and abuse. the hearing is about two hours. this hearing will come to order. good afternoon. i want to welcome our witnesses. i appreciate your thoughtful testimony and your willingness to spend some time with us here today. i ask consent for my written opening statement be entered in the record. this hearing really is what this committee's all about, particularly on the governmental affairs portion, but we have a mission statement that we developed last congress with my former ranking member and then my new ranking had a very good addition to it. the original one was to enhance the economic and national security of america and the senator suggested we add and promote efficient, more efficient, effective and accountable government and that's what the gao does and inspector generals do. we appreciate your work. i don't know how many times i've said and others have said you're our favorite folks in government. you give us the information that really can make government more efficient and effective and accountable. today's hearing is on the gao's high risk series. it's been prepared by the gao since the early '90s. in the last ten years gao reports about $240 million over that ten year period by enacting their recommendations to make the government more effective. igs play a key role in that as well. we sent a letter and requested the ig's last congress give us a list of all their recommendat n recommendatirecommendatio recommendations that have been outstanding. the result was 222 potential savings for about $87 billion. even in the federal government that's real money and it's really folks like you that can make a huge difference. today's hearing what we decided to do is -- we've listened to the testimony, but rather than have him on the hot seat we thought we would invite two inspector generals to testify in terms of their department and the activity and the high risk list and we also invited the director of the census bureau. we depuidn't invite you to be h in the hot seat. the census is under this committee's authority. we want to know how you view that, what are your challenges in trying to get off the high risk list and how seriously you take it. i appreciate it. we'll go easy on you here. looking forward to the hearing. i don't want to spend much more time. >> thank you, mr. chairman, for holding this important hearing. i really -- i know that you know this, that i really consider the gao one of the most important entities in washington, d.c. it's an independent nonpartisan agency that national weather service how the federal government spends tax dollars. your work supports us in meeting our legislative and oversight obligations under the constitution and helps us to improve accountability in the federal government. the important thing is your information is objective and fact based, nonpartisan, fair and balanced. at the beginning of each congress, you release a report of government programs that are at high risk due to the vulnerabilities much fraud, waste, abuse and mismanagement. the committee invites you to testify. i appreciate this hearing is one of our first full committee hearings of the 115th congress. your report provides us with a list of priorities for how this committee can target and root out waste, fraud and abuse. for example, your report says the federal government oversees more than $80 billion in taxpayer funds for information, technology investments, but poor management leads many i.t. contracting projects to fail or experience cost overruns. contract oversight is not a new problem in government, but it remains one of the most important problems out there. while most government employees are dedicated public servieants more work is needed to make sure the federal government performs for efficiently on behalf of the american people. this report identifies many skill gaps within the federal workforce that can pose risks to tax dollars and lives. it is alarming that even after the large scale cyber breach at the office of personnel management and the medical wait list scandal at the department of veteran's affairs that some of the skills gaps still include cyber security and nursing. this year gao added the 2020 census program. i am grateful the director is here to provide a status update on the program. the cost of the census has risen over the last few decades with the 2010 census being the costly census in history. billions of dollars were wasted on programs that had to be scrapped at the last minute in order to ensure the 2010 census was done on time. given these challenges and the important role the census plays in counting our citizens and allocating precious tax dollars to the communities, i'm eager to learn how the bureau manages cost this time. i'm grateful to discuss the improvement programs. when there is effective oversight and accountability in government, money gets wasted. as a former state auditor i consider government accountability as maybe the most important work here in the senate. last week president trump signed into law the act and a measure that i co sponsored to ensure that gao has full access to the national database for new hires, a key tool for cutting waste and fraud in government programs and allowing states to aggressively pursue child support payments. the law also strengthens the ability to take legal action if an agency refuses to provide gao information necessarily to perform its functions. this law is a great example of what our committee can do when we work together to promote accountability in the federal government. the federal government is a complex system of agencies that spends more than $3 trillion on behalf of the american people. thank you so much for being here today. thank you, mr. chairman, for having this committee and i'll look forward to questions. >> thank you. it is the tradition of this committee to swear in witnesses, so if you would all rise and raise your right hand. do you swear the testimony you give before this committee will be the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth so help you god? please be seated. our first witness is thas been the office since 2010 and has more than 40 years in the agency including chief operating office and head of the accounting and information division. >> thank you, mr. chairman. good afternoon to you. i'm very pleased to be here today to discuss the latest addition to the gao's high risk program. i'm pleased to report that many of the areas of the 32 areas that were on a list in 2015 have shown improvement and are in a position now that they either meet or partially meet all five criteria for coming off the list. the five criteria are leadership. you have to have the capacity. you have to have a good action plan monitoring effort and you have to demonstrate some progress. this is the one that's the hardest to meet to show you're reducing the risk or making progress in fixing the problems addressed. this progress is due to commitment by some of the agency leaders as well as the staff in the agencies and the congress. i'm very pleased that the congress in the past 114th congress passed over 12 bills that addressed high risk areas and were part of the reason why we're showing this progress and congress held over 250 hearings on areas discussed in gao's high risk programs. so i'm very pleased this committee in particular was sponsoring a number of bills, holding a lot of hearings and i'm very appreciative of that, but congress is key to making progress. if you look at almost every area that we identify as achieving progress, congressional actions have been instrumental in achieving that degree of progress. one area has met all the criteria is coming off the list. that's managing the sharing of terrorism related information. this was a very important area to the safety of our country. i can assure this committee while it's coming off the list, it doesn't mean it's out of sight. we're going to seep keep an eyet and make sure that things stay on track in that area. another area i know this committee is interested in is the department of homeland security. they've continued to show steady progressed. they've improved their ability to monitor their action plan they have in place. they really need to focus on their acquisition programs, fixing their financial management systems and improving employee morale. those are the key things they need to continue to do. there are a number of areas on the list that need substantial and these i would particularly cite to this committee's attention. first have veterans health care. i added that to the list in 2015 for a number of very important reasons that i can elaborate on in a q and a, but i'm very concerned that they've only made limited progress. defense department financial management. we've talked about that several times before this committee. they're still the only major federal agency that hasn't been able to pass the test of an audit. information technology and acquisitions and operations. that's an area that while we're seeing progress needs significant more oversight and attention to make sure it gets fixed. cyber security, both cyber security as it relates to the federal government's information systems, but also infrastructure like the electricity grid, official markets, air traffic control system and others. we added cyber security across the federal government as a high risk area to the list in 1997. this is a 20-year anniversary. we've been trying to get agencies to move on that area and despite even the breaches, we have 1,000 recommendations that are still outstanding in the cyber security area. and then reforming the housing finance system. this is one area that was not addressed coming out of the global financial crisis. fanny mae and fanny mack are still in conservetorship that they've been in since 2008. the housing administration had to get an infusion of treasury between $1 billion and $2 billion a few years ago. 70% of all the mortgages right now are for either single family homes or are directly or indirectly supported by the federal government. we need to address fanny and freddie and get the private sector back into the financial market as well to reduce the risk on the federal government. we're adding three new areas this year. first is the federal efforts to oversee -- provide oversight over programs to help indian tribes and their members. we're very concerned. we look at the education programs. the schools are in poor condition, not properly staffed, the health care area, there are no quality standards for health care. a lot of vacant positions. they're distributing funds to send people to private sector care if it's not available in indian hospitals. they're still using a formula they used in the 1930s. it needs attention. also where the tribes want to exploit oil and gas on their lands, but they need federal permitting and licensing and it's slow. it takes forever and they're not able to generate that revenue that could help them deal with the number of their issues. secondly is growth and environmental liebabilities for the federal government. the liability right now is approaching $1. trillion. i believe it to be understated because of problems at dod and not properly investigating environmental liabilities for cleaning up after defense department operations. the federal government spends billions of dollars every year to clean up the waste, but the liability keeps growing. there's not enough risk based decision making made in those areas. we have a number of outstanding recommendations. last area is the census. as you mentioned, we've added that to the list because of the fact the last census was over $12 billion. the costliest ever. in order to contain costs, they've introduced a lot of novel concepts using the internet, developing address lists from spashl and other means rather than going door to door canvassing. all these things add to the risk. the final plans have not been put in place yet. we look forward to working with this committee and i look forward to answering questions today at the appropriate time. thank you very much. >> thank you. our next witness is mr. john thompson, the director of the census bureau. he was president and ceo