Federal Manager's Daily Report

A bipartisan group of eight senators is urging DoD Secretary James Mattis to bring his department into compliance with a requirement that took effect in 1992 to produce a clean audit.

“Twenty-five years later, DoD is the only agency yet to comply. This inability to account for expenditures does a disservice to the American taxpayer and threatens our national security,” the letter says.

“Clean audits inherently provide controls that guard against fraud, waste and abuse. They also enable more efficient and effective spending on critical programs and bring the department in compliance with federal law,” it says.

It adds that the September 30 deadline set in a 2010 law reinforcing the audit compliance requirement for DoD “is rapidly approaching” and reminded Mattis that “during your confirmation hearing, you committed to running a more efficient and transparent department and to cooperate with Congress. This gives us confidence that you will succeed where your predecessors have failed.”

They said a critical step toward meeting the deadline is fixing the “inadequate accounting systems that appear to make obtaining a clean audit unachievable.”