Usda Telecommunications Strong Leadership Needed To Resolve Management Weaknesses Achieve Savings Report To The Chairman Subcommittee On Department Operations Nutrition And Foreign Agriculture Committee On Agriculture House Of Representatives PDF Download

This report discusses the Agriculture Department's (USDA) efforts to improve its management of telecommunications resources and act on opportunities to realize savings. GAO determines what steps USDA has taken to address the telecommunications management problems that GAO cited in earlier reports and the extent to which these problems have been resolved. (See GAO/AIMD-95-97, Apr. 1995, GAO/AIMD-95-219R, Sept. 1995, GAO/AIMD-95-203, Sept. 1995, and GAO/AIMD-96-59, Apr. 1996.) In these reports, GAO recommended that USDA act immediately to (1) establish the sound management practices needed to cost effectively manage telecommunications and eliminate unnecessary services, (2) consolidate and optimize Federal Telecommunications System 2000 resources when opportunities exist to do so, (3) plan networks in support of information and resource-sharing needs, and (4) correct telephone abuse and fraud problems and mitigate future risks in this area.