of the national opinion research center. director thompson. >> good afternoon, chairman johnson, ranking member and members of the committee. i appreciate the opportunity to update you on the 2020 census. i'm proud to report today we remain on the critical path to readiness. the census has been added to the most recent high risk list. both the 2000 and 2010 censuses were on this list which is a reflection of the complexity, scale and importance of conducting a fair and accurate census. this decade the complexity is heightened as we replace a paper and pencil based design with innovative technologies that will save taxpayers billions of dollars. we already have robust controls in place to mitigate the risks that are inherent in carrying out this constitutionally mandated tasks. as we plan the 50 systems that comprise the census, we're aware of the risks the program faces. that's why we're working to mitigate those risks. in the final years of the decade, risk management is critical to our operational plan for 2020. another important part of our preparations is continuing to work with our colleagues at the gao and the office of the inspector general at the department of commerce. i discussed the steps we're taking to mitigate the risks in greater detail in my written testimony. today i want to highlight the following specific risk areas that we're concentrating on. first, cyber security, fraud detection and ensuring the public's trust. we're actively securing our systems and devices for the 2020 census while ensuring that we prevent fraud and cyber attacks. we'll use a layered defense strategy to protect the data we collect and administrative records. second, ensuring system's readiness. we've developed and field tested concept systems and our design is supported by findings from the tests. now that we've awarded nearly all of the key contracts for 2020, we're finalize until our systems ahead of the 2018 end-to-end census test. third, refining our field procedures through testing. fourth, managing the schedule for the census and the supporting programs and lastly documenting and validating our 2020 census life cycle cost estimates. census tests are key to finalizing our designs and reducing risk. last year we tested core census operations in harris county, texas and los angeles county, california. additionally we tested our address canvassing procedures and systems in parts of north carolina and st. louis, missouri. we learned many lessons from these tests and we're using those lessons to refine operations and mitigate the risks of an innovative census. the bureau has planned test operations in 2017. these involved critical systems and operations that must be tested ahead of the 2018 end-to-end census test. the 2018 end-to-end census test is the final major field test before the 2020 census. field operations will begin in august 2017 with a census day of april 1, 2018. we'll conduct the test in three areas. pierce count, washington, providence county rhode island and the bluefield beckley area of west virginia. it will cover about 770,000 housing units. we'll test in nearly all of the 2020 census field infrastructure. we're also produce prototypes of our data release products making sure all of these systems work with each other is critical. using the lessons from 2018 will make any necessary adjustments to ensure that we're ready for the census and finalize plans for operations. we've been transparent about how we're approaching the redesigned census. we've held management reviews and we publicly documented and track our biggest decisions. i've shared our master schedule with the gao every month. there are many challenges ahead, but we're confident that with appropriate funding levels we can successfully execute the 2020 census. i need to note that 2017 and 2018 are critical years in the census cycle. the funding with he receive we e a great effect on the census. we're less than six months away from beginning field work on the final major test for the 2020 census, but there's not yet clarity regarding the promigram funding in 2017. in january uncertainty about the 2017 -- the fiscal 2017 budget required us to make difficult decisions to descope some aspects of the program and pause others to mitigate funding uncertainty risk. this will lead to more address listing work in 2019 to a delay in opening three of our six regional census centers in 2017 and the elimination of advertising in the 2018 end-to-end census test. it will also lead to deep cuts to program and test management operations despite the gao and our inspector general deeming them critical for a program of this complexity. we need an adequate level of funding to do the development testing, validation and documentation and planning that are necessary for risk mitigation in which the gao has urged us to conduct. we are planning an innovative modern design for 2020 that will bring the census into the 21st century. with the funding we've requested, we can execute the design that will save taxpayers billions of dollars. i thank the committee for your interest in our work. i look forward to discussing the challenges we face and how we're addressing them and to continuing our productive relationship with the gao in the years ahead. thank you. >> thank you, director thompson. our next witness is mr. michael missile, the director of the department of veteran affairs. he was a partner at the law firm where he led the fifrm's policies. >> thank you for the opportunity to discuss the work of the va office of inspector general and how we provide effective oversight of va's programs and operations through independent audits, inspections and investigations. we seek to prevent and detect fraud, waste and abuse and make meaningful recommendations to drive economy efficiency throughout programs and operations. our goal is to undertake impactful work that will assist va to make the appropriate and timely services and benefits that veterans earned and ensuring the proper expenditure of taxpayer funds. i've had the privilege of serving as the inspector general since may 2nd, 2016. i have fully immersed myself in the work of the iog. we have made a number of enhancements since i started including issuing a mission statement, increasing transparency, creating a rapid response team, expanding our data an littics capabilities and being more proactive in review areas. i believe these changes will enable us to do additional impactful work in a timely manner. we share a similar with gao. it's important we have a strong relationship with gao to ensure that we avoid duplication of effort as much as possible. to that end, one of the first things i did when i started was to meet with comptroller and some senior staff. our offices have had a number of discussions and communications since that time to promote coordination and effective oversight of va. gao added managing risks and improving va health care to its biannual high risk list in 2015 and it remains on the high risk list that was just issued for 2017. the gao focused its concerns in five broad areas. ambiguous policies and inconsistent processes, inadequate capability, information challenges, inadequate training for staff. while our work is determined by what we believe is the most effective oversight of va, a number of our reports address concerns in these same five areas. as the committee requested, i will highlight a sampling of oig work in each areas that resulted in gao placing va health care on the high risk list. it should be noted that many of the reports could fit in more than one area. we have issued a number of reports in the past few years that include va's ambiguous policies and inconsistent processes. our review of the health eligibility center determined that va had not managed business processes to ensure that maintenance of essential health care eligibility data. we made 13 recommendations in that report including one that ensure that future enrollment data are reliable before being enrolled in the system. va concurred with the recommendations in 2016. proper oversight by management would ensure that programs and operations would work effectively and efishficiently. our report on the denver replacement center is an example of the result of inadequate oversight. we identified various factors that significantly contributed to delays and liesirise costs. this occurred due to a series of questionable business decisions and mismanagement by senior officials resulting in a project years behind schedule and costing more than twice the initial budget of $800 million. we made five recommendations and va management concurred with all recommendations. we recently requested information from va on the implementation status of the recommendations and will keep them open until va provides satisfactory evidence of implementation. as we reported in the list of major investment challenges, we are frequently identified va struggles to design, procure, and or implement functional i.t. systems. security is reported as a material weakness in our consolidated financial statement audits. va has a high number of systems needing replacement. after years of focus on replacing scheduling system, a new system is still not in place. the issues with scheduling software are related to the inability to define its requirements and determine if a commercial solution is available or if it must design a system. replacing systems has been a major challenge across the government and it is not unique to va. we have issued a number of reports outlining access issues and our work in this area is continuing. one prevailing theme related to wait time and scheduling issues, was the incorrect training provided to va staff tore scheduling appointments. we conducted extensive work related to allegations of wait time manipulation through fiscal years 2015 and 2016 after allegations that the phoenix va health care system surfaced in 2014. as we have reported in more than 90 administrative summaries, the lack of training for schedulers and the lack of the understa understanding by managers created systems in which wait times were not portrayed to management. va needs to forecast the demand for health care services. in our most recent report issued in september 2016, we identified medical officer, nurse, psychologist, physician assistant and physical therapist medical technologies as the critical occupations with the largest staffing shortages. in conclusion, the oig is committed to providing effective oversight of the programs and operations of va. a number of reports address the five broad areas noted in placing the va on the high risk list. we will continue to produce reports that provide the va, congress and the public with recommendations that we believe will help va operate its programs and services in a manner that will timely deliver services and benefit to see veterans and spend taxpayer money appropriately. mr. chairman, this concludes my statement and i'd be happy to answer any questions that you or other members of the committee may have. >> thank you, mr. missile. our final witness is mr. john roth. mr. roth has served as the inspector general for the department of homeland security since march of 2014. in addition to previous work for the food and drug administration, he had a 25 year career as a federal prosecutor including chief of staff to the deputy attorney general. >> chairman, ranking member and members of the committee thank you for inviting me here to testify today. homeland security faces long standing challenges and we at the office of inspector general has focused our energies on performance challenges which we published in november. we listed six. one, creating a unified department, two, employee morale and engagement, three, acquisition management, four, grants management, five, cyber security, six, improving management fundamentals. additionally with the new administration the department will face new responsibilities. we understand the significant investment the department will be making to satisfy its obligations under the president's executive order to construct a southern boarder. the department has historically performed very poorly in this area. as many