It doesn't seem that long ago that Patrick Fitzgerald moved over from Army Audit to sit in the Director's chair at the Defense Contract Audit Agency. Yet, its been about five years already. Now he's retiring at the end of the August (this week) after 35 years of Government service. He was brought in to DCAA at a particularly stormy period of the Agency's existence where everyone - Congress, the GAO, the Inspector General, a number of so-called "watch-dog" organizations, and the press - were piling on stories of inadequate audits, internal strife, and whistle-blower retaliation. One thing Fitzgerald did was calm the waters a bit - you don't hear or read much about DCAA's ills these days. But this came at a cost - DCAA jettisoned a significant amount of its work - audits of proposals under $100 million, most incurred cost audits, contractor financial viability, many internal control audits, to name a few. At the same time, the Agency became less responsive and failed to meet contracting officer needs and expectations. As a result, the Agency which was once the go-to guys for financial advisory services has become the millstone of the procurement community. The latest External Peer Review of the Agency's work, issued earlier this month, downgraded DCAA's work from "Pass" in 2006 to "Pass with Deficiency" in 2014. So it seems that there will be something for Fitzgerald's successor to work on.
A replacement for Fitzgerald has not yet been named.
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