Major Management Challenges and Program Risks

This publication is part of GAO's performance and accountability series which provides a comprehensive assessment of government management, particularly the management challenges and program risks confronting federal agencies. Using a "performance-based management" approach, this landmark set of reports focuses on the results of government programs--how they affect the American taxpayer--rather than on the processes of government. This approach integrates thinking about organization, product and service delivery, use of technology, and human capital practices into every decision about the results that the government hopes to achieve. The series includes an overview volume discussing governmentwide management issues and 20 individual reports on the challenges facing specific cabinet departments and independent agencies. The reports take advantage of the wealth of new information made possible by management reform legislation, including audited financial statements for major federal agencies, mandated by the Chief Financial Officers Act, and strategic and performance plans required by the Government Performance and Results Act. In a companion volume to this series, GAO also updates its high-risk list of government operations and programs that are particularly vulnerable to waste, fraud, abuse, and mismanagement.

GAO noted that: (1) Education continues to experience challenges in its management of student financial aid programs; (2) Education lacks the financial and programmatic information necessary to effectively budget for and manage these programs and to accurately estimate the government's liabilities; (3) some of the Department's mission-critical information systems are not yet year 2000 compliant; (4) Education faces challenges in administering elementary and secondary programs that are a joint responsibility with state and local agencies; (5) Congress has eased some federal reporting requirements to reduce paperwork and regulatory burden as it increased state and local responsibilities for managing programs; (6) as a result, the Department does not have enough information on program effectiveness to meet the information needs of Congress and other decisionmakers; (7) GAO's work has shown that billions of federal education dollars are distributed through hundreds of programs and more than 30 agencies, which creates the possibility of overlap and duplication in federal education programs; (8) the Department has been improving the management of its programs by establishing goals, key strategies, and performance measures for each of its 22 strategic objectives and by developing 99 performance plans for individual programs; (9) in its annual strategic plans, Education identified some of its many programs and laid the groundwork for developing needed information about them; (10) while Education has made progress in improving program management and providing information needed by Congress, GAO's review of Education's fiscal year 1999 performance plan suggested the need for additional action in several areas; and (11) the Department must address the need for adequately testing revisions to its financial information systems, while developing business continuity and contingency plans, to provide reasonable assurance that new or modified year 2000 compliant systems will not jeopardize the Department's ability to perform core operations.