Inspectors general will focus on information security, financial management practices, the Government Performance and Results Act, and Y2K issues in the future, according to a recent report.
The President's Council on Integrity and Efficiency (PCIE) and the Executive Council on Integrity and Efficiency (ECIE) released their annual report, "Progress Report to the President for Fiscal Year 1998," Wednesday. The councils are comprised of IGs from around government.
The agency auditors continued to clean house in 1998, recovering billions of federal dollars from fraud, waste and abuse investigations, the report said. The top management challenges the councils identified are financial management and CFO statements, Y2K compliance, information and technology resources, GPRA compliance, security and data integrity and procurement and grant management. Those issues will set the agenda for the coming years, the report said.
According to the report, IGs were responsible for recovering nearly $1.5 billion through investigations alone last year. IGs identified another $20 billion that could be used more efficiently, the report said.
But such financial statistics don't paint a complete picture of the value of the inspectors general, according to Paul Light, founding director of the Brookings Institution's Center for Public Service and author of a book on IGs. "The IG concept today is in desperate trouble," Light said.
Light cited two recent examples of trouble in the IG community. Last year, Treasury Department IG Valerie Lau resigned after she was found guilty of violating federal contracting rules. Lau bypassed a competitive bid and awarded a large contract to a company owned by one of her buddies. Meanwhile, tensions at the Department of Housing and Urban Development IG office have also made headlines. HUD Secretary Andrew Cuomo and IG Susan Gaffney have clashed over the HUD 2020 management reform plan.
"Congress isn't sure who they work for, they're out of favor with OMB, and they have no role whatsoever at NPR [the National Partnership for Reinventing Government]," Light said. "I think the IGs need to look long and hard at how they're operating and where they fit into the new government management philosophy," he said.
There are 57 IGs in the federal government. Thirty of those IGs are appointed by agency heads, while 27 are presidentially appointed.
In a recent report, the General Accounting Office reviewed 112 semiannual reports from all but one of the 57 IG offices. Under the Inspector General Act, IGs must issue semiannual reports summarizing what they've accomplished and addressing 12 reporting requirements.
GAO found that nearly all the reports met the reporting requirements and users, such as congressional staffers, found the reports useful in preparing for hearings. But, many IGs and agency managers thought the semiannual reports could be shortened. Reports would be more useful if they focused on the most significant issues, rather than all the work that had been completed in the past six months, stakeholders said.
"Agency managers were of the opinion that the semiannual reports did not provide any new information or perspectives and were too detailed to be of use to management," GAO said in the report, "Inspectors General: Views on Semiannual Reporting" (AIMD-99-203).
Managers felt the semiannual reports should discuss the top 10 management issues, leave out lesser issues, and state a course of action to solve reported problems. Inspectors general, too, thought the reports could be improved. Many suggested the reports contain an executive summary, that they be limited to 20 pages and discuss only the five or 10 most important issues within an agency.