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Open Recommendations (156 total)

Government Efficiency and Effectiveness: Inconsistent Definitions and Information Limit the Usefulness of Federal Program Inventories

GAO-15-83
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1 Open Recommendations
1 Priority
Agency Affected Recommendation Status
Office of Management and Budget
Priority Rec.
To ensure the effective implementation of federal program inventory requirements and to make the inventories more useful, the Director of OMB should, to better present a more coherent picture of all federal programs, revise relevant guidance to direct agencies to collaborate with each other in defining and identifying programs that contribute to common outcomes.
Open
As of July 2022, the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) had taken limited action in response to this recommendation. Although OMB published an initial inventory covering the programs of 24 federal agencies in May 2013, OMB decided to postpone further development of the inventory in order to coordinate with the implementation of the Digital Accountability and Transparency Act of 2014 (DATA Act). In January 2021, Congress amended and expanded requirements for the federal program inventory as part of the William M. (Mac) Thornberry National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2021. In November 2021, OMB published a plan for implementing the federal program inventory, including a series of pilots to test approaches. The plan describes how OMB, in collaboration with agencies, will conduct pilots to define and identify programs. According to information provided by OMB staff in May 2022, OMB plans to refine its existing guidance to incorporate lessons learned from the pilots, as appropriate, which presents an opportunity to fully address this recommendation. According to updates provided by OMB officials in March and April 2023, they expect to begin implementing the first pilot in Summer 2023. We will continue to monitor progress.

Federal Contracting: Opportunities Exist to Improve the Reporting of Waivers to Domestic Preference Laws

GAO-24-106166
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1 Open Recommendations
Agency Affected Recommendation Status
Office of Management and Budget The Director of OMB should ensure that all covered federal agencies have an active link on the madeinamerica.gov website that directs users to their federal financial assistance waivers. (Recommendation 1)
Open
When we confirm what actions the agency has taken in response to this recommendation, we will provide updated information.

Tax Expenditures: Opportunities Exist to Use Budgeting and Agency Performance Processes to Increase Oversight

GAO-16-622
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1 Open Recommendations
1 Priority
Agency Affected Recommendation Status
Office of Management and Budget
Priority Rec.
To help ensure that the contributions of tax expenditures toward the achievement of agency goals are identified and measured, the Director of OMB, in collaboration with the Secretary of the Treasury, should work with agencies to identify which tax expenditures contribute to their agency goals, as appropriate--that is, they should identify which specific tax expenditures contribute to specific strategic objectives and agency priority goals.
Open
As of March 2024, OMB had not begun to work with agencies to identify which tax expenditures contribute to the agencies' specific strategic objectives and agency priority goals, as GAO recommended in 2016. OMB stated that, although it agreed with the recommendation, it was not pursuing the effort due to competing priorities, as well as capacity and resource constraints. As of March 2024, OMB does not plan to address this recommendation. GAO continues to believe that OMB, in collaboration with the Department of the Treasury, needs to assist agencies in identifying tax expenditures that relate to agency goals so that the agencies have a more complete understanding of how a broader range of federal investments contributes to their goals. Without additional OMB assistance, agencies may continue to have difficulty identifying whether or which of the dozens of tax expenditures--representing an estimated $1.54 trillion in forgone revenues in fiscal year 2023 (last revised estimates available)--contribute to their goals.

Justice40: Use of Leading Practices Would Strengthen Efforts to Guide Environmental Justice Initiative

GAO-24-105869
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1 Open Recommendations
Agency Affected Recommendation Status
Office of Management and Budget The Director of OMB, jointly with the Chair of CEQ and the Assistant to the President and National Climate Advisor of CPO, should work with WHEJAC members and WHEJAC administrative officials to assess WHEJAC's communication needs with EOP, and then, as appropriate, develop methods for meeting those needs. (Recommendation 5)
Open
In written comments reproduced in our report, CEQ stated that it anticipates taking steps in the coming months to implement our recommendations on leading practices. We will update the status of this recommendation when we receive additional information from the agencies.

Data Act: Pilot Effectively Tested Approaches for Reducing Reporting Burden for Grants but Not for Contracts

GAO-19-299
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1 Open Recommendations
Agency Affected Recommendation Status
Office of Management and Budget The Director of OMB should ensure that information is collected regarding how centralized reporting of procurement requirements might reduce recipient reporting burden—including input from stakeholders such as contractors through an iterative and ongoing process—to inform OMB's planned expansion of the Central Reporting Portal.
Open
In an October 2019 written response to the recommendation contained in GAO-19-299, OMB acknowledged the importance of collecting stakeholder input and described some steps that it has taken to do so in the past. The letter also stated OMB's intention to engage key stakeholders moving forward but was not specific regarding steps it planned to take related to the potential expansion of the Central Reporting Portal. In July 2022, OMB indicated that it has deprecated the central reporting portal that was part of the DATA Act Section 5 pilot to avoid potential duplication with future modernization of other centralized tools. OMB stated that information and input gathered during the pilot will be used to inform future efforts.

