Gao Report

Despite being listed on a federal report of cities not prepared to handle potential year-2000 computer problems, Baltimore officials said yesterday that they are putting the finishing touches on making the city systems secure.The reason the city ended up on the list is because it still needs to officially test the system, said Alonza Williams, a spokesman for Mayor Kurt L. Schmoke."We are ready," said Williams. "You'll need no bottled water, you'll see all the traffic lights."The investigative arm of Congress, the U.S. General Accounting Office, issued a report yesterday on computer readiness of the nation's top 21 cities.

MIAMI - On a day the new Homeland Security Department wanted to trumpet streamlined and tightened border inspections for travelers entering the United States, the agency had to explain why undercover investigators had been able to cross into the country using counterfeit identification papers and bogus names. The department said it would study the findings of the investigation by the General Accounting Office, which reported to a Senate panel that its agents had easily entered the United States with fake drivers' licenses, counterfeit birth certificates and other false documents.

The cost of the Pentagon's sweeping nationwide shake-up of military bases, including Aberdeen Proving Ground and Fort Meade, has soared nearly 50 percent overall in the past two years, while savings from consolidating defense operations might have been overestimated, says a new report to Congress. The Government Accountability Office, an investigative arm of Congress, says the Defense Department's cost estimates for its largest base shuffle ever have climbed from $21 billion to $31 billion since the plan was unveiled in 2005.

WASHINGTON -- The federal government has collected just $365,000 out of $83.6 million in court-ordered fines and restitution from individuals convicted in the nation's top savings and loan fraud cases, the General Accounting Office reported yesterday.The finding raises questions about the government's effectiveness in recovering funds stolen or misappropriated by corrupt thrift operators. Hundreds of S&L failures nation wide, many linked to fraud, are expected to cost taxpayers more than $500 billion over 40 years.

WASHINGTON -- For 30 years, blacks with serious ailments have been much more likely than whites to be rejected for benefits under Social Security disability programs, a congressional investigative agency has found.From the initial claim through the appeals process, blacks have had a more difficult time obtaining benefits from the two largest federal programs for people with severe disabilities, which together now provide $43.2 billion in disability checks annually to millions of workers and their families, the study by the General Accounting Office concludes.

WASHINGTON -- Two years ago, the problem with the Air Force's B-2 Stealth bombers, which cost $2 billion apiece, was that their radar could not tell a rain cloud from a mountainside.Now the problem is that the B-2 cannot go out in the rain.The investigative arm of Congress reported this week that the B-2, the world's most expensive aircraft, deteriorates in rain, heat and humidity. It "must be sheltered or exposed only to the most benign environments -- low humidity, no precipitation, moderate temperatures," said the report by the General Accounting Office.

WASHINGTON - The FBI unit that would be shifted to the proposed Department of Homeland Security and given primary responsibility for receiving and analyzing information about terrorist threats against the United States is a computer security office that does not have trained intelligence analysts. Instead, the National Infrastructure Protection Center, which officials say would provide the lion's share of personnel for the analysis division of the department, is made up of computer experts, systems technicians and FBI agents who investigate computer crimes.

Maryland health officials waited four months to begin investigating a complaint that a nursing home patient was so poorly cared for that his body was covered with sores and his hands and fingernails were caked with blood.The case of the unnamed patient who had been in the nursing home for just under three weeks, was among several noted yesterday in a highly critical federal report on the way Maryland and other states have responded to complaints about poor care in nursing homes.Members of the Special Committee on Aging yesterday also heard the tearful testimony of a former Baltimore resident who got virtually no response when she complained to Maryland health officials about the "negligent" care provided to her late grandmother in a Parkville nursing home.

WASHINGTON -- Amtrak needs to improve the way it monitors performance and oversees its finances to reach solid financial ground, congressional investigators said yesterday. "While Amtrak has recently reduced costs, revenues are declining faster than costs, leading to operating losses exceeding $1 billion annually," the Government Accountability Office reported. "These losses are projected to grow by 40 percent within four years." The GAO recommended that the transportation secretary direct the federal railroad administrator to: require Amtrak to submit a plan laying out specifically how it will improve its financial operations; provide Amtrak with direction on how to do so; and monitor Amtrak's performance and report to Congress on the railroad's progress.

WASHINGTON -- The government is doing billions of dollars' worth of business with companies that fire workers for union activism, intimidate employees and commit other labor violations.The General Accounting Office, the investigative arm of Congress, says 80 companies won a total of $23 billion from the government in 1993 despite having broken federal labor law. The list includes two Maryland companies -- Westinghouse Electric Corp.'s Electronic Systems division in Linthicum and Caterair International Inc. in Bethesda -- and several companies that operate in the state but are not based here.