Declining Resources: Selected Agencies Took Steps to Minimize Effects on Mission but Opportunities Exist for Additional Action, GAO-17-79: Published: Dec 20, 2016. Publicly Released: Dec 20, 2016.

“How are agencies responding to smaller budgets? Federal discretionary spending, which funds activities like law enforcement training and worker protection programs, declined by about 12% between fiscal years 2010 and 2015. We looked at the efforts of three federal agencies to manage their declining resources by:

1) Leading from the top e.g., reorganizing staff to better deal with workloads,

2) Using data analytics to guide decisions e.g., making data-driven process improvements, and

3) Reducing costs e.g., consolidating real property.

We recommended three ways to enhance their efforts and developed a framework that other agencies can use….”