Washington, D.C. – The Forest Service has consistently failed to provide American taxpayers and Congress with a clear accounting of what the agency accomplishes with its 30,000 employees and the nearly $5 billion it receives annually in taxpayer dollars, according to a new study by the U.S. General Accounting Office (GAO).

“Mismanagement and accountability problems are plaguing the Forest Service,” said Shannon Collier, Policy Analyst at Taxpayers for Common Sense. “It is unclear what this agency is doing with the billions it receives from American taxpayers.”

The GAO report released today found that the U.S. Forest Service has made “little real progress in resolving its long-standing performance accountability problems and based on the status of its current efforts, remains years away from implementing a credible performance accountability system.” In fact, little real progress has been made since 1991 – when the GAO first started reviewing the financial and management efforts of the Forest Service.

The Forest Service continues to “study” its accountability failures instead of working towards actual improvements. For example, the agency has been considering new budget and work-plan systems since 2000 and 2001, but has still failed to implement them.

“The sad, unfortunate reality is that the agency that is supposed to manage 192 million acres of federal land is one of the most mismanaged, and poorly run agencies in the federal government,” continued Collier.

For at least three decades, the Forest Service has had serious fiscal management and accountability problems. The General Accounting Office, U.S. Department of Agriculture Office of Inspector General (OIG), members of Congress, and others have repeatedly documented Forest Service failures to properly account for expenditures, track assets worth billions of dollars, or reconcile account balances with the U.S. Treasury on a regular basis.

The GAO went further to say that the Forest Service has “not established objective or verifiable performance measures…and has not established specific and quantifiable objectives that link its strategic goals with its annual performance measures.”

“Until the U.S. Forest Service gets it’s fiscal ship in shape, taxpayer dollars intended to reduce wildfires, conserve the environment and manage the national forests will be continuously wasted,” concluded Collier.

Contact: Keith Ashdown
(202) 546-8500 x110