Familiar with the academy, we are a nonpartisan, nonprofit congressionally chartered organization, charged with identifying emerging issues of governance to help state and local governments improve their performance. The academys mission is to provide trusted advice, advice it is timely, actionable, and objective on Public Management issues. The source of our expert ceases or membership who are current and former cabinet officials, members of congress, governors, mayors, legislators, jurists, business executives, public managers, and scholars. They are elected fellows because of the distinguished conservation to the field through scholarship, activism and government service. This year, we are celebrating a 50th anniversary. Since our establishment in 1967, the academy has responded to a multitude of risk a request from agencies across the government and has undertaken numerous studies on issues of interest to congress, administration and stakeholders in general. We are in the business of making government work. We have a great partner in that effort in the government accounting office. I have to confess, when i was in the government, i always did not see it that way. And you might not either. Publicationannual generates a powerful tool for improving government at the federal level. The dreaded higher high risk list has often been portrayed as a room at the hotel california. You can check in, but you can never leave. It is a personally addressed invitation for leaders of suspended agencies to spend time with their friends in congress. So a reaction to being on the high risk list is often defensive. We want to hunker down. We want to defend our agency and help and hope you have funds go away quickly. But there is a different approach that is possible and usefull. And theres no time at the present when agencies are polishing the reform plans that are due to on be at the end of september to examine the Lessons Learned by those agencies who responded positively to their appearance on the high risk list and the issues raised by gao, who have embraced the challenge. We can learn lessons from them about how to address that, how to get off, and had to stay off the list. Thats why i am so pleased today that we have a great event that can ring both insight and action to that objective. In that way, i think our conversation can be of great use to each of you as you work to improve your agencys operation, to him be, as they consider the strategy and tactics for government wide reform, and to members of congress and citizens who want government to work better. I think you will find todays discussion and presentations informative and challenging. We also provided you with a copy of the 2016 report from the ivf center for the business of government called managing risk, improving results, lessons for improving government management. Report was written by a nap fellow and a professor and a former dean at the university maryland. We will close todays session with a facilitated conversation with an opportunity to cement your ideas of the day. I hope you will continue to work andugh these issues within across your circles of collaboration so that, together, we can make government work and work for all, which is the vision of the academy. Andk you for being here spending your morning with us. I will be followed by barbara ron zack, who is currently on sabbatical and joining us, having recently stepped down after serving five years as the dean of the school of Public Administration at American University. [applause] thank you, terry. I am pleased to be here. That the pleased American University of public andirs has partnered cosponsored with George Washington university. I have a personal interest in this as well as a professional interest. A scholar of accountability. This is for me a great morning breakfast. I look forward to the conversation and i want to learn a lot. I am also dedicated to the notion that Public Management is the way to address some of the important problems we have got in the world. So these kind of discussions for how to improve government in these days is particularly important. We know the state of federal Government Agencies and the challenges of operating at high levels of effectiveness have been much in the news of late. But these are frenulum issues and the work of gao shows that. Have perennial issues affected sustained attention. Our keynote speaker is someone who is able to lead in that direction. He is able to lead the discussion about what agencies can do to become more effective in their operations, not to not telling them what their operations are, but if they break their missions, how they might be able to address it in a more effective way. To introduceure mr. Gene dodaro, but in the stream i think he needs probably very little introduction. Many of you know his work and most of you will know the work of the Government Accountability office. Gene is our eighth comptroller general and as head of the u. S. Officer Government Accountability he was confirmed to the position in 2010, though he started earlier than that in an interim position. They liked his work so much they kept them. In the Government Accountability office, gene works with the congress and the administration on Major Management reform initiatives. With the agency he helps oversee the development and issuance of hundreds of reports and testimonies each year the coded various congressional committees and individual members of congress. This is an exacting group of individuals. They have clear expectations and they do not always get what they want in their reports. It is a delicate act to speak truth to power. That is one of the things the office can do. These reports on