recall, prior efforts to fortify the southwest boarder were cancelled in 2011 as being too expensive and ineffective. in a pilot program in arizona, dhs spend about $1 billion to build a system across 53 miles of the state's boarder before abandoning the initiative. we must not allow that to be repeated. given the risks involved, our office will be using a life cycle approach to audit and monitor the department's actions to strengthen the physical security of the nation's southern boarder. a lifestyle audit approach means that we will be able to audit the project throughout its life span rather than waiting for the project to be completed or partially completed before looking at it. in this way we have an opportunity to stop waste and mismanagement before the money is spent rather than simply identifying it after the fact. our first report will address lessons learned from the department's prior secure boarder initiative and other relevant accusations. we hope to have this report out in the next six weeks. we plan to review the study of the security of the southern boarder that the executive order requires to be completed within 180 days. future audits will also address the planning, design, acquisition and construction phases of the southern border barrier. similarly, the department will face a number of challenges in executing the president's executive order directing the department to hire an additional 5,000 border patrol agents and 10,000 immigration officers. we recently completed an audit that highlighted the numerous bottlenecks in the federal hiring. in fiscal year 2015, for example, it took an average of 282 days over nine months to hire a border patrol agent. measured from the time the job announcement closed to the date the applicant was actually hired. other positions likewise encountered similar significant delays. again, we think this is an unacceptable level of performance and look to make recommendations for improvement. as with the acquisition area, we have initiated the first in a series of audits to further review the department's human capital strategies to ensure the department can quickly and effectively hire a highly qualified and diverse work force. we again will do this continuously throughout the process, rather than waiting for the hiring to be completed. finally, we will continue to focus on dhs's highly troubled grants management program. in report after report, we have found deficiencies in the manner in which fema holds grantees accountable in that the layer of oversight intended to monitor the billions of dollars awarded by fema is ineffective, inefficient and vulnerable to fraud, waste and abuse. in fiscal 2015, for xoexample, found a questioned cost rate of 19%, which serves as an illustration of fema's continual failure to adequately manage grants. we believe the root cause of this problem includes a failure of leadership, inability or lack of desire to hold grantees accountable, and systemic issues that may only be cured about i systemic statutory fixes. we have started to explore some potential solutions and look forward to working with you on this important issue. mr. chairman, this concludes my testimony. i'm happy to answer any questions that you or any members of the committee may have. >> thank you, mr. roth. let me start with mr. dodaro. in your testimony you talked about cybersecurity. this is the 20th anniversary of being on the high risk list. every other witness talked about either information technology challenges in the department, or also issues of cybersecurity. can you summarize, or give me kind of the main reason why it's so difficult to get agencies or departments up to speed in terms of cybersecurity? >> yes. this has been a long-standing quest that i've been on. when we first started this, we actually built a computer lab that simulated the operating environment of the agencies, and we were able to hack into their systems to show them how easy it was to get into their systems. we still weren't getting a lot of traction or attention because people thought, well, who's going to do that. you could see this coming. you know, years ago. as we became more dependent on technology. and even with the breaches now, you know, people are still not -- there's not a sense of urgency yet as much as i think there should be across the federal government. so we've got to -- >> let me quickly interrupt. because of the high-profile breaches, are you seeing any increased attention to this? >> there's some. there's a lot of scrambling going on. but it's not really resulting in meaningful improvements. there are two things going on now. the government got a very slow start in this area, despite our urgings. secondly, it's saddled with a bunch of legacy systems that are decades old, where security wasn't built in up front and they can't patch them fast enough, and they haven't been replaced with more modern systems with technology built in the front. the work force is not up to where it needs to be, in order to be able to take care of this issue. and there's not enough follow-through to see that the recommendations are being implemented. a lot of this is just management attention, too. you need the technical people, but a lot of the weaknesses can result in employees not being aware of anything, and downloading malicious software into your system. so i mean it's a -- there's a well-defined, best practices for having a comprehensive, effective cybersecurity program in place. and time after time we find that agencies do not have this comprehensive program in place. and they're not responding to incidences when they do happen as fast as they need to in order to reform the problem. so i think this needs continual attention over time. but these legacy systems are part of the mill stone around the agency's efforts to improve cybersecurity. i mean, we did a report recently, which i'm happy to shire with the committee, of the oldest systems in the federal government. and some of them -- i mean, one at the department of defense was operating still on a floppy disk. on the one hand they said, nobody's going to hack into it, but on the other hand, you know -- >> sign ur security is going to be -- >> not sustainable over time. but i can't emphasize how concerned i am about this, and how vulnerable that we are. and that extends in 2003, extended to the critical infrastructure protection across the country. and most of the computer resources are in the private sector hands. but there needs to be sharing between the federal government and the private sector. there's a lot of reluctance to share information. in this regard on security threats. but the threat is evolving much faster than the agency's ability to keep up with it. >> we did finally pass, i will say, it's the table step, sudden intel committee, but also this committee, the federal cybersecurity enhancement act. providing information sharing, providing liability protection, gave dhs a lot of authority. has that had any effect whatsoever? >> i mean, those things help. i mean, there's been five different bills that have been passed. that's been one of the most important ones that you cite. it gives a sense of importance and urgency to it. there's some progress. but not enough. not enough to match the threat. in my opinion. >> inspector general missal, obviously we've had some real problems, and other senators have had problems as well. one of the questions i have for you. in your office, which i believe you took over with a pretty troubled office, and i appreciate the fact now you've instituted mission statements and trying to address that. overall, what percent, i don't expect a precise answer here, but what percent of your reports involve investigations on specific instances, whistleblowers or things you read in the news? which, of course, we referred a number of those two you. versus overall inspections, just in general, trying to address the problems of particularly the va health care system? >> a very high percentage do. we have a number of different reports that come out. our health care unit will do reports on specific cases, much like you mentioned in toma and other facilities. we do nasa reports. and then we have a very vibrant inspection program as well. audits as well could be national, but we could focus as well on individual situations. it's a very healthy split of those. >> almost a 50/50 type of thing? >> hard to estimate. but it's probably more than 50% on individual situations at this time. >> i was wondering if you're just being overwhelmed by individual instances, versus being able to concentrate on the day-to-day audits, trying to improve the overall system. >> that's one of my goals. we're trying to clean out a lot of the work that was there when i started. which were a lot of the more individual cases. what i'd like to move to is more impactful work, where we're doing more national health care reviews, we're doing more audits of programs, et cetera. and we're moving in that direction. >> inspector general roth, you were talking about the challenges the department has in terms of the executive order implementing the reports, hiring the individuals. hiring has been a real problem. you talked about hiring bottlenecks. can you describe those in the remaining seconds i have in my time? >> sure. with regard to secret service, we found bottlenecks are the result of a lack of advanced planning. they wouldn't have the personnel specialist available to actually work the systems that they needed to work. that was one problem. the second problem they had was that the systems that they had were antiquated, they wouldn't talk to each other. so the flow of paper and flow of bodies through the system didn't work as well as it needed to. the third is the, frankly, the polygraph system that both secret service and cbp have in place, creates significant bolt necks with regard to getting people on board. >> can you describe the bottleneck of the p cyber system? >> for example, i'll just use secret service as an example. that's a collateral duty. a duty that a special agent would have in addition to the duties that he normally has of investigation and protection. so basically he gets to the polygraphs whenever he gets to them. of course, that's always going to drop low on the priority scale, and that backs up the hiring they're able to do. what we had recommended to the secret service as well as to the cbp is to enhance, have a greater number of specialized poly graph operators who could do that work as their sole job. >> so it would seem to me the bottlenecks could be overcome. >> exactly. that's why we want to do a life cycle approach to the hiring. sort of warn them about what's coming and have them prepare in ways that make sense. >> good. senator mccaskill? >> thank you, mr. chairman. mr. do dero, back in 2009, gao did a report that concluded the customs and border protection had not conducted any kind of cost benefit analysis on the effectiveness of physical barriers along the border. to your knowledge, has that cost benefit analysis, which is required in any major business expenditure, has that ever been done, a cost benefit analysis of -- >> not to my knowledge. let me just -- i don't think so. >> okay. >> the answer is definitely no. >> in your opinion, as gao, should something that is going to cost billions of dollars begin without a cost benefit analysis? >> no. >> and would it be typical to begin a multi-billion dollar project without any appropriated funds? >> that would be difficult. no. >> i understand the administration is relying on a previous authorization for border security, which i certainly support border security. but do we know how much even -- how much this is going to cost based on what you've looked at? >> well, the last time when we looked at it, in the 2009 report, the estimates that were given at that time, it was $6.5 million per mile for fencing, or barriers, that -- for pedestrian crossing, and about 1.8 for vehicle crossing at that time. right now, there's about -- of the 2,000-mile border, there's about 650 miles where this fencing exists. now, two-thirds of the remaining where the federal government doesn't own, it's either state or it's private sector land. >> so it's going to have to either be bought or publicly condemned? >> yes. and part of that happened with the 650 miles as well. so the -- >> so the federal government would be taking land from the ranchers that live along the border? >> or buy it from them or whatever. there's ownership issue of the border. there's a lot of rugged terrain along the border that would have to be dealt with as well. and then there's the acquisition area that both the inspector general from dhs and gao have seen, is that the department's ability to manage large acquisitions is one of the reasons they're still on the high risk list. so part of that would have to be improving how they go about carrying out acquisitions. now, with regard to the legal authority about the prior expenditures, i'll have to go back and take a look at that. maybe there's some authority there that hasn't been used yet. but generally speaking, you have to get a new appropriation. >> let me move now to census. i'm trying to -- i looked at the contract. i haven't looked at "the" contract, but i looked at the amount. we entered into a contract for almost $1 billion as an integrator. that's a lot of money. 