Because government agencies don’t have a unified method of reporting how much they spend, it’s virtually impossible to gauge the full extent of federal expenditures, a congressional watchdog said.
In 2012, agencies failed to report properly $619 billion in grants and loans, according to Comptroller General Gene Dodaro, head of the Government Accountability Office.
Agencies are supposed to report their spending data to USASpending.gov to allow for transparency, but only between 2 and 7 percent of the awards on the site contained information that matched the agency’s records, Dodaro said in his testimony Wednesday before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee.
Inconsistent data policies within the government also prevent agencies from sharing information and making informed funding decisions.
“GAO’s work also found that a lack of government-wide data standards limits the ability to measure the cost and magnitude of federal investments and hampers efforts to share data across agencies to improve decision-making and oversight,” he said.
The Digital Accountability and Transparency Act of 2014, signed into law in May, aims to establish government-wide data guidelines and force more accurate and comprehensive federal spending disclosure by 2018.
The DATA Act also directs inspectors general to review the accuracy of spending reports released to the public, Dodaro said.
Highlighting the need for effective implementation of the DATA Act, the GAO head pointed to the “fraud, waste and abuse” and “improper payments and overlap, duplication, and fragmentation” that he said persists across federal government programs.
“Currently, there is not a comprehensive list of all federal programs and agencies often lack reliable budgetary and performance information about their programs,” Dodaro said.
Dodaro warned of the “unsustainable long-term fiscal path” of the federal government and suggested the DATA Act could serve as an important catalyst for reigning in wasteful spending.
Go here to read the full GAO testimony.
