Close to 17,000 cost saving recommendations made by agency inspectors general over the past several years that have gone unimplemented could potentially save over $67 billion, a report prepared by Republican staff on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee has said.
It argues that agencies have been sometimes dismissive of IG recommendations and suggests more of them could warrant legislative action.
Work tracking IG recommendations began under the Committee’s previous chair, Henry Waxman, D-Calif., who concluded that under the Bush administration over $25 billion in potential savings had gone unrealized because of unimplemented recommendations. Over the last four years that number has grown and the report argues that $67 billion is a conservative savings estimate.
According to the report, $33 billion may have been saved in fiscal 2011 by implementing IG recommendations. It concludes that with an aggregate budget of $2.7 billion that funding IGs has close to a 10:1 return on investment.
