By U.S. Sen. Susan Collins(R-Maine)
It is crucial that government contracts be scrutinized through regular audits to ensure that American tax dollars are beings spent wisely and that contracts are free from waste, fraud, and abuse. It goes without saying that the entities conducting these government contract audits are expected to do so thoroughly, honestly, and effectively. That is why allegations of serious mismanagement regarding some of the work at the Defense Contract Audit Agency (DCAA), the principal auditor for Department of Defense (DoD) contracts, are so troubling. Sen. Joe Lieberman and I directed the Government Accountability Office (GAO) to conduct an extensive investigation into DCAA’s work. The initial findings of this thorough investigation were the focus of a recent hearing of the Senate Homeland Security Committee, of which I am Ranking Member and Senator Lieberman is Chairman.
The GAO’s findings are disturbing. It found “numerous failures” in DCAA’s compliance with government auditing standards. Specifically, the GAO uncovered outrageous conduct and flawed audits at three offices in DCAA’s western region. GAO investigators found cases where DCAA supervisors, who are responsible for ensuring the integrity of the agency’s audits, actually changed audits without justification, benefiting the contractors they were auditing.
The GAO also found instances where inexperienced trainee auditors were assigned overly complex projects without adequate supervision and, most troubling of all, cases where DoD contractors “improperly influenced” the outcome of audits. Investigators also uncovered situations where auditors were intimidated by the managers who supervised them so they would reach certain conclusions on audits, regardless of accuracy.
In one case, DCAA was found to have given a contractor an “adequate” rating, despite the fact that one of the government auditors found that the contractor over-charged the government by $3.5 million. Another contractor was able to recover nearly $270 million it lost on a commercial contract as a result of DCAA’s use of irregular accounting standards on a separate Air Force contract.
These findings indicate that wasteful and perhaps even fraudulent use of taxpayer dollars may well have gone undetected due to a lack of integrity in the audit process.
I am also deeply concerned about GAO’s findings that whistleblowers who reported misconduct were subject to intimidation and threats from supervisors. I continue to be grateful to the DCAA employees who initially helped, though anonymous tips, to expose this wrongdoing by their agency. Congress relies on courageous whistleblowers to expose wrongdoing so that we can improve federal programs and operations. It is critical that supervisors throughout the federal government respect the protections our laws provide whistleblowers and act swiftly to remedy the problems that they identify. This is also another example of why we should strengthen federal whistleblower protections as a bill that I authored with Sen. Daniel Akaka (D-HI) would do.
Later this fall, the GAO will release to the Homeland Security Committee additional findings of its investigation. I look forward to these findings and hope that they can be used to restore DCAA as a first-rate audit agency.
These failures at DCAA illustrate the aptness of a question raised by a Roman satirist nearly 2,000 years ago: “Who shall guard the guardians themselves?” We rely on the many honest and hard-working employees at DCAA to be the first line of defense. When the audit agency fails, problems cascade through the system and shortchange the taxpayers.
Congress must carefully consider what reforms are needed at DCAA in light of these disclosures. The billions of dollars spent on government contracts require a first-rate audit agency to safeguard the public interest.
