The long-term capital planning efforts at several agencies,
something representing $100 billion in investments in 2002,
are far from consistently successful, the General Accounting
Office has said.
It evaluated agency efforts as they relate to the capital
planning principles laid out in the Office of Management
and Budget’s Capital Programming Guide and GAO’s Executive
Guide on leading state, local, and private sector capital
investment practices.
GAO looked at Veterans Affairs, the National Park Service,
the Bureau of Prisons and the National Oceanic and
Atmospheric Administration and recommended that OMB require
agencies to submit long-term capital plans to OMB as well
as congressional decision makers.
Although these agencies generally address performance gaps,
consider non-capital options where appropriate, have review
and approval frameworks that include the establishment and
use of formal review boards and committees as well as
established criteria for selecting proposed projects, GAO
did not find a single document that could be considered a
long-term capital asset plan and which defined long-term
capital investment decisions, GAO said.
It did say, however, that some agencies have long-term
planning documents and long-term construction plans for
approved projects and that VA has informed GAO of plans
to develop an agency-wide long-term capital plan. Go to