GAO’s biennial listing of federal management challenges deemed at high risk of waste and harmful impact to the public grew by two to 32 in the most recent report with the addition of VA health care and management of IT acquisitions and operations.
In addition, GAO voiced additional concerns in several areas highlighted in the past, in particular the risk of identity thieves being able to get fraudulent tax refund claims past the IRS’s screening and security controls by federal agencies over the personal information of their employees and members of the public.
Still on the list, as they have been for years, are issues such as management of federal real property, DoD management of its finances, business systems, supply chains and more, general management issues at DHS, federal oversight of food safety, contract management, and acquisition management.
GAO’s report acts as something of a roadmap for congressional oversight and legislative and administrative actions. It said that while progress is being made in some areas, none have been addressed sufficiently to warrant being dropped from the list—although some have in the past.
Regarding strategic human capital management, GAO said this: “Mission-critical skills gaps in such occupations as cybersecurity and acquisition pose a high-risk to the nation: whether within specific federal agencies or across the federal workforce, they impede federal agencies from cost-effectively serving the public and achieving results. Addressing complex challenges such as disaster response, national and homeland security, and rapidly evolving technology and privacy security issues, requires a high-quality federal workforce able to work seamlessly with other agencies, levels of government, and across sectors. However, current budget and long-term fiscal pressures, declining levels of federal employee satisfaction, the changing nature of federal work, and a potential wave of employee retirements that could produce gaps in leadership and institutional knowledge, threaten the government’s capacity to effectively address these and many other evolving, national issues.”