887 million foret-rex. we've had bad experience, and mr. dodaro can certainly speak to that. integrators' contracts have had a rocky history with the federal government in terms of success. i noticed when i was preparing for this hearing, you're asking them to integrate 50 different systems. why do we need to make it that complicated, mr. thompson? why do we need to integrate 50 systems? can't we count people without integrating all of those different systems? >> thank you, senator. we do need all -- we have 34 operations in place for the -- that we're planning for the 2020 kren us. and they're supported by about 50 systems, awe you mentioned. we gave your staff copies of the systems yesterday. so the systems have to talk to each other. which is why we have -- >> why 50? i'm somebody who just landed from another planet. explain to me what you're doing with 50 systems? why do they all have to be combined for counting people? especially since we're going to be doing self-reporting i believe for the first time on the internet. why? i don't understand. >> let me give you some examples. so we have one system that we allow people to respond over the internet with. that has to be integrated and talk to our control system, so we know how many people have responded over the internet, so when we go back -- >> okay, there's one. >> right. >> 49 to go. >> right. so then we have to be able to do the in-person nonresponse. we have to have a control system for that. so we have to know -- >> people who don't answer, you have to go out and find them and talk to them. >> and then you have to have the instrument that collects the information from the people that don't respond. so we have to give our -- >> the hand-held. which we had to scrap last time. >> i understand that. i could go on, but there is a need for each one of these systems. we really, really carefully looked at the system that we need, because we don't want to make it overly complicated. >> 50 sounds very complicated, mr. thompson. it may be that you absolutely have to have all 50. but i don't think you're on schedule. i think you're having to -- some of it is funding, i agree. but you need to have an end-to-end test, i believe you're planning for 2018. >> yes. >> and you need to have more tests in 2017. you're already scrapping some of the projects you were going to do, like in spanish-speaking areas. i just worry that we're going to have deja vu all over again. that we're making this more complex than it needs to be. are you confident that -- i mean, because it seems to me in this day and age, asking people to respond on the internet -- and on that, let me briefly go to another item. i think people are going to be are eluck tast to give their personal information over the internet unless they're reassured about the security of that information. are you working with dhs right now? are you working with other people in the area of cybersecurity so that you're confident you're going to have the protection of that data that will be assuring people? every response over the internet will save us real money. >> we are working with dhs. we are working with the national institute of standards and technology. we are working with some private contractors to try to do penetration testing of the systems that we have. so we do take that very seriously. we are trying to work with the best on that. we also, by the way, do employ the einstein software on our internet connections, so we are protected by that, too. we worked with dhs to get that in place. so we take that very seriously. >> thank you, mr. thompson. thank you, mr. chairman. >> senator carper? >> thanks so much. we appreciate more than you know the work that's done at gao, in a lot of areas. but especially in preparing the high risk list. and i've said for years, that for me, for my staff and i, it is our to-do list. and i think for this committee, democrats and republicans, it is our to-do list. we mentioned where progress has been made. one of those is with respect to property management. we'll property management. would you explain why you think we've finally got the ball in the end zone on that? >> yes. first, the administration finally issued a national strategy to deal with this. the layout was goals and measures, to really have a good plan. to make progress, you need that. secondly, congress really helped a lot with the passage of two bills at the end of last calendar year. one, it would be creating an independent board to make recommendations to sell or dispose of some high-value property that the federal government has. that's a good step forward, i believe. and secondly, the second bill, codify the federal council, property management council in place. gave it some to do-lists, if you will, the congress giving it to them, to improve the data, to regularly report. hopefully it will result in a reduced reliance on leasing as well. that's an area that still needs to be addressed. you know, the federal government leases some property for decades that it would have been far cheaper to build rather than lease. we're trying to get the agencies to focus on some high-value leases, and doing a cost comparison in those areas. and they're starting to improve the accuracy of the information, in the property management database. so some leadership, some strategies, good support from the congress, all these are ingredients to the progress. >> thank you. the term called fsma, i think it stands for federal information security act, it's been around forever. frankly not too effective in terms of realtime security for federal dot gov domain. i think a number of us on this panel worked on that. dr. coburn worked on this when he was with us as well. general roth, did you all have any sense of how the passage of that legislation is being implemented, and for good, or fought naught? the idea is to make it realtime a and -- >> continuous monitoring. i'll have to say from dhs's point of view, we have a somewhat different experience than what mr. dodaro accounted. i think at the close of the last year administration, there was a real sprint based on some of the high-profile hacks that had occurred in other agencies. to try to get, for example, continuous monitoring online, to get all components to actually report the results to a central headquarters location, to get -- to factor authentication on every machine, and a card that they stick in plus a password. lastly, to get what's known as authorities to operate. which is basically a license, a certification by the chief information officer that those systems in fact are effectively locked down according to fsma standards. i think we've seen some improvement, obviously with dh there's a long way to go, but particularly in the last year we've seen some improvement. >> one of the things we did in this committee is to make it possible for dhs to compete for cyber warriors. in terms of the kind of pay and personnel policies that they can compete against national security agencies, or the private sector. does anybody know whether or not that's making a difference yet? we did it over a year ago. anybody have a feel for that? okay. when jeh johnson became secretary, i suggested to them that they do what luke used to do, and that is go every month or two to gao and sit down, whether it was be gene, or some of the top folks, and just literally go through the high risk list that pertains to the homeland security. my sense is they did that, and my sense is it's made a difference. >> yes. the relationship we've had with the department of homeland security is really kind of a model on how to deal with the high risk list. when i first met jane, she was puzzled as to why they were on the list. so i sent a 20-page letter over said, here's everything you need to do. she said, i understand. and they developed a plan. and every so many months they report to us. we've had quarterly meetings. and they made real progress. we agreed on 30 things that needed to be done, needed to be measured. they fully met 13 of them now. they still have a ways to go in the remaining piece. i've suggested that model that could be used in place, particularly at the va. with those areas. so that -- >> we've just confirmed a new secretary of the va, dr. schulkin, who i think is going to be a good one. >> yes. >> and his predecessor certainly was, bob mcdonald. and we have the inspector general for the va, right? >> right. >> and one of my pieces of doctor schulkin would be to spend time with you and construct a good working relationship and figure out how you and your folks can help going forward. >> right. i try to meet with every cabinet official, talk about the high risk area. we've had a series of meetings with omb, the agency on the high risk list, and gao, which i personally participate in. and i think that's had some benefits in showing progress. >> mr. thompson, how are you doing? >> i'm doing fine, thank you. >> nice to see you. nice to see you. give us one thing that we can do at our end in addition to what we've already done with respect to the census, to make sure the next census comes in on time, on budget, maybe even underbudget. maybe one or two things that this committee and the congress need to do, to be a good partner. >> thank you for the opportunity, senator carper. as i said in my testimony in my oral testimony, one of the issues that we're dealing with is the uncertainty of our funding. i know this is an appropriations, but i know that we've gotten good support so far from both the congress and from omb and the administration. and if that continues, that would be very good. like i said, we're in a very pivotal year right now, 2017. we'd like to get some certainty lifted there. and we're looking forward to working with the administration on the 2018 budget. and with the congress. so support there. also, help with getting administrative records. i mean, i know we've talked before about getting access to the national database, new hires. and your support there would also be very helpful. >> good. thank you so much. good to see you all. thank you. >> thank you, senator carper. senator portman. >> thank you, mr. chairman. i appreciate your holding this hearing regularly. and this is an opportunity for us to gauge progress on some of these high risk areas. and some of these topics you've already discussed with others, but the two that jump out to me are real property, and you talk about in your report the need for us to move more rapidly from leases to ownership where there's a long-term lease that's not cost effective. and you also talk about physical security at federal buildings. and i want to probe those a little further. but the one that always troubles me is the number of federal facilities that are not being used, or are not fully used, and yet we cast seem to transfer those to either cities or states or private sector or nonprofit needs. and this is where senator carper and i and the chairman and i and others have worked on this over the years. in fact, back