NDAA 2020 - Repeal of the Defense Cost Accounting Standards Board (DCASB)

Back in 2015 when Congress was deliberating the 2016 NDAA (National Defense Authorization Act), it created the Defense Cost Accounting Standards Board (DCASB). The DCASB was to be an independent board within the Office of the Secretary of Defense. The seven-member board was to be chaired by the Department's CFO with three Government and three private sector members. Its purpose was to review and recommend changes to existing CAS standards (Cost Accounting Standards) and to implement new standards for Defense contractors to achieve uniformity and consistency in measuring, assigning, and allocating costs to DoD contracts.

The idea of a DCASB was essentially a shot at the CASB (Cost Accounting Standards Board), who, at the time, had become moribund. By 2017, the CASB had not met for more than five years. Recently however, the CASB has been resuscitated and is now meeting somewhat regularly. Hopefully those meetings involve more than getting together for a cup of coffee - we haven't seen substantive meeting minutes yet.

The Section 809 Panel last year recommended that the DCASB be eliminated. Volume 2 of its 3-Volume report included the following:

Creation of the Defense CASB is an attempt to solve the problem of the non-functioning CASB. Adding another regulatory organization is the wrong solution. Government and industry representatives who spoke with the Section 809 Panel expressed they do not support creation of a Defense CASB. Stakeholders are concerned by the many unanswered questions raised by creating this board, including whether the new board will be biased toward DoD issues, and if the two boards will create competing sets of CAS. Creation of a Defense CASB would almost certainly be counter-productive.

DCAA (Defense Contract Audit Agency) also recommended that it be abolished as did the original CASB.

The end has come. Section 810 of the 2020 NDAA repeals 10 USC 190 that authorized the DCASB. We're not entirely sure but we don't think that the DCASB ever formulated in the first place.