>> finding well-qualified staff is extremely important. >> and mrs. fong, would you also agree with mrs. bats' statement? >> i believe she has a very good point there and i would add that her acting i.g.s by definition are part of that very qualified and experienced career staff with professional expertise. >> in closing, i think we all can agree that a perm negligent senate-confirmed i.g. is preferable. but we should not accept the idea that an acting i.g. and their staff are not capable of performing excellent, vigorous oversight and achieving results that are just as meaningful as the permanent i.g.s. thank you. >> thank you. >> i thank the gentlelady. just in the nick of time returns the gentlelady from california, my colleague, miss spear, for five minutes. >> thank you, mr. chairman. i find this discussion kind of interesting and with all due respect, a little wrong-headed, and the truth is that all of us are temporary as members of congress. we have two-year terms. and to follow this line of logic, none of us can really be all that effective because

but if i were talking to the president, i would say, you ought to listen to mrs. fong because this should be done and should be done very quickly. mr. miller, or anybody else have any comments? well, listen, i'm awfully glad you folks got to see me, it's been a big thrill for you, i know. some agencies simply grab a career person at ig, and that's where you sit until there's action. do you believe that congress should at least evaluate whether or not to have a role in preventing vacancies, for anyone on the panel. so if you will, thumb role in those situations to create an acting -- i mean ultimately, there is the whole question of what statutory authority and prosecute torl authority you would have, and i think that's a very good one. at the end of the day, if you have someone who's been selected by an agency or commission who is not confirmed, not voted by that, but simply thrown in there as the acting. administrative process to see that somebody is selected that is not simply a yes person for that entity. >> i think this situation does occur or has occurred over the

mr. miller, are you familiar with white house liaisons that operate within, for example, gsa? >> generally. i've met i think each one. >> miss fong, you are too? >> yes. >> and mr. wiens, are you familiar with how white house liaisons are placed in all of the branches of the executive branch? >> i'm not as familiar. >> i'll stick to my two igs for a moment. in your experience, isn't it true that these white house liaisons, regardless of who is in the white house, have pretty much unfettered access to information that they would choose to have and the ability then to report it directly back to councils in the white house? >> i wouldn't know, mr. chairman. >> well, in your particular case, the white house liaison was aware of your investigation and reported -- and the chief of staff actually, in this case i believe, reported it back to the white house council. so there is a separate avenue in every administration of these legislative or white house liaisons. here's one of my basic questions for the two igs. that's all well and good, but do we currently have that same level of transparency from igs or any one else in each of the bra

mr. -- president fong: next speaker, please, that i have called? >> andrea o'leary. i almost want to say ditto to all that because basically that's what it comes down to. all these children you heard speaking earlier i don't think they really care what they have to play on, just as long as it's nice, clean, maintained and they get access to it. that's really what they want. we can maintain these fields if we want to. that's the real issue here. we want to maintain golf courses. we have dedicated gardeners out there to keep that grass at that exact height and density and everything and they don't talk about gopher holes all that much. so why can't we do that for our play fields? there's no reason for this. but my big issue here is there are a lot of places where the small groups can come and play but they're underiletused. my neighborhood -- underutilized. do we get anybody there? not a one. we're still open for it. i'm really concerned about the dark skies. i come from a part of the country where other than africa the skies are the darkest there and this is just such

mr. chairman. miss fong, council of inspectors general on integrity and efficiency issues annual reports on activities and accomplishments of the federal igs. each year your report includes data on government-wide potential savings and total savings to the government from all ig audit recommendations. can you explain the difference between potential er we have a dharlt somewhere. somebody put the chart up. can you explain the difference between potential and total savings? >> let me just take a step back. my understanding of the data and this is bassed on the data that each ig office compiles in response to the igf requirements. . and the data categories talk about potential savings because it's very difficult to measure actual savings. so my understanding of the data that we're providing is we give a number of potential savings from audits, and another number for potential savings for investigations. we add that up and have a total number of potential savings overall. it is very difficult to track actuals,

fong: thank you. come on up, sir. >> mr. president and members of the commission, i'm george williams and speaking on the behalf of the action coalition. our executive director is out of town. as you recall, this started some years ago. and while it has taken a long time and we are pro the distressed from the lake, i think we have benefited because it has given the opportunity to assess how the incentives for the news to the house and will work in an actuality. we have a developer that is well along in the entitlement process building one of these buildings and has been negotiating with the educational institutions. the mayor's office of housing has taken a closer look to be sure if the housing projects falls out, the inclusionary housing will be provided in that new unit or the field will be paid. and we have determined a 20-year master these if it did not already own it. that seems rather inhibiting on the part of many institutions. we have hopefully strained all of that outlook with supervisor wiener and we are very grate

with that, we recognize miss fong for her opening statement. >> thank you, mr. chairman, ranking member cummings and members of the committee. it's a real privilege to be here today to represent the federal ig community which consists of 73 igs in the executive and

with that, we recognize miss fong for her opening statement. >> thank you, mr. chairman, ranking member cummings and members of the committee. it's a real privilege to be here today to represent the federal ig community which consists of 73 igs in the executive and legislative branches. and at the outset, before i get into the topic of this hearing, i would like to express the appreciation of the ig community to you and the members of the committee for your continuing support of our mission and your interest in our work. this committee has a noteworthy record of bipartisan support for the contributions of igs and in particular we note your work on the data act of 2012, which was recently passed by the house, and which contains several provisions that would greatly assist ig operations if enacted. so on behalf of the community we want to thank you for your support. my written statement provides an overview of the ig council's activities so i'm going to focus my remarks on the role that we play as a council in filling ig vacancies. as has been remarked, the proces

fong and other igs around that shared mission of better government. >> thank you very much, and mr. chairman, i thank you for the time. >> well, thank you, and i do want to try to conclude the hearing today, but i did, again, have this information that was provided on our witness, that says danny werfel is the controller of the office of federal financial management. within the office of management budget he is responsible for coordinating omb's efforts to initiate government-wide improvements in all areas of financial management. when -- and again i use the gsa example, and we did, in fact, have a former staffer who works at gsa, blow the whistle. a, an investigation was conducted, and properly so. a report -- that started in november after the -- well, after the october incident in 2010. in may, gsa and others were informed. administrators. we had the witnesses here. nothing was done. in june, the white house was advised. you said you knew the counsel, but didn't know the incident or didn't read the report. my whole point is here, was, this -- these were very serious allegations o

fong: additional speakers in favor of dr. project sponsor, you have five minutes. >> good afternoon. i'm speaking on behalf of the permit applicants, mr. teed. forgive me if i start speaking fast. that was a wealth of complaints and issues brought up, some for the first time. i want to address the few things and we also have the architect here who can address any questions and speak to the specific rebuttals on representations that have been made about the character of the neighborhood and consistency with the code. when i first want to point out is there is a comment made by the attorney said said the dr was successful. this was not a discretionary review case. that was done voluntarily by mr. teeth. for nine months, his team members and himself -- mr. teed. his team members communicated with neighbors and attached to both of the responses, there's a bullet pointless that summarizes all the changes that came as a result of the neighborhood outreach. i would like to rush through that so you have the context that this is not some developer refusing to listen to neighborhood concerns. concerns have been taken seriously by every member o