The report focuses on recommendations requiring legislation, rather than those within an agency’s administrative discretion. Image: BarcelonARCHI/Shutterstock.com
By: FEDweek StaffCongress has acted on four-fifths of GAO recommendations that require changes in law since 2000 but that still leaves 242 awaiting action that together could “produce billions of dollars in financial savings,” the GAO has said.
Thirty of those open matters “could result in measurable financial benefits, with 12 of these each having the potential to provide at least a billion dollars of financial benefits” while the rest “have the potential to provide numerous other important benefits, such as improving government effectiveness and efficiency.”
Those include, for example, reauthorizing the First Responder Network Authority and with it the potential to collect fee revenue; requiring HHS to improve the Medicaid review process; requiring SSA to offset disability insurance benefits with unemployment benefits received during the same period; pursuing less expensive treatment and disposal options for nuclear waste; and various steps to address underpayment of taxes.
Unlike most GAO summaries of recommendations still awaiting action, the report focuses only on those requiring legislation, rather than those within an agency’s administrative discretion.
Two-thirds of the 242 have been open for more than four years while the oldest one, related to oversight of food safety, is more than 20 years old.
It said that bills offered in the current Congress and the prior one would address 103, including proposed changes to Medicare payment structures and establishing a permanent analytics center to aid the oversight community in identifying improper payments and fraud.
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