Comptroller General
of the United States
April 5, 2019
The Honorable Michael R. Pompeo
Secretary of State
U.S. Department of State
2201 C Street, NW
Washington, D.C. 20520
Priority Open Recommendations: Department of State
Dear Secretary Pompeo:
The purpose of this letter is to provide an update on the overall status of the Department of
State’s (State) implementation of GAO’s recommendations and to call your personal attention to
open recommendations that should be given high priority.
1
In November 2018, we reported on a
government-wide basis that 77 percent of our recommendations made in fiscal year 2014 had
been closed as implemented.
2
State’s recommendation implementation rate for the same time
frame was 91 percent. As of March 2019, State had 101 open recommendations.
3
Fully
implementing these open recommendations could significantly improve State’s operations.
Since our February 2018 letter, State has implemented 10 of our 20 open priority
recommendations. We believe these efforts have improved the security and safety of diplomatic
personnel and facilities overseas, improved State’s ability to track Antiterrorism Assistance
trainees’ return to home countries and their use of delivered training, and mitigated the risk of
staff fraud by employees of refugee resettlement support centers.
State has 10 open priority recommendations remaining from those we identified in our February
2018 letter. We ask your continued attention on these remaining recommendations. We are
adding eight new recommendations as priorities this year related to data quality, the
administration of hardship pay, and embassy construction. This brings the total number of open
priority recommendations to 18. (See the enclosure for details on each.)
State’s 18 open priority recommendations fall into the following six major areas.
1
Priority recommendations are those that GAO believes warrant priority attention from heads of key departments or
agencies. They are highlighted because, upon implementation, they may significantly improve government
operations, for example, by realizing large dollar savings; eliminating mismanagement, fraud, and abuse; or making
progress toward addressing a high-risk or fragmentation, overlap, or duplication issue.
2
GAO, Performance and Accountability Report: Fiscal Year 2018, GAO-19-1SP (Washington, D.C.: November
2018).
3
Sensitive and classified recommendations are tracked separately.
