Summary: This annual performance and accountability report assesses what GAO was able to accomplish in fiscal year 2000 and describes the agency's plans for continued progress through fiscal year 2002. In the last year, GAO's work resulted in a number of significant improvements to government that will benefit all Americans. By acting on GAO's recommendations, the government improved public health and safety, strengthened national security, better protected consumers, and improved its financial management and information systems. GAO also provided information critical to the public debates on Social Security and Medicare reform and called attention to looming problems, such as the security of government computer systems and the human capital crisis facing the federal workforce. Taxpayers benefited from the near-record $23 billion in savings identified through GAO's work--a $61 return on every dollar invested in GAO. GAO realigned its organization to better meet its goals and objectives, and it began to institute new ways of doing business. GAO also gained new legislative authorities that will help it to address its human capital requirements and help ensure that GAO remains prepared to meet Congress' future needs. The nation's leaders are faced with an array of complex, controversial, and multidimensional issues that require a more strategic, long-range, and integrated perspective than in the past. Looking forward to fiscal year 2002, GAO believes that the work it plans to undertake and its efforts to become a model agency will help Congress address those challenges.
