GovernmentExecutive.com

Return to Article: Defense taps independent panel to examine contracting agency

• 56668
  

  So the Defense Business Board, an independent panel of corporate executives, will examine the overall performance of the Defense Contract Audit Agency and report its findings within 60 days. I need to make sure that I understand this. DCAA management has been forcing its government employees to rewrite reports on contract performance to show that they have performed favorably. So a panel of corporate executives will audit the government in their review of DCAA? Could it be that these executives represent the same companies that received the doctored reports on their own company's performance? Who is checking to make sure that they are not skewing their reports? Perhaps the members of the Defense Business Board report directly to their company's CEOs. I think that we have reached the endgame, the government no longer represents its citizens but works directly for contractors. The President and his MBA administration has accomplished much in the past few years.

  Sally Witherspoon Posted August 18, 2008 10:39 PM
• 56441
  

  Having worked for DCAA for decades, I have witnessed the destruction of a once effective and proud Agency. For a variety of reasons (preoccupation with metrics, promotion of people not based on ability, and others factors well known to the DCAA family) the Agency has become dysfunctional and basically inept. Mr Reed, the prior Director had the idea that all auditors are capable of performing any audit. In reality, that was never the case. However, Mr. Reed constructed his Agency along those lines. Mr. Reed never permitted a dissenting voice. I attended meetings where such visionary ideas were raised. In every instance, Mr. Reed reacted with such a distinct negativism that no sane person would feel comfortable raising the issue again. What should have been done was to construct an Agency with experts in certain areas. An effective manager recognizes each person has unique abilities and manages accordingly. DCAA policy over the past years has forced most competent auditor to leave. DCAA is left with a bevy of inexperienced and untrained auditors who are required to perform many audit beyond their abilities. In DCAA ability is rarely an attribute. The CPA, on the other hand, is beyond value. It apparently never occurred to Mr. Reed or his underlings that a CPA doesn't mean a person can audit. It does, however, look nice on the metric sheets! I doubt current DCAA management is capable of reconstructing the Agency to make it, once again, relevant. I think the best solution to the mess is to disolve the Agency. DOD shoud move audit activities such as cost proposals, FPRPs, and Incurred Cost under the DCMA unbrella. DOD should outsource system and CAS audits to organizations willing to invest in area experts. The hidden cost to the taxpayer of incompetent DCAA audits is staggering and has never been addressed. It would be interesting for someone to compute the amount of money contractors and DCMA spend responding to the numerous DCAA audits performed by untrained, inexperienced auditors, supervised by overworked supervisors, managed by FAO managers who report only to the Metrics. What a mess.

  Fred Posted August 14, 2008 1:53 PM
• 56440
  

  I wish to thank Shelley for her insightful comment. Regardless of the amount of pressure they may have to face, front-line DCAA supervisors still need to behave in an ethical and professional manner. If the supervisor cannot stand the heat, then he or she should get out of the kitchen.

  Concerned Citizen Posted August 14, 2008 1:44 PM
• 56439
  

  Don't forget to address who will review GAO's independence...it seems to be taken as a given by everyone. Why is that?

  ralph Posted August 14, 2008 1:13 PM
• 56376
  

  As a former DCAA auditor, any oversight on the Agency at this point is good in my opinion-though I agree with most of these postings, except the one where wives and girlfriends are promoted. (Our office had two married couples, and both wives, myself being one, experienced significant retaliation. The managers who did it were so arrogant that they even left evidence proving it for Regional HQ to find. That was probably the only good use of DCAA's metrics I ever saw by my middle management.)(smile)

  That being said, most DCAA supervisors in my office worked 50-70 hours per week. In addition, DCAA supervisors have been requesting a realignment of their job responsibilities for many years now, but they were always told that first-line supervisors have it difficult everywhere. Having been a first-line supervisor in the commercial world before working for DCAA, I can confidently say the DCAA supervisors have it much worse than any I ever saw during my 20 years in the corporate world. Furthermore, when their job responsibilities continued to increase not decrease, it's no wonder that standards gave way, working papers were not reviewed, & trainees were not supervised.

  More resources need to be directed toward the auditors and first-line supervisors. The behavior of the supervisors might change if they were not under so much pressure themselves.

  Some say that much of the waste that occurs happens at the Headquarters level. Although DCAA's number of auditors is less than half of what it used to be, there are still 5 regional management teams and a full HQ staff. Is all of this necessary?

  Finally, most HQ personnel have not done an audit in 15 or 20 years, and in fact, many of them have never even worked with electronic working papers. These are the folks issuing guidance with which the field auditors must work. When I worked in public accounting, even the partners did audit work to some extent (over/above review/oversight). As many have said, the Agency needs oversight in whatever form for no other reason than to expose how out of touch much of the highest management is within DCAA.

  No, this oversight is not as independent as a commercial world entity would endure after findings like this, but at this point, it's something. As a former DCAA employee, I am at least soothed - if not completely satisfied - with this response.

  Shelley Posted August 13, 2008 3:51 PM
• 56374
  

  Betrayal of public trust is a crime, scrutiny of every tax payer is a must to this agency. Many people around U.S. of A are now living out paycheck to paycheck while others continue to do corruptive, ambitious and dishonest gain at hard earned tax payer dollars, what happen now to people who earns through honest means and looking for greener pasture? Our we going to allow this barbaric act of economic sabotage which our children and the children of our child will suffer in the future? No wonder our economy is drifting down!

  loyal citizen Posted August 13, 2008 2:41 PM
• 56365
  

  Next DoD is going to name former KGB members to monitor Russian compliance with cease fire in Georgia

  TDK Posted August 13, 2008 1:25 PM
• 56345
  

  Please correct me if I'm wrong but doesn't the Defense Contract AUDIT Agency audit contracts (and rates) and the Defense Contract MANAGEMENT Agency administer them?

