The acting head of the Government Accountability Office (GAO) told senators on April 15 that GAO will continue to pursue its never-ending government operations fraud-fighting efforts – while boosting its internal use of emerging technologies – under GAO’s proposed budget increase for fiscal year (FY) 2027.
Those were among the primary takeaways from Orice Williams Brown, who became acting GAO chief and acting comptroller general of the United States last December, in testimony before the Senate Subcommittee on Legislative Branch Appropriations to discuss GAO’s FY 2027 budget request.
GAO is requesting a 5.9% year-over increase in appropriated dollars for FY 2027, to $860 million, versus the FY 2026 enacted level. The budget also proposes to use $50 million in offsetting receipts, for $910 million in total budget authority for the fiscal year, GAO said.
Even with the proposed top-line increase, the FY 2027 budget would reduce GAO’s count of full-time equivalent employees to 3,210, down 4.2% from FY 2026.
“With these resources, GAO will continue to focus on the priority needs of the Congress, including five key areas of importance: advancing efforts to address fraud, waste, and abuse in federal programs; evaluating national security activities; assessing the impacts of emerging science and technology issues; assessing efforts to address evolving cybersecurity threats; and analyzing health care spending,” Brown said in prepared remarks to the subcommittee provided by GAO.
“Moving forward, we plan to develop additional estimates of fraud related to federal revenue and for specific program areas and to examine how federal agencies can help prevent schemes that defraud the government and scam Americans,” Brown said.
“In FY 2027, we will continue to evaluate U.S. government efforts across the spectrum of national security activities,” she continued.
“This effort includes focusing on how well the United States can organize, train, and operate complex military forces and intelligence capabilities to meet the challenges laid out in the 2025 National Security Strategy and the 2026 National Defense Strategy,” Brown said, adding, “We will also continue to evaluate DOD’s progress in improving the acquisition of its weapon systems.”
“This work is critical as DOD plans to invest more than $2.4 trillion to develop and acquire its costliest weapon programs,” Brown said.
She also said GAO plans to make targeted investments in its information technology systems, advanced analytic capabilities, and cybersecurity.
“To help drive efficiency, an important focus will be increasing the use of emerging technologies, including artificial intelligence, “the GAO chief said.