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Friday, August 08, 2008
GovExec Exposes Deeper Problems at DCAA
 The problems at the Defense Contract Audit Agency exposed in a GAO report last week that investigated various whistleblower complaints are apparently just the tip of the iceberg at the audit agency. Writing in Government Executive, Robert Brodsky and Elizabeth Newell find that quality problems at DCAA are widespread and that DCAA is a "broken" agency.
"They don't want findings. It makes waves and draws attention so they avoid those types of things so the higher ups don't come down on them," said one former auditor who spent nearly three years at DCAA's Minneapolis branch. "The goal is not to save taxpayers money. People are really too afraid about what they will have to do to back up their findings so they try to avoid them altogether."
The former employees cited a management structure that has sacrificed DCAA's oversight mission on the alter on performance management, rather than simple corruption or malfeasance, as the source of the agency's dysfunction.
"In my opinion, the end result was a massive bloated, soulless bureaucracy that totally lost touch with the taxpayer," the 25-year-employee said, adding that the pressure to close out jobs and produce clean metrics -- or green lights in the stoplight-style measurement system -- was intense and often distracted from efforts to question contractor costs.
"In the end, defense contractors big and small are getting away with murder because they know we at DCAA are slaves to the metrics," the former employee said.
The article reads like a script for "Dilbert Gone Wild", with bosses asking auditors "not to make waves" and to falsify documents because a deadline might otherwise slip. One hopes that congressional hearings are not far behind, because it sounds like there's something seriously wrong in one of the government's most important oversight agencies.
Photo taken by Ansgar Walk; used under a Creative Commons license.
Posted by Craig Jennings
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