Page 1 GAO-24-107364 OMB Priority Recommendations
Comptroller General
of the United States
August 9, 2024
The Honorable Shalanda Young
Director
The Honorable Jason Miller
Deputy Director for Management
Office of Management and Budget
725 17th Street, NW
Washington, D.C. 20503
Priority Open Recommendations: Office of Management and Budget
Dear Director Young and Deputy Director Miller:
I appreciate my ongoing meetings with Deputy Director Jason Miller and look forward to
continuing a constructive working relationship between our two institutions. As you know, the
purpose of this letter is to provide an update on the overall status of the Office of Management
and Budget’s (OMB) implementation of GAO’s recommendations and to call your continued
personal attention to areas where open recommendations should be given high priority.
1
In November 2023, we reported that, on a government-wide basis, 75 percent of our
recommendations made 4 years ago were implemented.
2
OMB’s recommendation
implementation rate was 38 percent. As of June 2024, OMB had 172 open recommendations.
Fully implementing these open recommendations could significantly improve agency operations.
Since our May 2023 letter, OMB has implemented four of our 40 open priority
recommendations, and we removed the priority status from three other recommendations.
3
• OMB issued its annual Compliance Supplement in August of 2020 and 2021.
Auditors had expressed a need to have this guidance earlier. OMB has since
implemented our recommendation to provide timelier guidance and issued its Compliance
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 duplication issue.
2
GAO, Performance and Accountability Report: Fiscal Year 2023, GAO-24-900483 (Washington, D.C.: Nov. 15,
2023).
3
We determined that three recommendations no longer warrant priority attention. Each of these concern efforts to
improve acquisition management and amend the Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR). In response to a GAO
recommendation, efforts to amend the FAR to provide guidance on reverse auctions have resulted in a proposed rule
that is in the final stages before adoption. Two other recommendations related to the need for standardizing a
definition for bridge contracts have become less urgent since a definition has been established for bridge contracts
used by the Department of Defense, the agency with the highest percentage of contract obligations government-wide.
However, we continue to believe that these recommendations should be implemented.
