Improving financial accountability at the Department of Defense: hearing before the Federal Financial Management, Government Information, Federal Services, and International Security Subcommittee of the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, United States Senate, of the One Hundred Eleventh Congress, second session, September 29, 2010.

Improving financial accountability at the Department of Defense: hearing before the Federal Financial Management, Government Information, Federal Services, and International Security Subcommittee of the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, United States Senate, of the One Hundred Eleventh Congress, second session, September 29, 2010.

Recent audits of the fiscal year 1998 financial statements for DOD and the individual military services, performed by the DOD Inspector General (IG) and the service audit agencies, and our report on the U.S. government's financial statements have highlighted many critical DOD financial management problems. These problems not only hamper the department's ability to produce timely and accurate financial management information, but also significantly impair efforts to improve the economy and efficiency of its operations. Key areas of concern relate to ineffective asset control and accountability, which affects DOD's visibility over weapons systems and inventory, and unreliable cost and budget information, which affects DOD's ability to effectively measure performance, reduce costs, and maintain adequate funds control.

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For FY 1992, the U.S. Army's annual appropriations totaled about $72 billion and its noncash assets were reportedly valued at $292 billion. The Army's financial accountability for billions of dollars of resources is seriously impaired by weaknesses in systems that account for and report its disbursements, inadequate controls over automated data processing of financial and logistics information, and limited progress in DoD-wide efforts to improve financial management. Charts and tables.

In 2004, we reported that DOD lacked a comprehensive and integrated strategic plan with key milestones, measures/metrics, accountability mechanisms, or cost estimates for achieving financial statement auditability. While the FIAR Plan identifies three goals for improving DOD financial information and achieving audit readiness, it does not contain the key elements of a strategic plan that we have previously reported as necessary for successful DOD business transformation. During our review of DOD's September 2008 FIAR Plan, we identified the following areas that the department needs to address to improve the FIAR Plan as a strategic and management tool: clear guidance is needed in developing and implementing improvement efforts; no clear baseline exists against which incremental progress can be measured; linkages between FIAR Plan goals and corrective actions and reported accomplishments are not always clear; clear results-oriented metrics for measuring and reporting incremental progress are needed, and accountability is not clearly defined or assigned and resources budgeted and consumed are not identified. We also identified recent actions the department is taking to begin to address many of the issues we have identified above.

"Department of Defense (DOD) has initiated several efforts over the years to address its long-standing financial management weaknesses and ultimately achieve unqualified (clean) opinions on its financial statements. In 2005, the DOD Comptroller first issued the Financial Improvement and Audit Readiness (FIAR) Plan for improving financial management and reporting. In May 2010, the DOD Comptroller issued the FIAR Guidance to provide standardized guidance to DOD components for developing Financial Improvement Plans (FIP) to implement the FIAR Plan.GAO's testimony focuses on (1) progress made by the DOD Comptroller in developing and issuing the FIAR Guidance, (2) challenges faced by DOD components in implementing the FIAR Guidance, and (3) improvements needed in DOD's oversight and monitoring of FIAR implementation efforts.This statement is based on four audits that were undertaken at the request of this subcommittee and other congressional requesters to evaluate the progress DOD is making in implementing its FIAR Plan and FIAR Guidance. GAO addresses findings and recommendations from two reports being issued this week (GAO-11-830 and GAO-11-851) and preliminary information from two ongoing audits. Each audit demonstrates some of the challenges DOD faces in improving its financial management and achieving..."