The Defense Department failed its 2020 financial audit, but in the calculation of experts who monitor such things, that in itself counts as progress. It was only the Pentagon’s third-ever departmentwide financial audit—30 years after such reviews of federal departments and agencies were required by law. While the department also failed its two previous audits, in 2018 and 2019, if the key to solving problems is to first identify them, then the Pentagon is making progress, according to the watchdog group Truth in Accounting.
“They are making progress in the sense that they’re finding more problems than they resolve,” said Bill Bergman, Truth in Accounting’s director of research.
Truth in Accounting used eight criteria along with an inspector general’s analysis, to evaluate how the department did on its fiscal 2020 audit that came out in November. While the timing and planning of the audit had to be adjusted due to the pandemic, the Pentagon nonetheless managed to produce the departmentwide financial review for only the third time since the 1990 Chief Financial Officers Act required such audits.
“Upon reviewing the massive set of documents relating to the audits for DoD and its component entities, we found significant continuing concerns regarding spending in one of the largest agencies in our federal government,” said the report published on Tuesday. “The number of disclaimer opinions and identified material weaknesses remain high, but hopefully the component entities and their auditors are on a learning curv ..
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