Performance and Accountability Report, Fiscal Year 2024
Fast Facts
GAO's work yielded $67.5 billion in financial benefits for the federal government in FY 2024—a return of $76 for every dollar invested in us. We did it by recommending ways to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of federal programs and more.
For example, we:
Prompted the Department of Defense to improve its efforts to identify improper payments—i.e., payment errors and fraud—resulting in $4.8 billion in savings
Helped the Social Security Administration update its guidance for disability payment eligibility
Gave Congress comprehensive information about Ukraine funding as part of our ongoing oversight
Highlights
What GAO Found
Presented is GAO's Performance and Accountability Report for Fiscal Year (FY) 2024. We made significant accomplishments in FY 2024 (see figure). In the spirit of the Government Performance and Results Act, this annual report informs the Congress and the American people about what we have achieved on their behalf. The financial information and the data measuring GAO's performance contained in this report are complete and reliable.
This report describes GAO's performance measures, results, and accountability processes for FY 2024. In assessing our performance, we compared actual results against targets and goals that were set in our annual performance plan and performance budget, and that were developed to help carry out our strategic plan. An overview of our annual measures and targets for 2024 is available here, along with links to a complete set of our strategic planning and performance and accountability reports.
This report includes a performance and financial snapshot for the American taxpayer for FY 2024, a letter from the Comptroller General, and five parts.
Part I: Management's Discussion and Analysis. This section includes a statement attesting to the completeness and reliability of the performance and financial data in this report and the effectiveness of our internal control over financial reporting.
It includes a summary of our mission, organizational structure, strategies we use to achieve our goals, and processes for measuring our performance. In addition, it discusses our agency-wide performance results and use of resources in FY 2024. It also includes information on management challenges, external factors that affect our performance, and future challenges and priorities.
Part II: Performance Information. This section includes details on our performance results by strategic goal in FY 2024 and our targets for FY 2025.
Part III: Financial Information. This section includes details on our finances in FY 2024, including a letter from our Chief Financial Officer, audited financial statements and notes, and the reports from our external auditor and Audit Advisory Committee. This section also includes an explanation of the information each of our financial statements conveys.
Part IV: Inspector General's (IG) View of GAO's Management Challenges. This section includes our IG's perspective of our agency's management challenges.
Part V: Appendixes. This section provides the report's abbreviations and describes how we ensure the completeness and reliability of the data for each of our performance measures.
Why GAO Did This Study
As a legislative branch agency, GAO is exempt from many laws that apply to executive branch agencies. However, we generally hold ourselves to the spirit of many such laws, including the Government Performance and Results Act and the Federal Managers' Financial Integrity Act. Accordingly, the FY 2024 Performance and Accountability Report provides information on GAO's work, which we consider comparable to that reported by executive branch agencies that choose to prepare annual Performance and Accountability Reports in lieu of separate Agency Financial Reports.
For more information, contact Timothy Bowling at 202-512-6100 or BowlingT@gao.gov.