Do you disagree with any of the GAO or IG designations of management problems facing Transportation? 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 and to ensure accountability for doing so.
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