the testimonies that are given to congress are part of the products that gao produces to help save money, saving billions of dollars in taxpayer expenditures, contributing to improvements in Government Operations and a wide range of government services. Gene has testified before Congress Dozens of times on important issues. These include the nations fiscal outlook, as well as efforts to reduce and eliminate overlap and duplication across the federal government. For example, he has led efforts to fulfill gaos new audit responsibilities under the dodd frank wall street reform and the Consumer Protection act. A longterm project of gao has been a development of the high risk list. It focuses on agencies that face challenges such as reducing improper payments under medicare or medicaid, or improving the pentagons business practices. Those are bookends of the range of complicated issues. Nobody knows the high risk list better than gene. What causes agencies to be listed on it, how agencies can get off it, and what it takes to stay off it. More importantly, no one has more insight into the positive change that can happen when Agency Leaders commit to implementing the kind of Management Practices and process control that can mitigate risk, knowing the problems gives you a chance to address the problems. The work of gao helps our agencies. It helps our congress, it helps our country. Please join me in welcoming me the leader of that agency, mr. Gene datoro. [applause] thank you very much, barbara, for that kind introduction. I want to thank you and kathy for helping sponsor this program. I am very pleased to be here. Good morning to all of you. I would like to talk about the genesis of the high risk list and efforts associated with helping agencies navigate their way off the list. When i was at my confirmation hearing and the Congress Asked me what my Top Priorities were, in addition to trying to get the government on a more sustainable longterm fiscal path, i mentioned the high risk list. It is not only to identify areas of high risk, but to help agencies appropriately, given our independence, help them get off the list. That is the way we view the success at gao, is up in the government operates better, more efficiently, and effectively by solving these problems. The High Risk Program had its genesis in the late 1980s in some scandals that occurred in the federal government. Congress became concerned that these major problems occurred with little warning. They asked gao to come up with a list of programs that had major problems and that were at risk of having major breakdowns, so that actions could be taken to avoid serious problems, and avoid crises. We began with a developing a list based on the work he had done at the gao. We identified 14 areas. We started to get into a routine where we updated the list with the beginning of each new congress, to allow congress to have this list, to help set its oversight agenda, and in doing that, it coincided with the beginnings of new administrations as they came in and took over their responsibilities. The list initially focused on fraud, waste, abuse, and mismanagement in the federal government. Over time, we have added the areas in need of broad base transformation, because we felt it was very important to have the federal government be responsive to changes in the environment, both internationally and domestically, to prepare itself to meet contemporary challenges. And to those that are likely to be confronted in the future. It is not only solving management problems, it is preparing government for the future to make sure it meets its responsibilities. A good example of transformation area that we identified is protecting the public and medical product safety. Fda was set up to oversee Domestic Production of pharmaceuticals in the United States and medical devices, but most ingredients for pharmaceutical medicine, about 80 of the ingredients in about half of the drugs come from foreign manufacturers. Fda had to change its practices to look more in a Global Market space to make sure they are protecting public safety. In 2000, as the program evolved, we worked with the executive branch to clearly specify the criteria that gao uses and identifying which high risk areas to include on the list. We spelled those out. We included things such as Public Health and safety, National Security, Homeland Security, those issues that could have an economic effect on our country. And areas that were large dollar risk. Anything on the list has to be about 1 billion or more to be at risk. Importantly, in the document, is also the criteria that we use to take agencies off the list, or to reduce the area of risk. Those five criteria are leadership commitment, sustained leadership commitment is imperative and a prerequisite to attacking these problems at the agencies. Agencies have to have the capability. This is the resources and the people and the skills necessary to address the problems at hand. Thirdly, they have to have an action plan. I need a specific plan with goals and measures and milestones to track progress. These are among the most significant problems the federal government is facing. They do not get solved overnight. You need to have a good plan to get there and measure your progress along the way. You have to have fourthly, a monetary effort to make sure you are staying on top of this, making refinements and necessary adjustments as things proceed. Finally, you have to demonstrate progress. You do not have to have the risk completely solved on the zero. But you have to have it under management as much as possible. You have to demonstrate you are actually fixing some of the problems, the root causes of the high risk