when i was at omb. can you give us, mr. dodaro, a report on that part of the real property high risk that you over the years have identified? where are we on the disposal of these properties? >> [ inaudible ]. >> my understanding is they've received a successful bid and they'll be transferring that. so there's some progress. but there's not a lot. i think that's why the legislation that congress passed last year to set up this independent board to identify some high value real properties. some of the properties aren't worth a lot, or need a lot of repair. the agencies haven't had enough money to fix up the properties, to make them appealing, or attractive for sale. one area that i think hasn't been explored very much, and another area on our list is the postal service. they have a lot of vacant space now that i think could be perhaps rented out to other agencies. and then that could create other vacant space that could be sold and transferred. so the bottom line is, to answer your question is, there's been some progress incrementally, but not as much as i'd like to see. >> at year end we did pass the two bills finally. >> right. >> they shouldn't have taken so long. and one does provide for an inventory. another does provide for this commission. is that part of the reason you think things are going better, just because we have set in place now some new laws in relationship to this, and now i suppose our job is, along with you, to monitor the implementation of that, make sure it's actually done right? >> that's exactly right. in my opinion, in my experience, over several decades now, that most major management improvements that succeed in the government have a statutory underpinning to them, because it brings a degree of continuity and certainty over time. and then congress can hold people accountable. >> yeah. can you tell us this afternoon how many square feet, or how many buildings or what the value is of those buildings either not being used at all or only partly being used? >> i don't have that information at the ready. i'll be happy to see what's available and provide it for the record. >> it's an extraordinary number. it is a great opportunity to save taxpayers money, too. with regard to the cybersecurity, you talked a little bit about this earlier, but one of the challenges you cite in your report is, you know, the agencies and departments having cybersecurity work force. with regard to dhs, looking to mr. roth, we have specific legislation that was meant to address that, to try to attract some of the best and brightest and retain some of the good people. for both of you, how is that working? how is the framework working? are you pleased with it? is it something that you think we're making progress on or not? >> go ahead, john. >> anecdotaanecdotally, it seem the chief capital human officer at dhs is trying innovative solutions with regard to hiring i.t. specialists and cyber specialists. our plan was to let this go for a little bit, just to have them get their sea legs before we do a formal audit. anecdotally, i think they are using this opportunity to try to hire as many as they can. >> the idea of the legislation, this started back in 2014, it was senator bennett and myself, was to establish some common language and job codes specific to cybersecurity, because we had identified that as a problem that it was difficult to hire people because we had not provided this sort of standardization as to what the job descriptions were, and job codes. and then we got some of the legislation passed as it relates to dhs. and frankly, i just don't know that we're making the progress that we should be. clearly when you look at what's happening with regard to the hacking, not just in government, but all over now, this is a huge priority. and these people are in high demand. that is, the people who have the cybersecurity skills to be able to push back or go on the offense. but do you think, mr. roth, from your time at dhs, that you see progress in this area? and if not, what do we need to do? the rest of the government is not subject to the same rules that you are under this legislation. so if you're sort of the beta. you're kind of like the test area here. >> anecdotally, with esee dhs trying different things. for example, they had a job fair in which they brought a number of people who were qualified under that i.t. specialist. and were able to provide offers on the spot. so, you know, we're hopeful. but again, until we actually do a formal piece of work on it, it's difficult to conclude. >> could you do that work on it and let us know how it's working? one of the aspects was a central data bais, which seems common sense, but is that done to your satisfaction? is there a central database where people know what the cybersecurity needs are? and when there's a job fair, that there's an offer without going through a long process? or people just weren't patient enough to get a response? they had other offers in the private sector? >> my understanding is they recently held one of the first job fairs that in fact did that. but this is anecdotal, we haven't validated it. it seems like it's a -- >> how long will it take you to audit that and get back to us? >> it typically does six to nine months to do a full-fledged audit. >> can you speed that up and come back in six months? >> we'll do what we can. >> there's a lot of interest in the committee on that topic. obviously an urgent issue that we have the capability to be able to push back and go on the offense when necessary. thank you very much, mr. chairman. >> senator lankford? >> thank you all for the work ongoing. we appreciate it very much. i've got about 45 questions. so let me try to get through as many as i can. mr. dodaro, just a request for you as well. this congress changed the w-2 forms in the acceleration of that, that small delay, and the returns coming in to try to deal with the identity theft and to deal with fraud. is that something a year from now you'll be able to tell us how it went? obviously that's just being implemented right now. when do you think we'll get results on that? >> yes, we will review the use of that for this filing season. i'm very pleased and appreciative that the congress acted on our recommendation to do that. i think it will be tremendously helpful. and we will report on that. >> that's one that should have been done before. we obviously lost billions of dollars over the last self years for lack of action. for those of us who work in indian policy, i was a little surprised to be able to see that some of the indian issues for the first time were on the high risk list. my question for you is, is this a new issue or first time to look at the indian issues? >> it's not the first time to look at the issues. it reached the threshold, from my standpoint, when i saw it on multiple fronts. >> right. >> schools, health care, energy resources, and i thought it was time to elevate the attention. >> no, it is clearly a national tragedy. some of the things that are happening in some of the indian country, and so glad to be able to see it reach that limit. this is something that needs to be addressed. can i ask specifically on the health care side, are you examining the differences between the tribes with the way they run the health care or indian health services? there are some where they operate the facility, so they would all be listed under ihs, but the operational system is different whether the tribe is running it or it's run nationally. >> yeah, we've been focused on the federal facilities, not the tribe facilities. >> even though they have an ihs footprint in the middle of it as well? >> yes, so far. we haven't looked at that, because -- >> that may be a good control to be able to look at it, to be able to examine. there are obviously differences between how they run and what's happening, to be able to see the differences as we're looking for solutions in the long term. >> that's a good point. >> that's health care. let me ask about the issue on choice. there's been some conversation ongoing about va. and occasionally giving the appearance at least of dragging their feet and implementing choice. and some of the pushback on that. what are you experiencing, and does it look like va is currently actively implementing the choice programs? >> yes, we've done some reports that we've already issued. we already have -- we also have some work that's in progress right now. it does appear that progress is being made. like, for instance, with respect to network providers, the physicians who are providing the health care outside of va. those numbers have increased fairly dramatically, according to va. there are still issues there with respect to the choice program that's worth looking at. we're looking at access. we're looking at payments as well. as well as sharing of records. when a veteran goes out into the community, there's an issue in terms of making sure the records get back to va, so that the va system will have those records as well. >> okay. terrific. is there a way to be able to get an accurate number of the cost per patient, per procedure, that actually includes everything, the private sector would include? when i've asked va before for a cost per certain items, capital expenses, they were all different colors of money. obviously in the private sector they can't do that. so we can't really get an accurate cost of what things are, other than it's always more expensive in the private area. but we really can't find out what it is from va. how do we get that number? >> we have not looked into that. i think there would be challenges to getting that. but i certainly will take that back and see whether we can get that done. >> that would be very helpful. obviously, every business has to do that, to be able to calculate what the actual costs are. it would be helpful for us to have an apples-to-apples comparison. mr. dodaro, the social security administration is not completely done with what they need to do, especially in the disability area. very small progress you've noted. one of my great frustrations is we've talked to them at length about the occupational grid. you know full well what that is. but for everyone else here tracking that, the occupational grid is basically a big dictionary of all jobs in america. because according to disabilities, you cannot be employed by any job available in the economy. since 1978, that list has not been updated. there seems to be some slight changes in our economy since 1978, and the type of jobs. my recollection from your report is, we've currently spent $178 million updating the job dictionary of the jobs in america, and we still don't have that dictionary. is that correct? >> i think you're accurate. i'll double-check on that area. we're particularly concerned about that they haven't finalized the ability to use the system technologist in that area. i think personally, congress needs to act to update some of the disability laws that underpin the process that the social security administration is following. i think if you wait for them to do this job, it's not going to get effectively reformed. >> i could not agree more. i would tell you when we get the grid updated, we need to have a mandate that the grid is updated on a routine basis rather than waiting every 40 years to be able to update it. we might want to update it more often than that. plus do other disability work that desperately needs to be done. mr. thompson, let me ask you about the community survey. you were testing out pilots on trying to remove some of the mandatory language, to see how that would work. obviously for people that get it, often hate the american community survey. how is that going, in the testing and removing the under penalty of law language? would you turn your microphone on there as well? >> so, we have been working on testing some language. we've actually done some focus groups looking at the lapg waj. we're at the point where we're come up with language that we believe is not as threatening. >> okay. >> and we would be happy to share that with you. >> when will that be piloted? out in the public? >> we've already tested it in the public. we're doing one