GPO Completed a Major Inventory Reduction in 1996

In May 1996, financial projections indicated that the sales program expected a substantial loss for fiscal year 1996, the first such loss in 15 years. Superintendent of Documents Policy No. The Superintendent further said that he subsequently verbally instructed his staff to begin the inventory reduction before the action plan was approved and told them to disregard policies that would interfere with the removal of as much excess inventory by September 30, 1996, as possible. The Superintendent of Documents said that he wanted to dispose of the excess inventory by September 30, 1996, in order to take the losses in fiscal year 1996. He also said that he wanted to identify and dispose of as much excess inventory as possible in fiscal year 1996 rather than in later years, when it otherwise would have been identified, disposed of, and charged to expense. At our recommendation, the Superintendent of Documents put his oral instructions in writing in August 1997. In addition, he said that GPO was already developing a new inventory management system that would allow publications that are to be held indefinitely to be designated as such once they have been identified. Aligning GPO’s Procedure for Considering Holding Costs of Publications With Its Policy

In a May 6, 1997, letter to Senator Byrd, the Public Printer said that, on the basis of a study GPO had done, it was more cost-effective to maintain an adequate inventory of sales publications based on their projected life cycle and to reprint if necessary, than to hold excess copies of publications in inventory. To help remedy this problem, according to the Superintendent of Documents, the Comptroller recommended that the Superintendent identify as much excess inventory as possible in fiscal year 1996 to improve the sales program’s long-term financial situation. In this regard, we noted that the printing and binding cost of the 3,258 copies of the Senate history volumes disposed of was about $83,000, and that GPO’s estimated annual storage costs attributable to these copies was about $2,500. Because of the erroneous belief of the Superintendent of Documents, who heads GPO’s sales program, that GPO had to physically remove excess publications from the GPO warehouse by September 30, 1996, in order to record them as an expense for fiscal year 1996, and because of his express instruction to disregard policies and procedures, GPO staff disposed of about 2,100 different publications without first contacting the issuing agencies of those publications. Objectives, Scope, and Methodology

As agreed with your offices, our objectives were to determine the facts surrounding the September 1996 inventory reduction; whether it followed existing policies and procedures; and the fate of the 3,258 copies of The Senate 1789-1989, a four-volume set written by Senator Byrd, that were destroyed as part of that reduction.
Why GAO Did This Study

Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO reviewed the Government Printing Office's (GPO) procedures for managing its inventory of excess publications, particularly its management of a major inventory reduction that took place in September 1996, focusing on: (1) whether GPO followed existing policies and procedures; and (2) how 3,258 copies of The Senate 1789-1989, a four-volume set written by Senator Byrd, were destroyed as part of that reduction.

What GAO Found

GAO noted that: (1) when for the first time in 15 years a potential financial loss was identified in GPO's sales program in June 1996, the Superintendent of Documents, who heads the sales program, initiated several actions intended to improve the program's long-term financial condition; (2) the Superintendent of Documents said he wanted to dispose of the excess inventory by September 30, 1996, to take the losses in fiscal year (FY) 1996 rather than in later years, when it otherwise would have been identified, disposed of, and charged to expense; (3) the Superintendent of Documents also said he had erroneously believed that it was necessary to physically remove excess publications from inventory storage by September 30, 1996, in order to record them as an expense in the financial records for FY 1996; (4) although the Superintendent of Documents had policies and procedures in place to prevent the disposal of publications that the issuing agency still wanted, in June 1996 he instructed his staff to disregard those policies that would interfere with his goal of disposing of as much excess publications inventory as possible by September 30, 1996; (5) acting under the Superintendent's overall instructions, GPO sales program staff disregarded a policy that has existed since at least 1984, which provides that, before disposing of any excess copies of publications, GPO should offer them to the issuing agencies; (6) in explaining its inventory reduction to Senator Byrd, GPO said that it had found that it was generally more cost-effective to dispose of excess inventory and reprint if necessary, than to hold it in storage indefinitely; (7) however, GPO officials said that they knew that the reprint costs would substantially exceed the holding costs for these copies, given their relatively high printing and binding costs; (8) in July 1997, after Senator Byrd inquired about the major inventory reduction, the Superintendent of Documents orally instructed his staff to retain the remaining volumes of the Senate history and, at GAO's recommendation, put this instruction in writing in August 1997; and (9) the Superintendent further said that GPO was developing a new integrated processing system that would help designate publications that should not be excessed and, at GAO's recommendation, agreed to develop a systematic process for identifying publications to be held indefinitely for valid reasons.