The Department of Agriculture needs to improve the way it
estimates technical assistance costs, the Government
Accountability Office has said.
It said Agriculture’s Natural Resources Conservation Service
provides technical assistance to landowners for conservation
efforts, but that only in 1998 did it begin developing cost
data and a computer model to estimate future program costs,
information Congress has been seeking for years.
NRCS began testing its computer model for 10 farm bill
conservation programs in 2003 by comparing estimated costs
and reported costs, which GAO reviewed and found the
estimates to be off “considerably.”
For example, for fiscal 2003 NRCS overestimated costs for
seven programs by 9 to 50 percent, and three programs cost
16 to 60 percent more than estimated — well outside of the
agency’s goal of a 10 percent margin, according to GAO-05-58.
It said the $295 million estimate was 15 percent too high
for fiscal 2003 because work was delayed on several projects
and that threw off the model, because NRCS partner costs were
included in the initial estimate but not reported as actual
costs, and because some data input into the model are “based
on inaccurate assumptions.”
For example, in its estimates NRCS does not account for
unforeseen training needs and other potential and realistic
breaks in workflow, said GAO.