more test this year. and then we'll be ready -- >> that would be helpful to see. on the internet filing for the census, may i assume that you're somehow combining that with the online filing of taxes? because millions of americans file their taxes online. is there a possibility they can also file their census work at the same time they do their taxes? are we talking about two different passwords, two different systems, two different requests from people to be able to do their taxes at one point online, but their census at another point? >> right now, we're looking at a separate system for census. and for the irs. >> so there's no way people could fill out their census work while they're also completing their taxes? the information -- obviously -- >> we would love to work with the irs and have them be able to direct people to our site, to fill it out. but we haven't -- >> they couldn't complete their taxes and also complete their census at the same time? >> not at the current point in time, no. >> not by 2020 then, if that's not being tried. >> no, sir. >> thank you. >> senator tester? >> thank you, mr. chairman. and i think it's a great idea, senator lankford. the only issue with that is, john can correct me if i'm wrong, but i think the census thing is on a particular day. you know, who's a resident and how many people were resident on april 1st date. so you would have to have people, you know, with your filing dates different than that. so you wouldn't be able to collate the specific dates. >> move it to april 15th. at any rate, that's not why i came. first of all, thank you all for your testimony. this is for you, gene, and mike. mainly with the veterans choice program. can you tell me how reactive, either one of you, the va has been with your recommendations of being on the high list? have they taken this pretty -- have they taken this pretty seriously, have they drug their feet, or what have they done? >> with regard to the recommendations that we've made, they're beginning to take some action on that. but we had new ones. there are still over a hundred that are still outstanding, senator tester. they don't have a good plan for addressing the high risk areas. we say that in our report. >> have you told them? >> yes, i met with senator mcdonald three times. they weren't having a good plan to come off the high risk list. the third time was to offer gao's experts in different areas. i.t., for example, to help them understand best practices and how to do this. we had the meeting. there's been very little update. >> mike, where do you interface on this process? >> we interface pause a number of the areas identified in the high risk areas are also areas we're looking at. for instance, i.t. is one area where we have a group focused on that. >> so how has their response to you been? proactive? or has it been, what the heck? >> they say they're committed to adhering to the recommendations that we have. >> have you seen that commitment in action? saying it is one thing, doing it is another. >> in some respects, yeah, for instance, for vha where we had as our last semi-annual report, there were 563 outstanding recommendations, they've now reduced that to 320-some-odd. so i believe they're trying but there are still some areas that give us great pause. >> i'm very concerned, senator, that they're not moving in the direction, with the progress that i'd like to see in the area. i'm planning to meet with secretary schulkin to talk about this. you know, there's a disagreement, also, we have on wait times. we think they're waiting too long to measure wait times. there's an appointment scheduled, they're not measuring the whole experience. the i.t. systems. i could go on and on. >> you've got a lot of fans in congress, you do. and i think you can tell dr. schulkin that -- i say this as a ranking member on va, if they don't take this seriously, we're going to. and we'll do what we need to do to hold them accountable to make sure your suggestions are not just given lip service, but actual productivity on it. because as has been pointed out by the chairman, ranking member, and yourselves, you guys have saved a bunch of money. efficiency is not a bad thing. you can certainly utilize that. you brought up the housing finance system in your opening remarks, gene, and that's something that we've worked on a bit. and i agree with what you said. you know, taking the taxpayers off the hook and getting it out of servership is very important. do you ever get a chance to look at any of the legislation that we do? is that within your purview, to see if it actually solves the problem? there's legislation out there that actually, i think, gets to some of your points. but i don't know if it gets to your points. >> if we're asked to look at legislation and comment on it, we will. >> have you been asked to look at the corker legislation a few years back? someone's given you a note. >> yes, they do. it basically says what i already said. >> good. because that's what i thought it said, too. >> but we've developed criteria for evaluating legislative proposals. i would be happy to look at any legislative proposal. about you we don't do it proactively unless we're asked. i'd be happy to do it. >> but you've already done it, you said? >> no, no, we've developed criteria of how we could evaluate a legislative proposal against the criteria that we think needs to be done. but i was so concerned, that how could you solve this. what are the principles we need to address. with ecan compare them to any legislative proposal. >> i think we'll do our best to get that in front of you, so we can get the recommendations to make sure we're not pushing something that we're not solving the problem in its respiratory. >> thank you. >> last month, senators durbin and duckworth wrote a report regarding broad invitation of the ban. mr. roth, when would you expect this to be completed? >> some of it depends on the department's response. we've already started a number of field interviews with various airports, the airport officers. we asked documents. we've got good cooperation from cbp. we'll start the high-level interviews, hopefully as early as next week. we don't know how long it's going to take, because we don't know what we're going to find. but my direction is that this ought to be weeks, not months, and we're working as quickly as we possibly can. >> appreciate that. have you had any difficulties getting the documents that you need for your investigation? >> no. the cooperation has been very good. >> all right. and so there are no findings you can share with us today i would assume? >> no. but we understand the urgency and we're moving as quickly as we can. >> i appreciate all your work. just a closing comment, and this is not why i came here at all, but this census figure, because technology should be going down, not continually going up. this figure should be costing the taxpayers less, not more. if you get ahold of facebook now, everybody could tell you where they live today, and on the first of april. it may not hurt to interface with those people to find out how they can help you and save money. >> thank you, senator. we actually do talk to google and facebook quite a bit. >> i'll ask you the same question i asked dodaro, talk is one thing, doing is another, okay? thank you very much. appreciate all your work. >> senator tester, as long as you brought it up, appreciate you looking at our charts. i'll just give director thompson a chance to respond. why has the cost, for example, per household increased by such a dramatic amount? these inflation in dollars, 12 times the total dollars spent, why is that? again, mindful of the fact you just started in this decade. >> right. no, i actually -- so, i started working at the census bureau as a career person in 1975. and i worked there through the 2000 census. i was the career executive for the 2000 census. so i've got a lot of experience with the census costs. and i think -- i don't think, i know there are two underlying causes for this. one, which is not the major cause, is that the population has grown. but that doesn't explain this growth. the other factor is that we've been doing the same census process since 1970. essentially. that is, we mail out, they get mailed back, we go out and we collect the information from those that don't self-respond. and that operation has always been a paper-and-pencil operation. and as our population has gotten more complex, and, you know, communications -- gated communities, more languages, the only way you can adapt to paper-and-pencil process to that is to put more people on it. so just to give you an example. in 2000, we determined that the job had gotten so difficult for the people supervising the enumerators, we had to give them an extra assistant. and that added $250 million to the cost of the 2000 census, in 2000 dollars. the fact that we've had a paper-and-pencil process, it's just -- we've decided to throw more and more people at it. >> it's not through the requirements increase, just the complexities of the population? >> the basic census questions have been essentially the same since 1970. i mean, we've had a long form and a short form. the short form has been about the same. in 1980, hispanic origin was put on the short form. it's about ten questions. the long form, part of the acs now, has been about the same length. >> mr. dodaro? >> mr. chairman, i believe another contributing factor is the fact that the census has been done through mail process, but the response rate's gone down considerably since 1970. i think in 1970, john was like about 78%, or over 70%. now it's on the low 60%. so if people aren't responding, then they have to go send people out to their homes. and even if you use the internet, then the question is, not everybody's on facebook. will they respond. and that's been a challenge for people, particularly as the demographics change in the country. and there's notably a number of hard-to-enumerate areas in low-income and minority populations that they're working hard on with special projects. so i think, you know, the question is, how willing are the american people to provide the information. >> my guess is, we will be holding hearings in the future. so that would be a good, just up front, give an explanation of that. senator harris. >> general roth, thank you for your years of service. i have a few questions for you. you indicated in fy 2015 that it took on average about nine months to make a hire at i.c.e., is that correct? >> that's correct. >> my rough math tells me it would take, if it takes that long for each person, that needs to be hired, to fulfill the directive from the executive order, that it would take 11,250 years to process an additional 15,000 officers. i'm sure it will not take that long. but have you assessed how long it will take you based on current standards? actually to bring onboard the 15,000 new officers that are directed? >> we haven't. the only thing that we've looked at is the last time that there was a surge of deportation officer hirings. for example, that number reflected in my testimony almost quadrupled. in other words, when you try to put more people through the same pipeline, the log jams are going to get even greater. that's why we want to sort of take a look at this earlier. again, they're not hiring one at a time, serially, they're trying to do it sequentially. i would say that's from the moment of the announcement closing, to the time that person is actually hired. but then, of course, there's training, all sorts of onboarding that would have to go on. the nine-month number is actually quite a bit longer. >> have you been given a time line for when those 15,000 new officers should be brought onboard? >> we just started our work on this area, so we don't have any information yet as to what the department's plans are in this area. >> has there been any discussion about a goal in terms of a date that would be completed? >> not yet. some of this depends on what the department's planning is. so what we do with audits is we'll take a look, for example, if it's an acquisition, we'll look at the phase of figuring out what the need is for example, and