The Department of Defense (DoD) is making sound progress toward meeting full audit accountability and DoD's leaders expect to meet the goal of full financial statement audit readiness by FY2018, according to DoD's Comptroller Mike McCord.

Testifying before the House Armed Services Committee, McCord told the committee achieving auditability is a key element of Secretary Ash Carter's goal of reforming how DoD does business. He said Secretary Carter and the senior leaders of the Military Departments were committed to “achieving and sustaining auditable financial statements.”

McCord stressed that the successes experienced to date demonstrate that DoD is on track to meet its audit goals. “Our focus on the audit has yielded substantial and measurable results over the past couple of years,” he said. He pointed out that the Military Departments audited their budgets for FY2015 and there have been “successful recurring audits” by other DoD components, e.g., the Defense Finance and Accounting Service (DFAS) and Defense Commissary Agency, and Defense Contract Audit Agency (DCAA).

While McCord noted that the Military Department audits did not receive a clean audit statement, “we learned a great deal from our initial effort.” He said “we are making progress, and are fully committed to getting it done.” DoD has a good audit readiness plan and will stick to it, McCord said.

Appearing with McCord were: Robert M. Speer, Assistant Secretary of the Army (Financial Management and Comptroller), Susan J. Rabern, Assistant Secretary of the Navy (Financial Management and Comptroller), and Rocardo A. Aguilera, Assistant Secretary of the Air Force (Financial Management and Comptroller).

In a joint statement the witnesses told the committee that audit readiness is a top priority for the Military Departments. The Army has been using results from its audits to prepare “corrective action plans to focus efforts and resources on remediating deficiencies.” Navy plans “emphasize sustainable, standardized, efficient business processes, improved controls over business processes, and consolidation of information technology (IT) systems.” The Air Force is working closely with auditors “to prioritize findings and recommendations from the audit and implement cost-effective corrective actions.”

The witnesses emphasized that it takes time for an audit infrastructure to be set in place and to “mature.” For example, it took Homeland Security 10 years to get an unmodified opinion on its financial statements for budget resources totaling $89 billion. DoD has about $1 trillion in budgetary resources.

Nevertheless, they stressed that DOD and the Military Departments remain committed to the goals and benefits from achieving clean financial audits.