GAO: Administration inflates reinvention claims

When it comes to saving money, Vice President Al Gore's National Partnership for Reinventing Government (NPR) is taking credit where credit is not due, according to a new report from the General Accounting Office.

GAO reviewed NPR's claims of savings at NASA, the Energy Department and the Agriculture Department in its report, "NPR's Savings: Claimed Agency Savings Cannot All Be Attributed to NPR" (GGD-99-120).

Together, these agencies represent 22 percent of the total $137 billion in savings that NPR has claimed to date. But many of NPR's savings claims are bogus, the report said.

The Office of Management and Budget, which is responsible for NPR's accounting, goofed more than once and tried to take full credit for savings that were due to many factors, the report said.

"In general, the savings estimates we reviewed could not be replicated, and there was no way to substantiate the savings claimed," GAO said.

Part of NPR's overestimation problem lies in how savings are calculated, the report said. OMB uses cost projection techniques that are based on policies in effect at a given time. "The estimates OMB prepared for NPR initiatives involved projecting changes from a given baseline and identifying the difference as savings," GAO said.

GAO found more specific problems in savings estimates at each agency reviewed. At NASA, OMB failed to separate NPR's contributions from other factors, like limited funding and budget caps, that influenced cost reductions, the report said.

The report also contended that OMB twice double-counted savings estimates at USDA. In one of the cases, savings from reorganizing USDA were counted in two categories of changes that helped reduce the bureaucracy-agency-specific and governmentwide.

OMB acknowledged its error in double counting savings from USDA, but pointed out that it represented less than one percent of the total savings claimed.

"The report focuses on some fairly detailed, even arcane details about accounting. What's most important is that today government works better, more efficiently and more cost-effectively," said Linda Ricci, a spokeswoman for OMB.

According to Ricci, the error in double counting was inadvertent. In fact, she said, "after an internal review, we realized we had undercounted $2 billion as well."

GAO also reported that OMB did not offset savings estimates for USDA's reorganization with the costs of the reorganization, which included buyouts and relocation expenses. But OMB denies that claim, saying at least $14.6 billion from downsizing offsets was not counted in the savings. "We did in fact make a considered decision to calculate offsets," Ricci said.

NPR referred requests for comment to the Office of Management and Budget.