budget | The Contracting Education Academy

January 25, 2019 By AMK

No, the Pentagon did not waste $28 billion

Last week, headlines blared with claims that the Defense Department had failed to spend $28 billion in time, forfeiting all that money back to the US Treasury.

The story said the Pentagon had “let $28 billion go to waste,” with “tens of billions of dollars unspent” as “time ran out.”

This would be an awesome and scandalous story, were it true. Fortunately, it’s not. Just about all of this $28 billion in taxpayer funds will be spent. What this story really highlights is the arcane complexity of the budget execution process at the world’s largest organization. The Pentagon receives a lot of criticism on many different topics, but this is one instance in which piling on is unwarranted.

Keep reading this article at: https://breakingdefense.com/2019/01/no-the-pentagon-did-not-waste-28-billion/

November 1, 2018 By AMK

Fiscal 2019 could be ‘high-water mark’ of defense spending

With the defense budget enhanced and set for fiscal 2019, contractors should “enjoy the moment,” Pentagon Comptroller David Norquist told an industry audience on Monday.

In processing the newly augmented $700 billion spend that Congress delivered before the start of the fiscal year, many on his finance staff had no recollection, he said, of a time decades ago when the military wasn’t always coping with the uncertainty of multiple continuing resolutions and government shutdown threats.

“We’re in a very different place now,” he told 300 attendees at the Professional Services Council’s 54^th annual Vision Federal Market Forecast conference, held in in Fairfax, Va. “Under a continuing resolution, we often had to wait until spring to do some things—now we can finalize them now or do them on schedule.”

Keep reading this article at: https://www.govexec.com/defense/2018/10/fiscal-2019-could-be-high-water-mark-defense-spending/152390

September 20, 2018 By AMK

‘Unprecedented’ government spending spree picks up speed

The federal government is primed to spend as much as $300 billion in the final quarter of fiscal 2018 as agencies rush to obligate money appropriated by Congress before Sept. 30 or return it to the Treasury Department.

The spending spree is the product of the omnibus budget agreement signed six months late in March coupled with funding increases of $80 billion for defense and $63 billion for civilian agencies. The shortened time frame left procurement officials scrambling to find ways to spend the money.

Through August, defense and civilian agencies obligated some $300 billion in contracts. But to spend all the money appropriated to them by Congress, they may have to obligate well over $200 billion more in the final quarter of fiscal 2018, which ends in two weeks.

Keep reading this article at: https://www.nextgov.com/cio-briefing/2018/09/unprecedented-government-spending-spree-picks-speed/151347/

April 10, 2018 By AMK

Pentagon’s delayed report on services contracts draws union ire

The massive National Defense Authorization Act for fiscal 2018 contained language requiring the Pentagon to provide more detail on its spending plans for $144 billion in services contracts.

But in the Trump administration’s fiscal 2019 budget released in February, the document that provides the most comprehensive information on services contracting was missing. The omission was spotted by specialists at the American Federation of Government Employees, who pointed out that last year’s submission carried more detail, while this year’s was limited to an “advisory and assistance services” document with simple line items.

“DOD has ignored the contract services budget requirement in its FY 2019 budget request,” the union said in a statement to Government Executive. “Instead, the department only submitted information on “Advisory and Assistance” contracts, which constitute a small fraction of one percent of overall DOD service contract spending. With the Trump Administration perceiving DOD as a piggy bank for non-Defense priorities, this continued lack of accountability for at least $144 billion per year in spending requires immediate congressional attention . . . to protect taxpayer dollars.”

Keep reading this article at: http://www.govexec.com/defense/2018/03/pentagons-delayed-report-services-contracts-draws-union-ire/147098/

March 23, 2018 By AMK

Pentagon managers defend $1 billion price tag of largest audit ever

The top financial managers at Pentagon this week assured senators that the nearly $1 billion audit now underway at the Defense department will be worth the price.

Defense Undersecretary and Comptroller David Norquist—under questioning by Senate Budget Committee members seeking efficiencies and defense budget reforms—said the price of $367 million in contract audit costs just in fiscal 2018 is about 1/30th of 1 percent of the Pentagon’s budget. That is “less than what Fortune 100 companies such as General Electric, Proctor & Gamble and International Business Machines Corp. pay their auditors,” he said.

“I anticipate the audit process will uncover many places where our controls or processes are broken,” he told the committee. “There will be unpleasant surprises. Some of these problems may also prove frustratingly difficult to fix. But the alternative is to operate in ignorance of the challenge and miss the opportunity to reform.”

Keep reading this article at: http://www.govexec.com/defense/2018/03/pentagon-managers-defend-1-billion-price-tag-largest-audit-ever/146549

Last week, headlines blared with claims that the Defense Department had failed to spend $28 billion in time, forfeiting all that money back to the US Treasury.

With the defense budget enhanced and set for fiscal 2019, contractors should “enjoy the moment,” Pentagon Comptroller David Norquist told an industry audience on Monday.

The federal government is primed to spend as much as $300 billion in the final quarter of fiscal 2018 as agencies rush to obligate money appropriated by Congress before Sept. 30 or return it to the Treasury Department.

The massive National Defense Authorization Act for fiscal 2018 contained language requiring the Pentagon to provide more detail on its spending plans for $144 billion in services contracts.

The top financial managers at Pentagon this week assured senators that the nearly $1 billion audit now underway at the Defense department will be worth the price.

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