Proposed Legislation to Establish a 4-Year Term for the Position of Administrator of General Services

GAO discussed the General Services Administration's (GSA) management capabilities. GAO found that four deficiencies in GSA management posed significant obstacles to its effective management control, including: (1) ineffective leadership because of frequent turnover in political leadership, lack of career executive involvement in the planning process, and lack of attention to developing senior executives' skills and abilities; (2) inconsistent attention to human resources management, which contributed to low morale, high turnover, and insufficient staff development; (3) information problems stemming from outdated information systems and ineffective information management practices; and (4) weak executive performance accountability because of inadequate information and nonspecific performance objectives. GAO also found that: (1) frequent GSA administrator turnover hampered efforts to correct the deficiencies; (2) GSA had 17 changes in its chief executive over 20 years and similar instability among its other executive positions; (3) although proposed legislation would set a fixed 4-year term for the administrator, the term might not be long enough to implement new policies and program changes; (4) the legislation would also fill the Deputy Administrator position from the Senior Executive Service as a career appointment and elevate those positions to levels equal to their central agency peers; and (5) GSA needed to address executive qualifications compensation to alleviate the problems of attracting and retaining well-qualified executives.