From the U.S. Government Accountability Office, www.gao.gov Transcript for: GAO's Fiscal Year 2015 Performance Description: Audio Interview by GAO staff with Tim Bowling, Chief Quality Officer Related GAO Work: GAO-16-3SP: Performance and Accountability Report Fiscal Year 2015 Released: November 2015 [ Background Music ] [ Narrator: ] Welcome to GAO's Watchdog Report, your source for news and information from the U.S. Government Accountability Office. It's November 2015. Every year, GAO issues nearly a thousand reports covering issues throughout the federal government. One annual report focuses on GAO's own performance, looking at what sort of return Congress and the American people got on their investment in GAO. A team led by Tim Bowling, GAO's Chief Quality Officer, recently published the agency's Performance and Accountability Report for fiscal year 2015. GAO's, Jacques Arsenault, sat down with Tim to talk about what they found. [ Jacques Arsenault: ] We normally look at federal programs and spending at other federal agencies, but today we're turning it around and looking at GAO. What should people know about our agency? [ Tim Bowling: ] Most people refer to us as the congressional Watchdog. Now watchdog implies someone keeping watch over someone else, someone protecting someone else or some other group. And GAO does that for the American people and for the Congress that is elected. We prefer to think of ourselves as an organization that is able to provide independent, objective, very accurate, and reliable information to Congress in making its decisions and recommendations to the agencies for improving government and for making it cost less and work better. And we've done that on a very consistent basis over the years. Most of our work results in recommendations and these recommendations often result in rather impressive financial benefits and other benefits to the American taxpayer. For example, this year our work and our recommendations resulted in 75 billion dollars in financial benefits for the country. That is a return on investment against our appropriations of 134 dollars for every dollar spent on GAO. [ Jacques Arsenault: ] Now, in this year's Performance and Accountability Report, it really gets right to an important point quickly, saying that the federal government is on an unsustainable fiscal path. What has GAO done in the last year to help address this issue? [ Tim Bowling: ] Well we work in two ways. In one sense, we are really interested in the current issues, the ones Congress is dealing with right now that have current dollar savings or possible improvements in services to the public. And another part focuses on the longer-range issues, 10, 20, 30, even 40 years out that Congress needs to begin addressing to avoid problems in the future. And the fiscal imbalance that government will be facing then is one of those. We do a lot of work on improper payments and the tax gap, which have current benefits, there's as much as a trillion dollars involved in those two together. But in the longer term, we need to look at the large entitlement programs, such as Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security, and we do work on all of those, we examine options for reducing costs while still providing benefits from these major programs. [ Jacques Arsenault: ] Can you tell me about some specific accomplishments of GAO that really stood out for you this year? [ Tim Bowling: ] Yes, one of the biggest was the spectrum auction work. FCC runs a spectrum auction, we asked Congress to reauthorize that so they could run another one last year, and they did, and it resulted in a 32 billion dollar accomplishment for that work. That's a lot of money, large, even by GAO's standards, but not unheard of to have that kind of effect. We also affected the direct payment program for farmers, resulting in a 4.9 billion dollar accomplishment and the cancellation of the BioWatch Generation 3 acquisition by DHS, which yielded 2.1 billion dollars in financial benefits. We also do work on legislation. For example, the Children's Health Insurance Program, the CHIP program, the Cyber Security Enhancement Act, and many others have benefitted by the information analysis we have provided to the congressional decision makers who are crafting that legislation. We also contribute to most of the appropriation bills that flow through Congress as well. [ Jacques Arsenault: ] And what happens behind the scenes that enables GAO to produce this kind of work. [ Tim Bowling: ] Well every year we bring together our highly trained and interdisciplinary staff on a large number of individual engagements. We have, fortunately, a large range of skills, abilities, and disciplines to choose from. We have acquisition experts, economists, engineers, environmental scientists, computer scientists, healthcare experts, even a medical doctor, that we can pull upon to get the right expertise, the right thinking, and the right ideas around each individual engagement. At the same time, we have a very rigorous quality assurance process that we use to ensure that every product meets our professional standards and abides by our core values. This results in work that is institutional in nature, it reflects our best thinking, our best views, and our most independent and objective analysis rather than merely those of one or two or small number of our staff. So it's product that we can stand behind as an institution, and it's a product that the Congress can rely upon. [ Jacques Arsenault: ] So with that process then, those results in mind, what can we expect from GAO in fiscal year 2016? [ Tim Bowling: ] Congress will undoubtedly ask GAO to continue looking at the key issues that they are facing and the key opportunities for improving government and saving money. Last year, we did work for 97 percent of the congressional standing committees. This year I would expect we will do more of the same, and I would also expect that we will have another very strong year, providing a return on investment of hopefully over 100 to 1 on every penny we spend. [ Jacques Arsenault: ] And finally, for the American taxpayers, what's GAO's bottom line? [ Tim Bowling: ] The bottom line for the American taxpayer is that during the last year, GAO continued to help the government work better, provide improved service to the citizens, and save tens of billions of dollars. By returning 134 dollars for every dollar spent, we have turned out to be a great investment for people in the country, the taxpayers, and for the Congress. We have also been one of the best sources in town for accountability in government. [Background Music] And after all, accountability is our middle name. [ Background Music ] [ Narrator: ] To learn more, visit GAO.gov and be sure to tune in to the next episode of GAO's Watchdog Report for more from the congressional watchdog, the U.S. Government Accountability Office.