Thompson Letter on GPRA - OPM
August 17, 1999
The Honorable Janice R. Lachance
Director
Office of Personnel Management
1900 E Street, NW
Washington, DC 20415-0001
Dear Director Lachance:
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 Office of Personnel Management (OPM) 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 OPM 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 OPM’s annual performance plan for fiscal year (FY) 2000. According to GAO, OPM’s FY 2000 plan "represents a moderate improvement" over its FY 1999 plan and addresses a number of the weaknesses GAO identified in the 1999 plan.
GAO found that the FY 2000 plan’s performance goals address OPM’s major programs and priorities, and the plan discusses strategies for achieving each of its goals. However, according to GAO, the plan would be more useful if it contained cost-based performance measures to show how efficiently OPM is performing certain functions, such as processing civil service retirement payments.
Need to implement audit recommendations on major management problems
One area where there have been too few results is solving major management challenges that seem to persist year after year at most agencies, including OPM. As described in an enclosure to this letter, there are ten open audit recommendations addressing major management problems at OPM that your Inspector General (IG) has identified. The IG states that OPM is making a good faith effort to resolve these recommendations. However, it appears that a number of them go back many years.
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 OPM’s FY 2000 performance plan contains specific performance goals to address the 12 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 another enclosure, OPM’s plan contains one or more such performance goals for each of these 12 problem areas. Many of these performance goals are results-oriented. This is very encouraging, although some of the goals could be made more specific.
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 IG recommendations described in the enclosure? 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?
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
