Performance and Accountability Highlights Fiscal Year 2006 Page: 35 of 56
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GAO Performance and Accountability Highlights 2006
Mitigating External Factors That Could
Affect Our PerformanceSeveral external factors could affect the
achievement of our performance goals,
including the amount of resources we
receive, shifts in the content and volume
of our work, and various national and
international developments. Limita-
tions imposed on our work by other
organizations or limitations on the
ability of other federal agencies to make
the improvements we recommend are
additional factors that could affect the
achievement of our goals.
As the Congress focuses on unpredict-
able events-such as terrorism, natural
disasters, and military conflicts and
threats abroad-the mix of work we are
asked to undertake may change, divert-
ing our resources from some strategic
objectives and performance goals. We
can and do mitigate the impact of these
events on the achievement of our goals
in various ways. For example in fiscal
year 2006, we
* stayed abreast of current events (such
as protecting our ports and borders
and preventing possible pandemics)
and communicated frequently with
our congressional clients in order to
be alert to possibilities that could shift
the Congress's priorities or trigger
new priorities;
* quickly redirected our resources when
appropriate (e.g., on the cost and
recovery efforts related to Hurricane
Katrina) so that we could deal with
major changes as they occurred;* maintained broad-based staff exper-
tise (i.e., in our Social Security, health
care financing, and homeland security
areas) so that we could readily address
emerging needs; and
* initiated research under the Comp-
troller General's authority on several
selected topics, including various
issues relating to Iraq, the U.S. federal
elections, and our 21st century chal-
lenges and high-risk work.
We are experiencing heavy demand from
the Congress for work in a number of
subject areas, especially in the disaster
recovery and preparedness areas in the
aftermath of Hurricane Katrina and in
the health care area. Our ability to
effectively manage this demand could
have an impact on our ability to meet
our performance targets. We will
continue to manage these requests in
order to minimize any negative impact
they may have on our ability to meet the
needs of the Congress and the American
people. Given large current federal
budget deficits and the nation's long-
range fiscal imbalance, the Congress is
likely to place increasing emphasis on
fiscal constraint. While it is unclear how
we will ultimately be affected, it is
reasonable to assume that any attempt to
exercise additional budgetary discipline
in the legislative branch will include our
agency. As a result, while we believe that
we submit reasonable and responsible
budget requests and we know that the
return on investment that we generate isMitigating External Factors
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United States. Government Accountability Office. Performance and Accountability Highlights Fiscal Year 2006, text, January 30, 2007; Washington D.C.. (https://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc295188/m1/35/?rotate=90: accessed April 23, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, UNT Digital Library, https://digital.library.unt.edu; crediting UNT Libraries Government Documents Department.