During Tuesday’s House Oversight Committee hearing, Rep. Brandon Gill (R-TX) questioned Brett Mansfield, the Deputy Inspector General for Audit at the U.S. Department of Defense Office of Inspector General, about the department’s inability to pass financial audits.
Category
🗞
NewsTranscript
00:00Mr. Gill you're recognized. Thank you Mr. Chairman for holding this hearing it's nice to be
00:06part of a bipartisan hearing where I think we can all agree on on what our goals are here
00:11and thank you to the witnesses as well for for taking the time here. Mr. Mansfield can
00:16can you remind us what the uh department of defense's budget was in 2017.
00:30in in 2017. okay it was about 582 billion roughly do you know what it was in 2024.
00:41910 billion so it's a pretty pretty substantial increase is it not that's a lot of money
00:46sorry yes i didn't have my mic on i apologize and uh can you remind us if the the dod has
00:52ever passed an audit uh at the agency-wide level no got it and how many audits has it had recently
00:59seven full full scale audits and how much do those cost um so this year the the cost of uh audit is
01:10right around 211 million dollars
01:16211 million dollars this year i think that's right
01:20yes so it's a lot of money that's a pretty substantial audit is it not it is got it and
01:26uh can can you sort of walk us through some of the the high level reasons why the dod hasn't been
01:33able to to pass an audit well it goes back to what we've been talking about here systems uh is one of
01:39the main things right uh and then more importantly you can have the best system in the world but if
01:43the data that's within that system isn't accurate reliable and supported the system doesn't matter
01:48so it gets to the fundamentals of accounting and in just um operationalizing uh good controls so when
01:56you're on when you receive a shipment you count how many things are in it you validate that the cost
02:02of your charge is what you expected you make sure you've got the right line of uh funding to pay for
02:06that and then you make sure it's in your books in the appropriate in the appropriate place you know
02:10where it's at and what the condition is if if those pieces are missing uh the systems aren't going to
02:15matter and then as as mr khan indicated uh the other thing is the the planning process for the department
02:21and the way it makes decisions they're made piecemeal they're made uh throughout the department
02:25individually for the good of the individual entity uh not always with consideration for the overall
02:31dod approach uh and so i think that is one of the reasons why i have so many problems setting
02:36milestones and sticking with them is uh so many uh individuals making decisions for their own
02:41interest versus stepping back and saying what's the best system for multiple entities entities we
02:46using at the same time so so you have a pretty good idea what what needs to be done in order to
02:51pass an audit at least at a high level um can you help us understand why we haven't passed an audit recently
02:57but just a lack of execution on the on the fundamentals is what i would say and who's held accountable for
03:05that and what what are the consequences whenever the dod fails to to pass an audit well the the real
03:14the real consequence is lack of confidence for the taxpayer and the dod's ability to account for
03:19and and spend right money i i agree but within the dod for instance is there um somebody who who gets
03:26fired who gets demoted who sees their bonuses decreased is there any in any actual action taken
03:33against any individual um or group within the dod for failing to pass an audit i i can't speak to
03:39individual uh personnel actions but i i can say in in the recent in recent years the dod has added at least
03:45at the executive level um an element in the performance uh plans for their executives related to financial
03:52readiness uh getting down to the ability to support individual transactions so there's an accountability
03:57measure they have now uh it's it's up to the department's management to use that effectively
04:02in order to spur change though right but but in other words we're talking about a budget of hundreds
04:07of billions of dollars every single year that and large portions of that are unaccounted for we don't
04:13know where this money is going this is uh taxing my constituents all of our constituents here
04:18um hard-working americans to to keep our country safe which again is something we all agree with and
04:24we haven't seen anybody fired for the what seems to be appears to be a largely a total lack of
04:30accountability we haven't seen any any punitive measures against anybody in the dod is that right
04:38not that i'm aware of got it um you know i i think that as we're thinking about hundreds of billions
04:44of dollars that should be keeping the american people safe we the american people expect transparency
04:50they expect accountability they expect to know where their hard-earned tax dollars
04:55are going and we've got to see some progress here so thank you very much for your time
05:01gentleman yields back his time