HeinOnline is a subscription-based resource containing thousands of academic and legal journals from inception; complete coverage of government documents such as U.S. Statutes at Large, U.S. Code, Federal Register, Code of Federal Regulations, U.S. Reports, and much more. Documents are image-based, fully searchable PDFs with the authority of print combined with the accessibility of a user-friendly and powerful database. For more information, request a quote or trial for your organization below.
![handle is hein.gao/gaobacyip0001 and id is 1 raw text is:
Accountability * Integrity * Reliability
United States General Accounting Office
Washington, DC 20548
B-300480.2
June 6, 2003
The Honorable Christopher Bond
Chairman
The Honorable Barbara Mikulski
Ranking Minority Member
Subcommittee on VA, HUD, and Independent Agencies
Committee on Appropriations
United States Senate
Subject: Corporation for National and Community Service: Amount of Obligations
This responds to your request of May 20, 2003, that we review the conclusion of the
Office of Management and Budget (OMB) that the Corporation for National and
Community Service (Corporation) may continue to record obligations based on the
Corporation's estimates of the amount of funds [it] will actually have to pay for the
[national service educational] awards that are earned and used rather than recording
its maximum potential liability. See Letter of May 2, 2003 from Phillip Perry, General
Counsel, OMB, to Frank Trinity, General Counsel, Corporation for National and
Community Service. OMB's position is, as you know, at variance with our prior
advice on this matter. B-300480, April 9, 2003. Specifically, you asked whether OMB
has offered a legal basis for the Corporation to deviate from the requirement to
record obligations according to fiscal law requirements upon grant award.
As noted below, we continue to disagree with OMB's legal conclusion that the
Corporation may record its obligations for education benefits on the basis of
estimates of what it will have to pay when education awards are earned, i.e., its
probable accounting liability, rather than according to fiscal law requirements, i.e., its
maximum potential liability. At the same time, we note that Congress has provided
specific statutory flexibility to address situations where certain probable accounting
liabilities may likely be greater or less than the real economic costs to the
government, for example, the Federal Credit Reform Act of 1990 (Pub. L. No. 101-508,
title XIII, § 13201(a), i.e., credit reform. Congress may wish to provide similar
flexibility to the Corporation in obligating national service education awards.](ViewImageLocal?handle=hein.gao/gaobacyip0001&div=1&collection=&method=preview&ext=.png&size=3)