Thursday, September 22, 2005

Are there any cost accountants at DOD?

The latest GAO report on the Global War on Terror has some disturbing news about cost control within DOD.

Some quotes from the report:
  • "neither DOD nor Congress can reliably know how much the war is costing and details on how appropriated funds are being spent, or have historical data useful in considering future funding needs."
  • "long-standing deficiencies in DOD's financial systems, the lack of a systematic process to ensure that data are correctly entered into these systems, inaccurately recorded costs and difficulties in properly categorizing costs."
  • "reported obligations for Army reservists in fiscal year 2004 (which ended September 30, 2004) were based primarily on estimates rather than actual information"
  • "inadvertent double counting"
  • "DOD has not updated its policy to address GWOT spending."
  • "DOD has not established guidelines that would require all commands involved in GWOT to take steps to control costs"
It sounds like the basic principles of cost accounting don't exist at DOD.

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