Is the Department of Defense a High-Risk Anomaly? An Analysis of the Government Accountability Office’s High-Risk List’s Persistent Residents

Abstract

The Government Accountability Office (GAO) has a High-Risk List program to identify programs especially at risk for fraud, waste, abuse and mismanagement. Established in 1990, the High-Risk List is intended to force action by Congress and federal agencies to save taxpayer dollars, protect vital services, and ensure national security. Today’s High-Risk List contains 10 persistent programs with tenure greater than 20 years. Half of the persistent 10 are Department of Defense (DoD) specific. This research is the first of two phases and compares the longest standing DoD high-risk programs to similar longstanding high-risk civilian federal programs to determine whether the DoD is a high-risk anomaly. Three high-risk trends are identified and utilized to answer the research question: (1) the more technical the program, the greater and more prolonged the risk; (2) association with defense and national security lends to greater financial risk; (3) the larger the program and portfolio, the greater and more prolonged the risk. The DoD is a high-risk anomaly in that it is the largest federal agency and is defense-related. However, the DoD is not a high-risk anomaly, as the issues that plague the DoD are the same issues that other agencies face, and there are actions the GAO can take to reduce the risk of the longest-standing DoD high-risk programs.