Federal Spending Transparency: Opportunities Exist to Further Improve the Information Available on USAspending.gov

GAO-22-104702
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1 Open Recommendations
Agency Affected Recommendation Status
Office of Management and Budget The Director of OMB, in collaboration with the Secretary of the Treasury, should ensure that their policies, guidance, and procedures related to DATA Act and USAspending.gov (e.g., maximum number of characters for award descriptions) are consistent with each other. (Recommendation 5)
Open
OMB concurs with this recommendation. In July 2022 OMB told us that work with Treasury is ongoing to ensure the display and technical standards for reporting information on USAspending.gov is consistent with FFATA and DATA Act statutory, regulatory, and policy guidance, and in December 2022, they told us that action is planned, but not yet underway. We will continue to monitor OMB's progress toward implementing this recommendation.

San Francisco Bay Delta Watershed: Wide Range of Restoration Efforts Need Updated Federal Reporting and Coordination Roles

GAO-18-473
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1 Open Recommendations
Agency Affected Recommendation Status
Office of Management and Budget The Director of OMB should coordinate with appropriate state entities to obtain and report the information available to meet the requirements under section 106 of the CALFED Act. (Recommendation 6)
Open – Partially Addressed
As of August 2023, California state agencies had taken action on this recommendation but OMB had not. In July 2022, the California Delta Stewardship Council (a state agency) published a report, the FY 2020-2021 Delta Crosscut Budget, on science and restoration funding and performance information for several federal and state agencies. The report was based on information gathered by the Delta Plan Interagency Implementation Committee, a committee established by DSC to implement the Delta Plan. The committee is made up of national, state, and local agencies including the Department of the Interior's Bureau of Reclamation. A Council official stated that the Committee will continue to gather information and publish annual reports on funding and performance. The Council's report includes several federal agencies' information, in addition to state funding. In this way, it is providing information that can help OMB prepare its requirements under section 106 of the CALFED Act. As of August 2023, OMB staff said they would not take any further action on this recommendation. We believe that the state agencies have the information that OMB could use to report and continue to believe that OMB should work with the agencies to report on costs and actions taken to restore the Bay-Delta ecosystem.

Climate Change: Analysis of Reported Federal Funding

GAO-18-223
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1 Open Recommendations
Agency Affected Recommendation Status
Office of Management and Budget The Director of OMB should provide, concurrent with any future climate change funding reports to Congress, a detailed analysis of federal climate change programs it considers to be fragmented, overlapping, or duplicative. (Recommendation 2)
Open
In a July 2018 letter, OMB reiterated its disagreement with this recommendation, as described in the Agency Comments and Our Evaluation section of the report. OMB also stated that it does not anticipate providing a separate, detailed analysis of federal climate change programs that it considers to be fragmented, overlapping, or duplicative. We continue to believe that because OMB collects and reports information on federal climate change funding, OMB is uniquely situated to conduct an assessment of potentially fragmented, overlapping, or duplicative programs across the full range of agencies engaged in climate change activities and that by providing this information to Congress in conjunction with future funding reports, OMB could help decision makers more effectively target limited resources. As of November 2023, OMB has not provided a climate change funding report to Congress since the issuance of our April 2018 report.

Information Management: Agencies Need to Streamline Electronic Services

GAO-23-105562
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1 Open Recommendations
Agency Affected Recommendation Status
Office of Management and Budget The Director of the Office of Management and Budget should take steps to promote, through mechanisms such as the Federal Privacy Council and Chief Information Officers Council, sharing of information and lessons learned to help agencies implement the requirements of the CASES Act; this could include SEC sharing information on overcoming challenges and identifying lessons learned. (Recommendation 1)
Open
As of March 2024, OMB has not yet provided information pertaining to planned actions for this recommendation. Once the agency states that it has taken action, we plan to verify whether implementation has occurred.

Government Efficiency and Effectiveness: Inconsistent Definitions and Information Limit the Usefulness of Federal Program Inventories

GAO-15-83
Show
1 Open Recommendations
1 Priority
Agency Affected Recommendation Status
Office of Management and Budget
Priority Rec.
To ensure the effective implementation of federal program inventory requirements and to make the inventories more useful, the Director of OMB should, to better present a more coherent picture of all federal programs, revise relevant guidance to provide a time frame for what constitutes "persistent over time" that agencies can use as a decision rule for whether to include short-term efforts as programs.
Open
As of July 2022, the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) had taken limited action in response to this recommendation. Although OMB published an initial inventory covering the programs of 24 federal agencies in May 2013, OMB decided to postpone further development of the inventory in order to coordinate with the implementation of the Digital Accountability and Transparency Act of 2014 (DATA Act). In January 2021, Congress amended and expanded requirements for the federal program inventory as part of the William M. (Mac) Thornberry National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2021. In November 2021, OMB published a plan for implementing the federal program inventory, including a series of pilots to test approaches. The plan describes how OMB, in collaboration with agencies, will conduct pilots to define and identify programs. According to information provided by OMB staff in May 2022, OMB plans to refine its existing guidance to incorporate lessons learned from the pilots, as appropriate, which presents an opportunity to fully address this recommendation. According to updates provided by OMB officials in March and April 2023, they expect to begin implementing the first pilot in Summer 2023. We will continue to monitor progress.
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