the requirements. we'll basically follow the department through that process. so i don't think the department has yet started. i'm not sure the department start started. >> you said you will audit so that dhs can quickly and hire qualified a diverse work force, is that correct? >> i that's correct. that's the department's goal as well. >> right. just based on my experience as a prosecutor in california, we know that when we bring officers, law enforcement officers onboard, we want to bring them onboard after we've had an ability to vet who they are, and to ensure that they actually will be able to perform their job in a correct manner. do you have a concern that this historic goal of bringing on 15,000 new officers, i understand there are only 7,000 there now, that we might compromise our ability to bring on highly qualified officers? >> certainly the last time cdp had a hiring surge, there was a concern about the level of quality that they were getting, and as a result that's when congress stepped in and mandated polygraphs, for example. i think that is something we will look at as we move forward in this process. >> and can you then give us about three months an update on what you might believe congress should do in this circumstance, to ensure that we are bringing on highly qualified officers? >> this will be a process. so i can't really commit to as when we're going to get the first product out there, that will sort of describe what the department is doing. but we will certainly do this ongoing basis, and as an ig, we're committed to keeping congress fully and currently informed. >> what would you recommend i ask you as a time line for when you would come back to report the status of the quality of the officers who are being brought onboard? >> i think in about three months we're going to know a lot more about what the -- >> three months. that's fantastic. >> p we will no more have the entry. >> i will expect you to come back and we can arrange it through the chairman, ranking member. >> we're happy to brief anybody on the committee who would like to hear about it. >> thank you. so one of the concerns that we've had across the country in terms of law enforcement officers is that we are adequately hiring, and then training with an eye towards implicit bias and procedural justice concerns. so what in your audit is detecting and tracking the department's ability to hire in a way that we look for implicit bias, and also train, so that we avoid implicit buyers and encourage procedural justice? >> right. we haven't looked specifically at that issue. again, this series of audits is going to be more mechanically based. that is, how it is that you take a great number of people and try to fit them through what is really a finite pipe. >> yep. >> we do, of course, as part of what we do, a lot of civil rights investigations, excessive use of force, those kinds of policing issues, which we'll continue to do, of course, as our mandate, but we haven't specifically looked at that issue. >> what would be your recommendation based on your experience, that we could do to audit beforehand, so we can prevent what otherwise will be something that you'll have to react to afterwards, which that there would be distrust, there could be very unintended and serious consequences, including legal consequences, if we're rushing through this large number of people without properly vetting them on this issue? particularly, when we're talking about i.c.e. agents and the issues that are there. >> i think one of the issues that's a leadership issue, so this committee will obviously have the opportunity to take a look at who the nominees are for these various positions and get the commitments to send the message to the rank and file as to what is the appropriate level of conduct that the rank and file has. if you're asking me my advice, my advice is to take the advice and consent process very, very seriously when it comes to the i.c.e. director and when it comes to the bpb director. >> thank you. >> senator paul? >> thank you, mr. chairman. if you want to save money on the census, maybe we could, let's see, give people a $100 deduction on their taxeses and then those who sign up for welfare, make it part of their signing up for welfare. i would bet 90% of the people would sign up and use the data. it happens on different dates. just change the rules. why not just say, well, you know, estimate how many kids you're going to have and what your income is going to be on april 1st. and then maybe we should charge people to use the census data. we don't do any charging, right, for census data? >> no, sir. >> companies love this data, and it's important to know what incomes and what people of a certain age, i'll bet you i could run the census bureau without any money. [ laughter ] if you'll sell it to me. >> i think that's a great idea. >> if you'll sell it to me. but anyway, we've got a rule that it has to be on april 1st. it has to be sometime during that year. now we say the census is for the information that year, not april 1st of every year. but pay people for the time to fill it out. i guarantee you if you let people have a $100 deduction, like no more than a $33, $34 reduction in their taxes, they would do it probably. they'd probably fill it out. compare that to the postage that you send out on millions and millions, and then you have somebody knock on their door? you could get a lot of it done through the tax system and probably through the welfare system as well. people sign up for welfare, they sign up for social security, all that stuff. still make it voluntary. for the people who sign up, it should be a requirement for signing up for benefits. but those who want to do it on their tax return, give them a benefit. getting back to the subject -- >> can i ask, do we have three co-sponsors of that one here? >> think about it. think outside the box. >> let's work on something like that. >> i have a great deal of respect for those who look to the government for waste and try to fix things. in fact, i think sometimes i've thought maybe after doing it for a couple of years, we should put you in charge of the organization and maybe we would get more effect from your recommendations. but i've also watched waste since i was a kid. i remember the golden fleece awards, i scratched my head and i can't scientifically say this, but i would say the more we try to get rid of it, the more it stays the same, the more it's still there. it's not your fault, but you're you know, you find it, how often do you think as a guess, when you find it or getting rid of the problem -- i'll give you one example, we used in our waste report from our digging was the $300,000 in tvs at the v.a. that were wrong connections, stuck in a closet, bought before the renovation. i think to my mind, are still not being used. you found that -- that came to their attention, maybe that person does it again. do you think you fixed a systemic problem when you found that problem? so it doesn't happen again? or do you think we need more done to fix the systemic problem that you found in that particular instance? >> yeah, that was one report that the dollars weren't that large compared to a number of things we do, but that got a lot of publicity and attention out there. hopefully that would have a deterrent effect for others. but i think we need to expand the work that we're doing with respect to finding waste and we are trying to be more proactive. we're expanding our data analytics capabilities so we can look for outliers which would give us a better indication. >> when you find waste, is it fixed 100% of the time, 50% of the time, 20%? just a guess. >> for that particular situation, we will have -- >> any situation. any situation of finding waste. how often do can you feel like you're satisfied by the organization that you're inspecting that it gets fixed? just a guess. >> i think for a particular situation, we're satisfied but we also know that that's not going to be the only problem. that i think there's significant issues out there. >> so i guess that's the question is is are we finding waste, fixing it then waste keeps cropping up or do we have some of the waste that we've had for decade after decade, it's not going away, despite the people finding it? that's a big question. are we eliminating some waste and just new waste is popping up? if it's new waste popping up, then what do we do as an incentive to get less waste in government? do we have more waste in government? is it less quickly fixed than it is in the private marketplace? my guess is you have to make a profit, make a payroll each month, you quickly make adjustments and the government's probably slower in that vain. one of the things that i've introduced and if anybody wants to, i can comment on it, is legislation that would give bonuses to civil servants who find waste. we have a whistleblower program for malfeasance. not much is used. actually to give people a financial bonus if they find waste -- there's actually, i think everybody here is actually supportive of it, republican and democrat. whether or not we could try to introduce some incentives like that into soft so if waste is an inherent problem, waste seems to be worse in government than the private sector, bring a private sector kind of thing into that. we'll start with mr. missal and anybody else who wants to respond. >> i think a program like that, we're always looking for ways to get more information, be proactive, find things on our own. but that's going to be limited given the people we have. any opportunity there is for others out there, we have a hotline where we look at every contact that comes in. and so we'd love more contacts to that hotline. >> anybody else want to give bonuses to find waste? >> well, if we did that at the gao, i could have retired a long time ago. >> we would have to exempt you, sir. >> but i would say anything that would help identify things as a positive outcome would be very welcome. on your point about how much is systemic versus how much is solvable, it's a mixture of both, over 75%, almost 80% of our recommendations are implemented over a four-year period of time. i'll give you one classic example. we make recommendations to stop particular weapons systems. the technology's not mature, they're not ready do go on the production, but yet different weapons systems will come up that will have a similar kind of problem. so that has both, some things get stopped completely and they're not bought at all. same thing with i.t. systems. there's a systemic problem there about -- >> one quick comment. i think that's great, if you're fixing 75% of the problem, that would be enormous. if that's true. it may well be. but it probably shows that we have another problem, then, the generation of more waste. >> right. >> and some waste is in the eye of the beholder and the philosophical view of what you think government -- >> i think one of the reasons for that, senator, is that most federal programs get funded year after year without having to prove that they're effectively accomplishing their objectives. it's hard and the burden is on us now in the accountability community to prove something is not working to get it stopped. >> one quick point before i finish, the people we have here are doing their job in what we want them to do. it's bigger than their job. they're finding the waste and eliminating it. we have to change the incentives somehow of government, they're finding as much as they can. there's an enormous amount of waste in government. not saying you don't do your job. >> first of all, senator paul, these are great ideas. i'm really longing forward to your subcommittee to generate more of these. i'm serious about that. this is really good. i'd like to work with you and maybe director on census proposals as well. so, good ideas. senator heitkamp? >> thank you, mr. chairman. i think from all the attention the census has gotten, we probably need to have a whole other opportunity to sit down and kind of go through the census. and the process. i have questions, too, i don't want to spend my time talking about the census. i want to again congratulate gene for the great work