on objective facts and analysis. The testimonies we give each year are all grounded in our audit work and the facts and information we have developed as a result of our ability to examine, in detail, the records of agencies and entities associated with the receipt and expenditure of federal dollars. Let me reemphasize that certain fundamental principles guide GAO in dealing with any issue we examine, including those that have policy implications. First, our role is advisory. Responsibility for deciding policy resides with Members of Congress and executive branch officials. Second, we make recommendations only as they flow from the work we have performed. Third, we always strive to present our findings in a balanced manner. Fourth, any recommendations we make are based on our analysis of the information we gather and never on political or ideological consider ations. RESTRUCTURING GAO OPERATIONS AND WORK PROCESSES GAO has recognized over the years that it must continually change if it is to maintain its productivity and usefulness to the Congress. Our planned reduction of staff by 25 percent by 1997 will enable us to achieve that goal. Recently, we have realigned our organization, including developing greater issue-area expertise in our field staff. We have closed half of our 40 field offices. Over the last decade, we have undertaken many initiatives to enhance the skill levels, and motivation of our workforce, including a totally redesigned pay-for-performance system to more effectively reward staff for performance, a revised merit promotion process and an enhanced senior executive selection and development process to prepare senior leaders of GAO. And we want to work with this Committee to make additional changes to our personnel system to enhance our ability to effectively fulfill our mission as we downsize. We have invested substantial resources in modern technology and in training our staff to use such technology. GAO has installed telephone voice mail and video teleconferencing equipment in its headquarters and regional offices to improve communication and reduce travel costs. Computer networks linking all GAO are now being installed, promising easier, faster and more efficient sharing of information. We have implemented a program to systematically obtain feedback from Members of Congress and key staff on the quality of our products. All of these efforts are critical to the successful reengineering of our audit, evaluation and supporting processes to assure that we do our work quicker, cheaper, and consistently with the highest quality. All of these efforts are designed to provide us better assurance that we can carry out work supporting the oversight and legislative needs of the Congress more efficiently. LEGISLATIVE PROPOSALS TO HELP DOWNSIZE I would like to discuss two areas that I know are of interest to the Committee. The first has to do with managing our downsizing efforts as efficiently as possible to minimize disruptions while maintaining productivity. As you are aware, our plan allows that downsizing to occur over a reasonable period of time so GAO can retain its ability to effectively respond to the oversight and legislative needs of Congress. You requested that we propose legislation that would allow GAO to efficiently carry out a reduction-in-force. Should a RIF be necessary, we believe several legislative provisions would mitigate its effect. First, GAO should be allowed to formulate its own RIF regulations to more effectively consider staff performance, skills and expertise in making difficult RIF decisions. Second, separation incentives and penalty reductions would facilitate voluntary retirements and resignations Part of the reason we need more flexibility is that, even as we downsize, we need to maintain our skills and capacity to carry out specific, increasingly sophisticated responsibilities in the financial and information management areas as a result of the CFO legislation. Requiring GAO to reduce its resources by 25 percent immediately would force us to terminate more than one quarter of our staff (1600 people) within the next 6 months. While legislative changes to facilitate such a RIF would help, the overall consequences of such drastic action would greatly disrupt our operations and our ability to meet our congressional responsibilities and obligations. INITIATIVES TO IMPROVE OUR WORK PROCESSES We know we must improve the way we do the work. We must be able to produce high-quality products on time, every time, and have processes in place to make that possible. We initiated a number of efforts within the past several years to improve our procedures. These included adoption of goals to lessen "rework" of our products, guidelines for issuing briefing reports within 7 days after the oral briefing to congres sional committees were provided, initiation of efforts to improve our ability to predict the issuance date of our reports, and efforts to reduce "cycle time" in producing reports. The key effort that holds the most promise to reduce the costs of our jobs and the time to complete them is our effort to reengineer our job management process. We have set a stretch goal of reducing the amount of rework in our jobs by 50 percent over the next 2 years. And we know that to achieve that goal we have to change the way we plan and manage our work, including who gets involved in the jobs and when they get involved. We have to streamline our structure and we are planning to do it. A senior level task team was established in October 1994 to identify and accelerate the GAO-wide implementation of "best practices" in units to improve GAO's entire job management process. A number of efforts were identified that can significantly improve how GAO begins assignments, plans their approach, gathers the data, and develops, reviews and issues its products. A new, full-time senior team will now take those efforts, develop a detailed new framework for our reengineered job management process, test it this year and put it in place GAO-wide in early 1996. A key to this new process will be use of a job "risk assessment" done at the beginning of a job that will guide decisions on staffing, supervision, and product review. In addition, GAO will improve its processes for obtaining early agreement with congressional requesters on the objectives, scope and approach to the jobs and expedite its process for obtaining comments on its reports from agency officials. One of our issue areas, Agriculture, has also reassessed all its processes, from top to bottom, to reengineer our job management and support processes using our most advanced technologies. The goal of this prototype is to test how redesigned processes can enable us to deliver timely, high quality reports on time, every time, at reduced cost to congressional requesters. Results from the prototype will be incorporated into the GAO-wide approach in 1996. These efforts to reengineer our job management process are among the most innovative GAO has undertaken since the 1950's. The effort could be jeopardized by a widespread RIF that would disrupt GAO. In closing, I would like to thank you, Mr. Chairman, and the other Members of this Committee for the support and encouragement you have provided to GAO over the years. That support has allowed us to strengthen our capabilities and provide higher quality and more timely assistance to the Congress. Today, events are unfolding in the United States and around the world at an unprecedented pace. The worldwide political and economic restructuring has important implications for how the government responds to various economic issues and for defense force reduction and realignment. At the same time, problems associated with the budget deficit continue to challenge the nation's ability to provide programs and services in an effective, cost-efficient way. As the Congress deals with these and other issues, an independent GAO can be a strong ally by providing a focus and counterweight to the vast array of information you receive from the executive branch and the private sector. Working together, we can help you identify ways to cut the size of government and reorganize government to better assure that programs that are needed are delivered efficiently. GAO is uniquely qualified to analyze federal financial records and performance data for the accuracy that is essential for oversight and decision-making. At the same time, we can continue to monitor and warn you of major financial risks such as those in the financial markets and pension areas. We card watch for accelerating costs in big programs. However, GAO must retain the resources it needs to carry out its mission. That requires your continued support. By the end of fiscal year 1994, GAO had reduced its size by over 10 percent and by 1997 under its current plan will have reduced its staff by 25 percent from the 1992 level. GAO is now at its lowest staff level in a quarter of a century. And we are committed to managing this reduction so that the quality and impact of our work are not compromised. But, based on my years of experience as an auditor in the public and private sectors, I firmly believe that reducing GAO much below the level of 4,000 staff would be very risky. At levels lower than that neither I, my successor, or the staff of GAO will be able to provide the Congress assurance that its auditor is able to adequately cover the operations of the federal government and that proper accountability exists over the expenditure of federal dollars. If that occurs, there will be a grave danger that the Congress will not be alerted quickly enough to potential problems having serious financial consequences. We should not allow that to happen. This concludes my prepared remarks. I will be happy to answer any questions you may have. |