Mr. RABKIN. Over 56 percent or 23,295 individuals, were employed by the Justice Department at an annual salary cost of about $1.2 billion. An additional 11,731, or over 28 percent, were employed by the Treasury Department at an annual salary cost of about $649 million. And 2,344, or nearly 6 percent, were employed by the Interior Department at an annual salary cost of about $88 million. The remaining 3,972, or about 10 percent of the total, were employed by 29 other departments and agencies at an annual salary cost of about $217 million.

The two other charts that are up here present our data for thed 32 agencies broken down by the number and percentage of personnel in each job series and the amount and percentage of annual basic pay for personnel in each series.

[The chart follows:]

aNote: Others includes Customs Patrol Officer .1% (35), Immigration Inspection .3% (132),

and Game Law .8% (336).

a

7.7%

a

Others 1.2%

Park Ranger 1.2%

Note: Others includes Customs Patrol Officer 0.1%, Immigration Inspection 0.3%, and Game Law 0.8%.

Mr. RABKIN. As you can see, about 87 percent are in the criminal investigator or the "1811," series and they received about 82 percent of the salary costs of the Federal criminal investigative personnel in our review.

In my written statement on page 7, the agency components with the most personnel in these nine job series are shown, and they were the FBI, the Immigration and Naturalization Service, IRS, DEA, the Secret Service, the Customs Service, the Marshals Service, ATF, and the National Park Service. Together, these personnel represented about 88 percent of the Federal criminal investigative personnel in the 32 agencies as of last March 31.

Mr. Chairman, there are many ways we could have defined law enforcement and criminal investigative work. Over the next few months we plan to discuss further our definition with officials from OPM, the agencies with most of these employees, and the subcommittee.

We will then develop and administer a survey to all agencies with Federal law enforcement personnel doing criminal investigative work to verify the number of personnel and associated salary and benefit costs.

We also plan to provide the subcommittee with a description of the types of Federal criminal violations the agencies are responsible for investigating and the legislative authorities under which they investigate possible Federal criminal violations.

Now I would like to talk for a moment about overlap or duplication among agencies with law enforcement as a primary responsibility. Since 1990, GAO has issued several reports on this subject. We have generally supported the need for greater coordination among the numerous agencies involved in Federal law enforcement. However, we have not taken a position as to whether or the extent to which the various law enforcement agencies should be consolidated.

In 1990, we reported that the DEA and the FBI were carrying out their drug law enforcement responsibilities independent of each other. They were independently developing investigative strategies and priorities, operating separate intelligence systems, and using different systems for reporting and measuring their performances. The agencies have since undertaken several joint initiatives designed to enhance coordination in such areas as intelligence sharing.

In 1992 and 1993, we reported on the coordination of domestic narcotics operations and intelligence activities. We pointed out that there were many Federal law enforcement agencies participating in counternarcotics activities and that each had its own intelligence organization. The agencies with primary responsibility for drug intelligence activities were DEA, the Customs Service, and the Coast Guard. In addition, the Defense Department provided drug intelligence to support these agencies' efforts.

In May 1995, we reported that some interagency coordination problems had adversely affected Federal fugitive apprehension efforts. For example, we cited the FBI's and the Marshals Service's failure to participate on each other's fugitive task forces; disagreements over responsibility for prison escapes involving possible con

spiracy charges; and failure, at times, to cooperate with the apprehension of other countries' fugitives.

During the course of our review, Justice's Office of Investigative Agency Policies, an inter-agency coordinating group, began to take action to resolve these issues.

Mr. Chairman, I would like to add a comment about a few recommendations made by the Vice President's National Performance Review that are relevant to our discussion this morning.

The September 1993 NPR report entitled, "Creating a Government That Works Better and Costs Less," included a section on eliminating duplication. One action item in this section suggested transferring the law enforcement functions of DEA and ATF to the FBI. The report also raised concerns about duplication of drug intelligence systems and overlap and duplication in law enforcement training facilities.

As I mentioned earlier, GAO has not taken a position on whether DEA and ATF should be consolidated into the FBI. However, our work supports NPR's recommendation to eliminate duplication and improve coordination in Federal drug intelligence among agencies such as Justice, Treasury, and Defense. We have not yet studied the issue of duplication in law enforcement training facilities and, therefore, are not taking a position on that recommendation.

Mr. Chairman, this concludes my statement. Dr. McPhail and I would welcome any questions from you or the subcommittee. [The prepared statement of Mr. Rabkin follows:]