Monday, August 12, 2019

CAS Board Gets a New Chair

The Senate recently confirmed an Administrator of the Office of Federal Procurement Policy (OFPP). He's Michael Wooten and as the Administrator, he's also the de facto Chair of the Cost Accounting Standards Board (CASB). Mr. Wooten replaces Lesley Field who had been the Acting Administrator for OFPP (Office of Federal Procurement Policy). The OFPP sets procurement policies and priorities for the Federal Government.

During his confirmation hearing last May, Mr. Wooten said he would focus on innovation, cost efficiency, cybersecurity protections, small business partnerships and category management (we're not sure what he means by category management. Category management is usually about bundling items. Buyers look for items purchased across the organization and consolidate disparate agreements into a single contract. A category is essentially any group of similar items which the organization wishes to buy under a single deal. We'll just have to wait and see how he intends to implement category management concepts within Government procurement).

Prior to taking over at the OFPP, Mr. Wooten was the senior adviser for federal student aid at the Education Department. Previous to that, he was deputy chief procurement officer for the District of Columbia, an instructor at the Defense Acquisition University, and at the University of the District of Columbia. He is also a retired Marine Corps officer. Nothing in this background indicates him having any accounting expertise or experience which would be a nice to have as CAS Board Chair. Guess he'll have to rely upon his staff and other Board members.

Other CAS Board members include Laurie Schmidgall, Director of Cost Policy at Boeing, Evan Farley, Deputy CFO at GSA (General Services Administration), Yvonne Hinson with the AICPA (American Institute of Certified Public Accountants) and Anita Bales, Director of DCAA (Defense Contract Audit Agency).

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