  Lane Narrows Posted August 13, 2008 9:57 AM
• 56329
  

  Danielle Brian is right on - Who can best judge the most independent element of DCAA - Surely not an industry group whose charter is to support contractors and eliminate DCAA! The cure will most definitely be worse than the illness, coming from an industry group created by Donald Rumsfeld! For example, he initiated the NSPS. That system has practically eliminated bonuses for the common employee and replaced them with crony-ism - taking federal service back to the days prior to the Hatch Act(rewarding top managers with bonuses previously awarded to employees under the former system). Donald Rumsfeld created the worse morale malaise there has ever been in DOD. This cannot be goods in any way, shape or form. The fix?

  1 - Select former DCAA Supervisors to review the agency. Not former managers, because they are not close enough to the issues on a day-to-day basis to know how to fix them and they possibly consulted Bill reed in creating this mess.

  2 - Eliminate NSPS and its unethical way of awarding bonuses to those least deserving because they belong to the Management Country Club and go back to the former system of rewarding employees.

  3 - (Least politically correct and most disgusting of all) Stop promoting women into top management because promoting women seems to be the "flavor of the day". We went from promoting the "Good Ole Boys" (and still do) to promoting their wives and girlfriends! Come on! And consider this - just as the minorities excelled in dominating sports, medicine and education, give minorities a chance to see that they can excel in the business world.

  They say the toughest job in DCAA is being a supervisor because you catch it from both ends,. Been there, done that, got the tee shirt and hat. This proposed "fix" is only meant to satisfy Senator McCasskill. It does not purport to instill meaningful change.

  Former DCAA Supervisor Posted August 13, 2008 8:37 AM
• 56327
  

  I agree with Mr. Brian that the cure may turn out to be much worse than the illness. DoD would have been much better served if they had tasked a panel of cross-agency IGs to examine the overall performance of the Defense Contract Audit Agency.

  Madhu LeFevre Posted August 13, 2008 8:36 AM
• 56326
  

  Everyone should take a step back. Because there are more than one 4 letter agency doing what DCAA is doing. Someone should check them out.

  DOD QA Posted August 13, 2008 8:34 AM
• 56319
  

  Danielle Brian wrote: "Of course it's important to hold the DCAA accountable, but the reality is, it was still the most independent entity in DoD. Now we have a group of defense industry people advising how to 'fix' the DCAA."

  Actually, the Defense Contract Management Agency (DCMA) is the most independent entity in DoD. DCAA only looks at accounting systems, where DCMA overseas contractor's production and quality systems and processes, along with many other contractor business practices. DoD awards the contracts, and DCMA manages them. The focus should be on both DCMA and DCAA, not just one agency.

  I too am concerned with having a group of defense industry people advising how to 'fix' the DCAA. Does the fox and the hen cliché fit here?

  Richard Snelling Posted August 13, 2008 7:57 AM
• 56307
  

  DOD has asked the Defense Business Board to white-wash the DCAA scandal. The Defense Business Board is still part of DOD and is therefore not an independent board. DOD needs to acknowledge that DCAA is a broken agency whose ethical transgressions have come home to roost.

  Concerned Citizen Posted August 13, 2008 4:20 AM
• 56300
  

  Orszag noted that the scale of the contractor deployment in the Iraq conflict is virtually unprecedented. The report found that there is roughly one contractor on the ground in Iraq for every member of the military. That rate is 55 times higher than in the 1990 Gulf War, seven times higher than World War II and five times higher than in Vietnam. A highly critical Government Accountability Office report released in July documented improper management practices at the agency charged with overseeing Defense contracts worth billions of dollars. So what is new? I guess it is time for a new administration, the current one seems to have cleaned out the treasury.

  Jim Carlstedt Posted August 12, 2008 10:09 PM
• 56297
  

  Just amazing -- the Department has the IG performing a review of DCAA and now it has engaged a new Panel to review overall performance of DCAA. By the way, the Defense Business Board is comprised of many indivdiuals that work for contractors that are audited by DCAA. Talk about lack of independence! It seems like an incredible waste of money. The issue in the GAO report involves workpaper documention. What does the Panel intend to do about improved documenation? What does workpaper documenation have to do with a review of overall performance at DCAA? The second issue involves contractors controlling the scope of audits (only 1 case was this issue). So now we get a group of contractors to assess DCAA -- isn't this the very issue the GAO cited. Contractors having undue influence on DCAA? Third involves management abuse of employees -- the GAO has yet to provide any facts and as a result, the IG has to conduct an investigation from scratch -- what a waste of money. I agree that the cure is much worse than the illness. Good job to POGO for giving comments regarding whether this Panel will really be of much use. The Bush Administration really ceased the opportunity on this one -- let's have contractors review DCAA. Good way to solve a problem.

  Frank Posted August 12, 2008 8:34 PM
• 56285
  

  Let's see first the DCAA Director calls into question GAOs findings, and asks for the IG to follow-up on the review, now DoD in anticipation of potential bias on the part of the IG is calling for an independent panel to do a review. Are the members of this panel from the very industry that DCAA is supposed to oversee? I can tell you that their assessment will be glowing; they don't want to upset a good thing!

  Dandy Posted August 12, 2008 6:06 PM