areas, and demonstrating that you are making necessary improvements. Then, we decide to do this, the focus of the agencys attention on what actions are needed, we have developed a couple other techniques over the years. One is that we have had for the last several administrations and give their meetings between omb, the Deputy Director for management is usually the convener of the meetings, with gao and with the agencies on the high risk list. In addition to bilateral discussions between gao in the agencies, omb has become involved. It is helpful from a resource allocation standpoint and also since many of the high risk areas involve multiple agencies, not just the Single Agency on the list, to have omb involved. Congress recognized the importance of this last year and 216. They passed the Program Management improvement accountability act and that basically requires the deputy at omb to do a portfolio review of any area that gao identifies as a high risk area and create a government wide counsel to focus on improving Product Management and to review the areas that gao has identified as high risk and make recommendations to omb as part of this process. That is very important. The other part of the evolution we started in 2015 was to give a greater level of specificity to the agencies as to what their progress was as they proceeded in the high risk area. We developed a rating criteria for each of the five areas. We decided that either they met, partially met, or did not meet each of the five criterias to give them a more specific scorecard and roadmap to follow. In our discussions with them, individually, and with omb, we talk about what specifically remains to be done in each of those five criteria areas that i mentioned earlier in order to get off the list. Some agencies we have identified a very specific things they need to do. For example, the department of Homeland Security, in terms of transforming and managing the department, since it was created in 2003, it had been on the high risk list. We identified 31 different actions that needed to be taken. The department of Homeland Security reports on those actions every six months in terms of their selfassessment on how well they are doing since the criteria. We evaluate their selfassessment and provide our views. That area has been narrowed over time. Right now it is focused on management immigration functions, particularly Acquisition Management and financial management. As well as Human Resource management at the department. It has been a significant way to achieve progress over time by getting greater specificity and greater clarity on how well the agencies are implementing those programs. Our latest update was in february of this year as the new congress was convening and we had a new administration. There had been 32 areas on the high risk list coming off of 2015. We reported that 23 of the 32 areas had either met or partially met all five criteria for coming off the list. This was a significant amount of progress over a two year period. During that time, Congress Passed 12 laws directed at helping agencies address the high risk areas. A couple of examples would be one area on the list is assessing and managing toxic chemicals at epa. Congress gave epa Greater Authority to get information from Chemical Companies but with them in a better position in order to make those determinations to better protect Public Health and safety from toxic chemicals. That was a significant move. Congress also created a couple of councils in the Property Management area which has been on the list for a wild because we believe the government had much unneeded excess property. They needed to manage that area better. Those laws gave additional and that is to give Property Management. The laws that were passed that address to this, we designate also for each high risk area where Congress Needs to act as well as the executive branch agencies. It is very clear. Part of this effort involves discussions, not only with the administration, but with congress, to make sure they understand every time we update the high risk list, we have testimonies before the senate, Homeland Security, and governmental a set government affair committee. They have sponsored the High Risk Program over the years. It has become one of the longestrunning Good Government bipartisan supported efforts in our federal governments history. It has also been embraced by various administrations as part of their management agenda for improving the federal governments operations. Among the areas of progress that we have cited in our 2017 report, we took one area off the list completely. That is information sharing regarding terrorist related information. Obviously, after 9 11, this was a big concern. It was a National Security issue that needed to be dealt with. We added it to the high risk list. We have been working the director of National Intelligence operations and all the agencies on this list. This was a complicated area because it involved multiple agencies, it involved local communities as well, the private sector, and various sectors of our economy. Congress passed legislation requiring information sharing environment to be created, and the dni lead that effort and really made a lot of progress over the years. Here we identified by 2013, 9 specific things that needed to be done. Over the years, each of those areas were addressed successfully to our satisfaction to take them off the list. Does that mean there is zero risk . Of course not. What it means is they have a process on how to manage the list to share information appropriately to protect us against terrorism related incidents. I am pleased that they are part of the panel. You can get their perspe