The Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) has reviewed the Office of the Inspector General (OIG) draft audit report titled The DEA's Implementation of the Government Performance and Results Act (GPRA) and provides this response to your July 29, 2003 request for comments. The OIG report reflects the history of DEA's efforts to implement the GPRA and the significant progress that the DEA has made in the past five years. As the OIG noted, the DEA has:

1. developed management plans to help measure program effectiveness and provided organizational accountability for priority performance targets;
2. established performance targets for disrupting and dismantling international and domestic drug trafficking organizations; and
3. developed a system to capture, verify, arid validate data on all priority targets.

The OIG conducted its audit from October 2000 through May 2003 and the report discusses actions that the DEA needs to complete to be fully compliant with the GPRA. The audit contained seven recommendations for action by the DEA. As discussed in the exit conference, the DEA had initiated actions that address six of the OIG's recommendations prior to the issuance of this draft. The DEA concurs with all of the OIG's recommendations and is nearing completion on many of the OIG' s recommended actions. The Action Plan (attached) provides a current status of completed actions and projected completion dates for implementation of each recommendation.

One of the findings in the report (recommendation one) determined that DEA's strategic goals and objectives were not quantitative, directly measurable, or assessment-based to allow for the future assessment of achievement. This finding was based on DEA's FY 2001-2006 Strategic Plan. DEA's new draft FY 2003-2008 Strategic Plan includes a general long-term goal and four strategic goals with two and five-year quantitative objectives. The new goals and objectives will meet the requirements of GPRA and OMB Circular A-11. On July 17, 2003, the Department of Justice (DOJ)

Recommendations two through six, which are also nearing completion, include the development of standard criteria for defining Priority Target Organizations (PTOs) as well as the inclusion of the Office of International Operations' international PTOs into PTARRS. The draft report indicates that DEA has not established a timeline for inclusion of these international targets; this is inconect. The DEA will modify PTARRS to include all international PTOs by the end of the first quarter of FY 2004. Recommendation seven will require the collection of trend data after the implementation of the first six recommendations. Beginning with the third quarter of FY 2003, the DEA will conduct reviews of actual performance data and compare it to established annual targets. The DEA will continue to conduct these reviews on a quarterly basis and use the information to monitor and improve its performance measures.

The DEA appreciates the opportunity to provide comment to the OIG in these matters. The DEA is committed to the GPRA and will provide status reports to your office until all reported actions are completed.

Attachment

cc: Vickie Sloan, Director
     Audit Liaison Office