Overseas Support

In response to a congressional request, GAO reviewed the Department of State's administrative support to U.S. agencies located overseas, specifically: (1) State's administration of its support program; (2) agencies' satisfaction with the support; (3) the methods State used to distribute costs; and (4) factors adversely affecting the consolidation of various overseas administrative support efforts.

GAO found that agencies were uncertain about the: (1) extent of services they were supposed to receive through State's Foreign Affairs Administrative Support (FAAS) System; (2) cost of individual services; and (3) system for distributing FAAS costs among the involved agencies. GAO also found that: (1) although most agencies were satisfied with FAAS services, they were concerned about inexperienced or limited FAAS staff; (2) State paid salaries and related embassy personnel costs, telegraphic and information systems costs, security, and annual building operating expenses, while the agencies reimbursed State for various administrative support costs based on their subscribed services; (3) in fiscal year 1986, State paid $222 million in FAAS costs, while the agencies paid $78 million; and (4) agencies were unable to determine the reasonableness of FAAS costs. In addition, GAO found that: (1) diverse agency requirements often complicated consolidation of administrative support services that could have avoided service duplication and reduced costs; (2) under new legislation, agencies will pay the full costs of services received; and (3) if State cannot provide adequate services at a reasonable cost, agencies that voluntarily participate in FAAS will seek alternatives.

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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