Senator Wonders How DCAA is Progressing in Reducing its Backlog of Incurred Cost Audits

On Monday of this week, Senator Clair McCaskill in her position as ranking member of the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, sent a letter to the Defense Department requesting "detailed information regarding the audit backlog at the Defense Contract Audit Agency (DCAA)".

Last month, GAO (Government Accountability Office) issued a report that was somewhat critical of DCAA's progress in reducing the backlog of annual incurred cost proposals waiting for audit (see New GAO Report on DCAA Incurred Cost Audits).

In response to that report, DoD promised a number of corrective actions that did little more than resolve to study the issue. Specifically, DoD stated that it would (i) assess and implement options for reducing the length of time to begin incurred cost audit work and (ii) conduct a comprehensive analysis regarding the use and effect of multi-year audits.

This is a very non-committal response and everyone probably hoped the report would end up in a dead letter office somewhere.

But Senator McCaskill wasn't about to let that happen. She has asked for a status of DoD's implementation of the corrective actions it promised the GAO. Specifically, the Senator requested that the Defense Department provide the following data:

1. The current inventory of incurred cost audits at DCAA.
2. The plans and expedited timeline for reducing DCAA's audit backlog to 18 months of inventory.
3. The current status and timeline for completion or previous promises (the was a specific reference to DoD's response to a GAO report critical of DCAA's timeliness that it plans to assess and implement options for reducing the length of time to begin incurred cost audit work and to conduct a comprehensive analysis regarding the use and effect of multi-year audits by March 31, 2018).

You can read more about the Senator's concerns here. A copy of the Senator's letter is here.