The Pentagon wants to tap financial experts from the private sector for short-term assistance as it nears its 2017 deadline for being ready for a full audit.
Sandra Gregory, special assistant to Defense Comptroller Robert Hale, told a House Armed Services Committee (HASC) panel that the Pentagon wants to implement such a program, which would be like the new Information Technology Exchange Program (ITEP) exchange between the Department of Defense (DoD) and private sector.
“The DoD deems that a similar exchange with the Financial Improvement and Audit Readiness Directorate, here at (the comptroller’s office) would reap benefits for the Department towards auditable statements,” she said in a statement to the HASC’s Defense Financial Management and Auditability Reform Panel, before which she testified yesterday.
The Pentagon is working toward the ambitious goal, set in law, to have its financial statement ready to be audited before Oct. 1, 2017. Lawmakers often lament that the DoD’s books cannot be audited. In May, a group of senators including Senate Armed Services Committee Ranking Member John McCain (R-Ariz.), after reading the Pentagon’s latest Financial Improvement and Audit Readiness (FIAR) status report, called on the Government Accountability Office to assess the DoD’s audit preparedness. The HASC then formed the special panel in July to, among other things, assess the effectiveness of Hale’s overall FIAR plan.
Gregory said yesterday in her statement that a pilot program authorizing multi-month exchanges of financial pros between the Pentagon and private sector would include multiple benefits including the sharing of best practices.
Both “parties would gain a better understanding of each other’s practices and challenges,” she said, as well as experience “partnering to address common challenges; and enhancement of competencies of personnel.”
The Pentagon wants to work with the HASC on legislative language creating such a pilot program, she said.
The DoD announced the similar ITEP on July 1, after it was authorized in the fiscal year 2010 defense authorization act.
“ITEP provides an opportunity for both industry and DoD to learn from each other–to enhance employees’ IT competencies and technical skills,” Pentagon Chief Information Officer Teri Takai said at the time.