Federal Manager's Daily Report

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

http://www.gao.gov/cgi-bin/getrpt?GAO-04-138.