gao does. senator ernst and i as you know worked very hard to craft legislation to improve program management across the federal government. our bill went on to be signed into law, finally, in december and i was really pleased when you gave us a shout-out in your testimony, the program management improvement and accountability act. i think if it's properly implemented and we tend to be very aggressive in oversight, can foster prevention for waste. and so i'm really excited about the opportunity to work with you, make sure it's implemented, make sure that the ideas that were in that bill actually see the light of day going forward. but i want to talk about this idea of waste, fraud and abuse and whistleblowers. mostly, you know, i think john and michael, as i.g.s, you know that we've been working with your organization to try and get one portal where people on this dais can actually go out, look where people can try to discover systemic kinds of waste, systemic frauds that are going on. have you both participated in that effort and is there any recommendations you would make to us about how we can provide greater transparency on i.g. reports? >> we're deciding who goes first. we agree wholeheartedly with more transparency. we, you know, would support efforts to get more information. we, with respect to whistleblowers, we've had our staff trained with respect to how to ensure that we treat whistleblowers with respect, that we get the information from that that we need. so anything that can help us -- >> are you familiar with the work that we're doing or the work that the association's doing, the i.g. association? >> with scgi, yeah, we're very active with scgi. >> so you're familiar with the portal that's being developed? >> yes. >> and do you see this as a mechanism to provide more systemic -- you know, when gao issues a report, we know where to go. it's not -- we don't have to go to interiors, gao, don't have to go -- you know, with the i.g. reports, each one of the agencies have their own separate way of doing things. i think getting everybody on to one portal, not saying you have to abandon what you're already doing, but to me is a way to really examine whether we have a lot of cross pollination that we can do to avoid waste, fraud and abuse. >> absolutely and we've spoken as i.g.s together. i think there is strong support for that idea to do it. i agree with you that we wouldn't abandon what we're doing individually as an agency, but having one portal i think would be very helpful. >> yeah. we're going to be very aggressive on this issue. john, have you looked at the draft portal? >> yes. we participate in it and i can't tell you right now the very status of it, but i know that there is a lot of excitement within the i.g. community to have a single point of contact in which basically every i.g. report gets published. >> i think this is -- just for my colleagues here, i think this is amazing but this has all been done without any appropriation. >> right. >> it's been done just through volunteer work. kind of -- the postal service has been great providing the background and some of the technical support. we think we can even improve it more with just a little bit of attention to an appropriation and so we're going do be working very hard on that provision because i think sunshine is a huge component. i want to go back to you, gene, we talk about this quite often when you appear either in our subcommittee or before the full committee. what tools do we need to give you, what with can recommend to us we should be doing in our oversight function that we aren't currently doing or we aren't aggressive enough on? >> well first, i'm very appreciative of the gao bill that senator mccaskill mentioned in her opening remarks to give us additional access authorities. that's been signed into law. now that was very helpful. i think if we run into problems getting information, we're not having any right now, i'd want the committee's support to help us get the information that we need. i would suggest for those -- the high-risk areas, i'd like to see more hearings on the high-risk areas. we flag individual ones that need legislative action to actually address the issue. i mean, many of them require executive branch actions but a fair number of them also require legislative action to address the high-risk problems and so i'd like to see, you know, more hearings and attention on those high-risk areas and so we're -- i feel we're well supported. obviously a word on our budget wouldn't hurt. you know, i can't go by without taking this opportunity. >> so just tell us what's happened to your budget and in terms of the growth of the overall federal expenditure and then what we've given our eyes and ears out there, what we've given you to examine it. >> yeah, we're operating under a continuing resolution that's less than last year's funding. so i'm not replacing people as they leave it at gao. we can't afford it. we have an appropriation for the year >> are you subject to the hiring freeze? >> no, no, but i don't have a budget. that's a problem with all the -- >> heck of a way to run a -- >> yeah, everybody. we came out of the sequester in 2013, though, just to put this in perspective, at the lowest staffing level we've been since 1935. all right? and so we've clawed back some of that but i believe we need to be at least 3,250 people at the gao. right now we're under 3,000 and going down unless we get an appropriation for this year. >> so have you ever calculated that for every dollar of investment in gao managed well by you, what that would return in terms of -- >> last year was $112 for every $1 invested in gao. we returned over $63 billion if financial benefits. the year before, it was $70 billion. >> well -- >> we're a good investment. >> i mean, the point that i want to make, i guess, before i conclude here, is that we are so often penny wise and pound foolish, and i don't think that congress takes its oversight responsibility as serious as what it should. and i think that you are that auditor for us, whether it's a management audit, whether it's a fiscal audit. and we ought to have a fully funded functional gao and then a fully functional committee and congress that's going to be absolutely aggressive because if people think these are just one-offs which i think in the past they have, then, you know, you feel a little bit of heat and it goes away. we need to turn up the heat and make sure that every dime we spend of taxpayer money gets spent in a way the taxpayer would spend it, themselves. so i really appreciate all the work that all of you do, continue to send suggestions and ideas. we're very curious and interested in what we can do to help. >> thank you very much, senator. >> thanks, senator. sounds like gene had them at calculation which is really quick at the math. that's what you call softball -- >> mr. chairman, he asked me to ask him that question. >> i was expecting to see a $20 payment here. >> oh, no, it cost him a lot more than that. >> gene, real quick. watch out, you got a gift limit. just real quick, how many hearings were held in the last congress other than the one in this committee or maybe the oversight committee in the house on the high-risk list? >> 250. there were 250 hearings. >> different hearings on the high-risk -- >> on areas covered by the high-risk area. >> that's pretty good. >> it's good. and 12 pieces -- bills came out. that's why you saw progress. 12 pieces of legislation. so congress -- there are very few high-risk areas that make progress without congressional attention on oversight, the prompt action on the agency or without statutory changes and without some funding. i mean, some of these areas congress funded, gaps in the weather satellites that helped them put in contingency plans that got effectively implemented. so any lasting change has to have some statutory -- >> again, the committee's jurisdiction, take this high-risk series very seriously and actually hold hearings on those recommendations with those departments and agencies? >> yeah, but it's not evenly distributed across the high-risk areas. most the hearings were held on cyber security, a lot of veterans' affairs after the issues and so they're not -- they're not uniformly focused on some of these areas. >> i just asked senator mccaskill if she'd be willing to sign on to letters, two of us and you, to those jurisdictions asking them to hold hearings on specific high-risk areas. if you want to prepare that list, we'll do those letters and sign them to prompt that action because this works. >> happy to do so. i appreciate that support. i think it's very helpful. >> so, again, you know, thank you all for first of all what you do. the -- how many dollars to $1? >> $112. >> and i.g., your return on investment? >> ours last year was $35 to $1. >> well, you got to up your game. no, thank you very much. director thompson, thank you. i realize this was different for you coming to this setting. we will hold a hearing on the census. again, i think senator paul's suggestions are intriguing. maybe we can take a look at out-of-the-box thinking to drive improvements. >> i would look forward to it. >> thank you for your time and your testimony and your work. the hearing record will remain open for 15 days until march 2nd at 5:00 p.m. for the submission of statements and questions for the record. this hearing is adjourned. the annual conservative political action conference began this morning just outside washington, d.c. vice president mike pence will address the gathering this evening beginning at 7:30 eastern. our live coverage of the program begins at 7:00 eastern. you'll be able to watch all of this on our companion network, c-span. tomorrow morning, president trump at cpac. his speech begins at 10:10 eastern. also live on c-span. c-span, where history unfolds daily. in 1979, c-span was created as a public service by america's cable television companies and is brought to you today by your cable or satellite provider. all this week on c-span3, american history tv in primetime. tonight, the first world war. beginning at 8:00 p.m. eastern from the national world war i museum and memorial, a symposium focusing on the year 1916. we'll also look at combat artists during the war and the role of aviation in the allied victory in world war i. this weekend on american history tv on c-span3, this saturday morning at 9:30 eastern, we're live from the why brar of virginia in richmond for an all-day symposium on civil war monuments, history of their construction in the north and south and how public perception of confederate monuments has changed. then at 8:00 on "lectures in history," hamden-sydney college professor john coombs on how the rise of tobacco con sal date ese power of landowners and merchants. >> instead of accepting the price this random ship captain might have to offer me, i'm going to send the tobacco over to england on my own account and pay a commission to someone to market it there for me. this developing consignment trade tice the lares the larger in virginia in maryland to these merchants most of them in london. >> sunday at noon on "oral histories" prominent african-american women from the explorations in black leadership collection. dorothy height served as president of the national council of negro women from 1957 to 1998 and received the presidential medal of freedomme >> i grew up and even in my religious experience working with people of different religious backgrounds with a feeling of the importance of openness and how much each one of us contributes to the other, that there's no interior, no inferior. >> and at 8:00 on "the presidency" historian catherine clinton talks about what happened to president lincoln's family after his assassination. >> the morning of may 19th, convinced that his mother might do herself harm and prodded by a team of medical and legal experts, robert lincoln files an affidavit to have his mother tried on charges of mental incompetence. she could be held against her will due to, quote, insanity. >> for our complete american history tv schedule, go to c-sp c-span.org. the senate s

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