Government Accountability Office, Comptroller General

Department/Agency: Government Accountability Office

Position:

Comptroller General

Executive Schedule: Executive Level II - Presidential Appointment with Senate Confirmation

Major Responsibilities:

Evaluate federal agencies' use of taxpayer dollars
Investigate allegations of illegal and improper activities
Report findings to Congress and the president
Promote efficiency in public spending

Key Competencies and Preferred Qualifications:

Management experience
Background in accounting

Insight:

The Government Accountability Office is often called Congress's watchdog. The Cerberus of this agency is the comptroller general, who must keep an eye on how every federal dollar is spent and suggest ways for public servants to do their jobs better. The comptroller general oversees a staff of 3,120 -- two-thirds of them analysts - and a $507 million budget. The GAO produces upwards of 1,000 reports, letters and detailed testimony for Congress each year. Requests from lawmakers, especially the chairs and ranking minority members of committees, trigger most of the GAO's work. The agency also renders its professional opinion on the soundness of the federal government's consolidated financial statements.

The financial crisis that has enveloped Washington and the world will add to the urgency of the comptroller general's mission in 2009. A career GAO accountant and executive, Gene Dodaro, became acting comptroller general in March 2008 when David Walker resigned 10 years into his 15-year term. President-elect Barack Obama will select a new comptroller general from a list of three candidates proposed by leaders of Congress, and the Senate will make the final decision on confirming that person. There have been only seven comptroller generals in the 87-year history of the agency formerly called the General Accounting Office. The first was a lawyer named John R. McCarl who set the template for the agency's independence and integrity. He clashed frequently with the executive branch as he carried out what he interpreted as a mandate from Congress to determine "whether any particular expenditure or collection is in accordance with law." The comptroller general can only be fired by Congress, not the president. It is a nonpartisan post.

Walker, in his decade on the job, was outspoken in warning that spending on entitlements cannot be sustained at their current trajectory. He had earlier served as a public trustee for Social Security and Medicare, where he first gained a reputation as a Cassandra warning of dire consequences for the entire U.S. economy if Congress and the White House allowed those programs to keep spending beyond their means.

Since 1996 when the government began preparing consolidated financial statements, not once has a comptroller general given the government a clean financial audit. In December 2007, in his final report to Congress, Walker said, "Certain material weaknesses in financial reporting and other limitations on the scope of our work resulted in conditions that, for the 11th consecutive year, prevented us from expressing an opinion on the (consolidated) financial statements other than the Statement of Social Insurance .... The federal government did not maintain effective internal control over financial reporting (including safeguarding assets) and compliance with significant laws and regulations as of September 30, 2007."

From a purely accounting perspective, the government's books are in better shape now than they were back then, Walker said, but "three major impediments continue to prevent us from rendering an opinion on the accrual basis consolidated financial statements." They were:

Serious financial management problems at the Department of Defense
An inability to account for intragovernmental activity and balances between federal agencies
Fundamental weaknesses in the system for keeping the government's books

He concluded: "Until the problems outlined in our audit report are adequately addressed, they will continue to have adverse implications for the federal government and American taxpayers."

The situation facing Walker's successor will only be worse. Walker's advice for that person is to "stay the course." Walker, who left to become president of the Peter G. Peterson Foundation, told the CPA Journal that GAO has in place "a solid infrastructure" but "needs to remain dedicated to the core values (i.e. accountability, integrity and reliability) and the simple but powerful concepts that we adopted early in my tenure ... (of) leading by example, practicing what you preach, constructive engagement and continuous improvement."

Dodaro, the acting comptroller general, made preparations for a smooth transition to the new administration his top priority. A September 2008 report to Congress highlighted the agency's role and obligation under the Presidential Transition Act to help smooth the path for the incoming president. Dodaro listed the growing financial crisis and the handover of responsibility for national security as his topmost concerns.

While the GAO seeks to hold everyone else in government accountable, experts from outside government are hired to watch the watchdog. International auditors and an accounting firm gave the GAO "clean opinions" when they conducted peer reviews of the office's auditing procedures in June 2008.

Walker instituted a pay-for-performance system at GAO, with the expressed purpose of bringing analysts' salaries in line with the private sector. But the move cost many workers their pay raises and led to a successful unionization drive by the International Federation of Professional and Technical Engineers, an AFL-CIO affiliate. Vice President-elect Joseph Biden told that union in a 2007 interview while he was running for president that the Bush administration had "lined up 10 deep to strip away about 100 years of labor progress. We need a Democrat in the White House in order to reverse that trend." Now it will be the Obama-Biden administration's turn to deal with labor and other issues. For the next controller general, restoring trust between management and staff will be an internal challenge, even while carrying out the larger mission of making government more efficient and showing fellow public servants how to do more with less.

Key Relationships – Within the Department or Agency:

Chief Operating Office
Chief Administrative Officer
Managing Director for Congressional Relations
General Counsel

Key Relationships – Within the Government:

Director, Congressional Budget Office
Director, Office of Management and Budget
President's Council of Economic Advisers
Security and Exchange Commission chairman and executive director
Inspectors General and President's Council on Integrity and Efficiency

Key Relationships – Outside the Government:

State and local government chief financial officers
American Institute of Public Accountants
Financial Services Technology Corporation
Other public and private sector associations dealing with financial integrity

Nomination Referred to:

Senate Committee on Governmental Affairs

Current Position Profile:

1. Gene Dodaro, B.A. (Acting 2008). Accountant and 30-year career GAO auditor. Chief operating officer from 1999-2008. In 1997 directed first audit of all federal department's first comprehensive financial statements. Led major management reviews of Department of Justice, Internal Revenue Service, Office of Management and Budget, and Office of Personnel Management.

Recent Position Profiles:

2. David Walker, B.S. (1998-2008). Former partner and global managing director of Arthur Andersen LLP. Public trustee for Social Security and Medicare. Assistant secretary of labor for pension and welfare benefit programs in Reagan administration. Now president and CEO of the Peter G. Peterson Foundation.

3. Charles Bowsher, M.B.A. (1981-1996). Accountant and former partner at Arthur Andersen & Co. Former assistant secretary of the Navy for financial management. Chaired the Public Oversight Board for the American Institute of CPAs. Now director of investor relations at SI International.