Forest Service Management

The Forest Service's management of the National Forest System has not appreciably changed as a result of the greater flexibility offered by the fiscal year 1995 budget reforms. Specifically, consolidating the line items was intended to provide field managers with greater discretion in deciding where to spend funds to better achieve the agency's goals and objectives. However, (1) some field offices have continued to distribute and track money as if the consolidation had not occurred and (2) the budget is still structured primarily by individual resource-specific programs, such as those for timber sales and wildlife habitat management. The reforms also expanded the Forest Service's authority to move funds between the line items without the approval of the Appropriations Committees. However, the agency has seldom requested such approval either before or after the reforms. Finally, the reforms restructured the agency's budget so that all the funding for a project is consolidated in the program that will benefit most from that project. However, for various reasons, including underestimating a project's costs, a benefiting program may not have the funds needed to implement a project. In these instances, it may require other programs that are providing support services to absorb the costs of those services. The Forest Service has not provided Congress with the improved accountability that the Appropriations Committees requested when they gave the agency increased flexibility over its budget. As a result, Congress and other interested parties do not have an adequate measure of the agency's funding needs or its progress toward achieving its goals and objectives.

GAO noted that: (1) the Forest Service's management of the National Forest System has not appreciably changed as a result of the increased flexibility offered by the FY 1995 budget reforms; (2) consolidating the line items was intended to provide field managers with greater discretion in deciding where to spend funds to better achieve the agency's goals and objectives; (3) however: (a) some field offices have continued to distribute and track funds as if the consolidation had not occurred; and (b) the budget is still structured primarily by individual resource-specific programs; (4) the reforms expanded the Forest Service's authority to move funds between line items without the appropriations committees' approval; (5) the agency has seldom requested such approval either before or after the reforms; (6) the agency submitted one or two requests a year for the Appropriations committees' approval to move funds among line items for the National Forest System in fiscal years 1994 through 1997; (7) the reforms have not had a noticeable impact on the number of times that the Forest Service has made such requests of the committees; (8) the reforms restructured the agency's budget so that all the funding for a project is consolidated in the program that will benefit most from the project; (9) however, a benefitting program may not have the funds needed to implement a project; (10) it may require other programs that are providing support services to absorb the costs of those services; (11) this practice circumvents the requirements established by the appropriations committees and the agency to move funds between line items and understates a project's costs; (12) the Forest Service has not provided Congress with the improved accountability that the appropriations committees requested when they gave the agency increased flexibility over its budget; (13) GAO found that: (a) the agencywide criteria developed by the Forest Service to allocate appropriated funds to its regions and forests are often not linked to its strategic goals and objectives; (b) the agency's performance measures do not adequately reflect its accomplishments or progress toward achieving the goals and objectives; and (c) the management cost and performance reporting system that the agency has been developing for over 10 years uses the inadequate performance measures as input; and (14) the Forest Service, Congress, and others do not have an adequate measure of the agency's funding needs or its progress toward achieving its goals and objectives.

Recommendations

Our recommendations from this work are listed below with a Contact for more information. Status will change from "In process" to "Open," "Closed - implemented," or "Closed - not implemented" based on our follow up work.

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