WASHINGTON, D.C. — The U.S. General Accounting Office (GAO) released a report on July 12 which has identified numerous instances where certain federal agencies were "retaining vehicles they did not need, with potential savings ranging from thousands of dollars to millions of dollars if these vehicles were eliminated." The agencies examined — including the departments of Agriculture, Defense, Homeland Security, and Veterans Affairs — can’t ensure their fleets are the right size "because of a lack of attention to key fleet management practices," according to the report. The GAO reported that the General Services Administration's (GSA) Office of Government wide Policy (OGP) and the federal Office of Management and Budget (OMB) are already undertaking actions to require better management and improve the cost-effectiveness of their fleets. The GSA is revising the Federal Management Regulation to require agencies to appoint a senior management official with decision-making authority and control over all aspects of each agency's fleet program, including the entire fleet budget and approval of local level decisions. GSA reports that they anticipate "strong opposition to this requirement based on our discussions with agency officials outside of GSA." In addition, the report says GSA will require agencies to establish utilization criteria and periodically review fleet size, and to fund a fleet management information system. The two reports were made public by Governmental Affairs Chairwoman Susan Collins, R-Maine, and Sen. Russell Feingold, D-Wis. The full GAO report, including written responses from the five agencies, is available at www.gao.gov/cgi-bin/getrpt?GAO-04-664.
0 Comments