What Has the CAS Board Been Up To Lately?

The Cost Accounting Standards Board (CASB) recently published the agenda for its forthcoming meetings on July 25th and August 21st. These are closed meetings so the public is not invited. Guess we'll have to wait until the minutes are published before we learn whether any significant actions will have been taken.

Agenda topics include:

1. Conformance of CAS to GAAP (Generally Accepted Accounting Principles). The 2017 NDAA (National Defense Authorization Act) requires the CAS Board to review and conform CAS, where practicable, to GAAP. The CAS Board will discuss a Staff Discussion Paper (SDP) addressing conformance of CAS 411 (Materials) and CAS 404 (Capitalization of Tangible Assets) to GAAP.
2. Review of CAS applicability recommendations by the Section 809 Panel. Specifically, the CAS Board will discuss two legislative proposals that were advanced by OMB; the elimination of the Defense CAS Board (which has never gotten off the ground anyway) and decoupling the monetary threshold for CAS applicability from the threshold for TINA (Truth in Negotiations Act). The Section 809 Panel recommended that CAS applicability threshold be raised from $2 million to $15 million.
3. Review of Court and Board Decisions Related to CAS. The FY 2017 NDAA also requires the CAS Board to review on an annual basis disputes before the various BCAs (Board of Contract Appeals) or Federal courts involving its standards to determine whether greater clarity in CAS could avoid such disputes. The Board will discuss recent decisions.
4. CAS Board Working Groups. The Board will assess the need for additional support on its pension harmonization working group and evaluate the need for a dedicated working group to support ongoing work associated with the CAS-GAAP conformance project.