Spending Controls | The Contracting Education Academy

December 8, 2014 By AMK

Government oversight group chides DoD for service contract spending

The Project on Government Oversight (POGO) criticized the Defense Department (DoD) for not being able to bring service contract spending under control.

In a Nov. 25, 2014 letter to Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel, POGO charged the DoD with hindering efforts to rein in its service contract spending.

POGO said billions of dollars are being wasted because of the DoD’s failure to assemble contracting data and to implement an Enterprise-wide Contractor Manpower Reporting Application. POGO also said the agency hasn’t adequately staffed its Total Force Management Support Office.

“POGO has reason to believe that this is being done at the urging of the service contractors themselves,” POGO said.

Keep reading this article at: http://www.fiercegovernment.com/story/pogo-chides-dod-service-contract-spending/2014-12-02

Read POGO’s Nov. 25, 2015 letter at: http://pogoarchives.org/m/co/pogo_ics_ltr_to_dod_%2020141125.pdf

Read GAO’s Nov. 19, 2014 report containing finding that DoD had incomplete inventories of its service contracts at: http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-15-88

November 4, 2014 By AMK

Sequestration resulted in deep cuts to DoD procurement spending, report says

The Defense Department has cut contracting dollars by 16 percent in 2013 from the prior year as a result of sequestration, according to a recent report by the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

DoD’s budget was cut by about 8 percent in 2013, from 2012, and spending on procurement took the brunt of the hit, the Oct. 15 report says.

As a share of total gross defense outlays, Defense-funded contract obligations in 2013 have declined from 53 percent to 49 percent, which is the lowest share since 2002, the report says.

Keep reading this article at: http://www.fiercegovernment.com/story/sequestration-resulted-deep-cuts-dod-procurement-spending-report-says/2014-10-21

October 31, 2014 By AMK

Temporary funding benefits Army acquisition

The U.S. Army’s top weapons buyer said temporary funding keeping the government open until December is actually a good thing for the service’s weapons acquisition programs.

Congress passed the short-term measure, known as a continuing resolution, or CR, last month to fund government agencies, including the Defense Department, through Dec. 11, at which point lawmakers will need to take another similar step or pass a full-year budget.

“It’s quite ironic, but in this fiscal environment we’re living in, in which annual base budgets are declining, CR turns out to be great because I can spend what I was authorized last year, right, as opposed to this year, in which inevitably my budget is going to be cut ‚” Heidi Shyu said at last week’s annual conference in Washington, D.C., organized by the Association of the United States Army, an Arlington, Virginia-based advocacy group.

Keep reading this article at: http://www.dodbuzz.com/2014/10/21/shyu-ill-take-temporary-funding-over-budget-cuts/

April 8, 2014 By AMK

State Dept. IG issues alert over $6 billion in contracting money unaccounted for

The State Department’s inspector general has warned the department that $6 billion in contracting money over the past six years cannot be properly accounted for and cited “significant financial risk and . . . a lack of internal control.”

The warning was the second “management alert” in State Department history, both issued by new Inspector General Steve Linick. Linick took over the job in late September, after it had been vacant for nearly six years.

oth the alert, dated March 20, and the department’s response a week later, were made public Thursday, April 3, 2014.

The department said it concurred in all recommendations and outlined steps it will take to address what it agreed is a “vulnerability.”

Linick initiated the alert format to report on problems that remain unaddressed despite repeatedly being identified in IG audits and investigations. The first alert, released in January in partly classified form, cited “significant and recurring weaknesses in the Department of State Information System Security Program.”

Keep reading this article at: http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/state-department-inspector-general-issues-alert-over-6-billion-in-contracting-money/2014/04/03/8ebf465c-bb73-11e3-9a05-c739f29ccb08_story.html

October 31, 2013 By AMK

Report predicts effects of sequestration on DoD budgeting, procurement and operations

If sequestration, created by the Budget Control Act of 2011 (BCA) remains in place over the next decade, the Department of Defense (DoD) budget may drop as much as $415 billion, according to a report issued by the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments (CSBA).

The report — entitled “Chaos and Uncertainty: the Fiscal 2014 Defense Budget and Beyond” — estimates that the military’s authorized procurement level would fall to $62 billion on an annual basis.

The report’s author concludes: “Now that sequestration has gone into effect and the deepest part of the decline from FY 2012 to FY 2013 has already occurred, the BCA budget caps may be more of a ceiling than floor in the coming years.”

To download a full copy of the report, click here.

To view presentation slides about the report, click here.

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