Gao Report

The government pays about a fourth of its bills too early and another fourth too late, thus forfeiting hundreds of millions of dollars in either interest income or late-payment penalties, the General Accounting Office said Wednesday. The inability of federal agencies to pay their bills in a timely fashion is just one example of how the government is losing billions of dollars through poor accounting systems, the congressional investigative agency said.

WASHINGTON - Democrats on the House Homeland Security Committee and a senior Republican colleague voiced grave doubts Thursday about the viability of BioWatch, the nation's system for detecting biological attacks that has been plagued by false alarms. Committee members endorsed a new report from the Government Accountability Office, a nonpartisan investigative arm of Congress, that bluntly faulted the Department of Homeland Security's management of BioWatch and recommended that contracting for a multibillion-dollar overhaul be halted while plans are reevaluated.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission grants licenses for handling radioactive material without verifying claims or inspecting facilities, making it "overly vulnerable to dishonest or careless applicants," a congressional report said. The General Accounting Office said it discovered a series of "continuing and sometimes chronic problems" with the way the NRC hands out licenses and oversees businesses after they are licensed.

WASHINGTON - The U.S. Department of Homeland Security has rushed to acquire a new, multibillion-dollar version of the BioWatch system for detecting biological attacks without establishing whether it was needed or would work, according to a new report by a nonpartisan investigative arm of Congress. The report by the Government Accountability Office says Homeland Security should reevaluate the need for the overhaul while determining whether it makes financial sense. The department has spent more than $150 million developing the new generation of biological sensors.

The General Accounting Office says the U.S.-China nuclear agreement contains "vague and unclear language" that could lead to misunderstandings with the Chinese over the use of American-supplied atomic materials. But it says the problems are not serious enough to warrant rejecting the accord, which provides the framework for future sales of nuclear reactors and other nuclear equipment to the Chinese. The report by the congressional watchdog agency was prepared for Sen.

The General Accounting Office, in a draft report not yet released, expresses strong reservations about Navy plans to disperse its growing fleet among more than a dozen additional home ports, and says that other options--including concentrating ships in California--could prove less costly. The draft, obtained Friday from Capitol Hill sources, discussed a number of other options that it found "considerably less costly."

A report by congressional auditors recommending that it would be unwise to shut down the Long Beach Naval Station and several other bases was ignored by the Navy and withheld from a presidential commission, according to an area congressman who has been battling to keep the Long Beach base open. U.S. Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-Long Beach) said last week that his staff struck "a gold nugget" when it obtained a copy of a still-unreleased, 50-plus page report from the General Accounting Office.

In a direct rebuke to President-elect George Bush's campaign proposal to eliminate the federal budget deficit through a "flexible freeze" on federal spending, the General Accounting Office warned bluntly Saturday that it would be impossible to "freeze our way out of the (deficit) problem."

The Pentagon is seeking large funding increases for 20 major weapons programs, many of which have had technical problems and huge cost overruns, according to the draft of a General Accounting Office report. Although the report draws no conclusions and makes no recommendations, it depicts significant problems in some of the nation's most important weapons programs just as they are to enter full-scale development or production, milestones that will require sharp funding increases.

The government's fund for insuring bank accounts up to $100,000 "will likely be insolvent" by the end of this year as more institutions fail in the coming months, congressional auditors said Friday. Soon after the General Accounting Office report was released, the chairman of the House Banking Committee, Rep. Henry B. Gonzalez (D-Tex.), said Congress may need to act within 60 days to replenish the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. fund, which he described as "perilously close" to insolvency.

WASHINGTON - An audit program meant to combat Medicaid fraud has cost taxpayers about $102 million since 2008 while identifying less than $20 million in overpayments, according to a report released by the nonpartisan Government Accountability Office on Thursday. The National Medicaid Audit Program used incomplete federal data to conduct 1,550 audits, and apparently because of that, the majority of the audits failed to find any fraud, the GAO said at a Senate hearing. Yet fraud in Medicare and Medicaid, the federal government's health insurance programs for elderly, disabled and low-income Americans, continues to cost taxpayers an estimated $60 billion a year, the Justice Department says.

A U.S. government study released Monday found that Iraq has a budget surplus of $52.1 billion, with $11.8 billion that is readily available for spending on its security forces. The study by the Government Accountability Office, the investigative arm of Congress, comes as lawmakers prepare to debate a $2-billion funding request from the White House for the Iraqi security forces. "Billions of dollars that Iraq has budgeted for security have gone unused. As U.S. troops withdraw, the Iraqi government must take a larger role in providing security throughout the country," the report said.

Four for-profit colleges encouraged undercover applicants to commit fraud, and all 15 visited by undercover investigators made "deceptive or otherwise questionable statements," according to a government report released Wednesday. The pervasive nature of the problems found by the Government Accountability Office appeared to contradict the for-profit industry's previous assertion that problems in the sector are limited to a few bad apples, senators said. "GAO's findings make it disturbingly clear that abuses in for-profit recruiting are not limited to a few rogue recruiters or even a few schools with lax oversight," Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa)

A breakdown in anti-drug cooperation between Venezuela and the United States has contributed to an alarming surge in cocaine trafficking from Venezuela, according to a report issued Monday by the U.S. Government Accountability Office. The volume of drugs passing through Venezuela more than quadrupled from 66 tons in 2004 to 287 tons in 2007, the GAO said. U.S.

The Labor Department regularly bungles its handling of complaints from workers who say their bosses are cheating them on overtime pay or committing other labor violations, an undercover investigation found. The probe by the Government Accountability Office says agency officials often took too long to respond to complaints, failed to record them and, in one instance, lied about investigative work that was never performed.

Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates pledged to oversee a disputed $35-billion tanker contract after congressional investigators Wednesday detailed numerous mistakes the Air Force made in awarding the deal to Northrop Grumman Corp. and its European partner over Boeing Co.

Congressional investigators said today that their tests did not support the Navy's finding that sabotage caused the explosion that killed 47 sailors aboard the battleship Iowa. The congressional report, which came a day after the Navy reopened its investigation into the disaster, said the explosion could have resulted from gunpowder bags in the ship's guns being rammed at "higher than normal speeds."

Ten federal departments spent $5.1 million in less than three years on security for Cabinet secretaries, with guards sometimes providing personal services like carrying luggage, a government report said. The General Accounting Office issued the report late Friday in response to a request in July from 105 members of the House after news reports questioned whether some low-profile Cabinet officials needed security.

Privately run Medicare Advantage plans spent less than they projected in U.S. bids to provide benefits for Medicare beneficiaries in 2005, collecting $1.14 billion more in profit, the Government Accountability Office reported. Insurance companies had forecast they would spend 90% of payments from the government on medical services to beneficiaries but actually spent 86%, according to the GAO report, which was released by Rep. Pete Stark (D-Fremont). Democrats want to reduce payments to Medicare Advantage plans and use the money to prevent a 10% cut in Medicare doctors' fees scheduled for July 1. House Republicans joined Democrats to pass the bill, which the Senate is expected to take up this week.

A Caribbean vacation. Pro football tickets. "Girls Gone Wild" videos. Fees for a divorce lawyer. A diamond ring. A sex-change operation. This list is not a celebrity spending spree, but a chronicle of the fraud committed by Americans who said they were victims of Hurricane Katrina at a cost to the federal government of as much as $1.4 billion, according to a report issued Wednesday by the Government Accountability Office.