Maxwell Frost Discusses The DOD And Its Inability To Pass An Audit

3 months ago

At a House Oversight Committee hearing held last week, Rep. Maxwell Frost (D-FL) spoke about the Department of Defense and its inability to pass an audit.

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00:00Gentlewoman yields back her time.

00:04Mr. Frost recognized.

00:06Thank you, Mr. Chair.

00:07So, GAO investigated several national security issues

00:11at the Department of Defense

00:13and made important information sharing

00:15and operational efficiency recommendations

00:17to the department.

00:19The Pentagon frequently conducts simulations of conflicts

00:23or scenarios, so-called war games,

00:25to play at the dynamics of potential conflicts

00:28across the entire world.

00:29These exercises can yield insights

00:32that feed future strategies and policies

00:35for evaluating potential threats and adversaries.

00:38Simulations inform DOD's decision

00:40about warfare concepts, capabilities, and plans,

00:44and each branch hosts their own war games,

00:47as well as participating in simulations as well.

00:49So, Mr. Dodara, what would GAO recommend that the Department

00:53of Defense do differently to make sure

00:56that these exercises have a greater benefit

00:58to national security?

00:59Yes. The department established a central repository

01:03in 2015 to collect all this information

01:06to help make the future plans more effective

01:10and to also then learn from the results

01:13and share the results across the department.

01:15But it's very fragmented.

01:16Nobody's in charge.

01:17We recommend you put somebody in charge of the program

01:20to lead it over time to make it more effective

01:23and that you have better people, I mean, better reporting

01:27of information into a central database

01:29that would be complete and reliable

01:33and allow more effective treatment.

01:35The department agreed with our recommendation

01:38and has commissioned a study to figure

01:40out how best to do this.

01:42You know, the department, as you mentioned,

01:44when we were charged with looking

01:46at overlap, duplication, fragmentation,

01:48DOD's kind of like the poster child for this area

01:52because they're so large and decentralized.

01:55And so there's a lot of opportunities.

01:58And it's because they're committed to their mission,

02:00but everybody's enthusiastic and they start off in launching,

02:04try to improve these areas in good faith,

02:07but they don't have central management leadership

02:09as much as they need.

02:11Yeah, I mean, on the topic of the duplication report,

02:13this subcommittee held a hearing

02:15on examining the root causes

02:17of DOD's financial statements and why they can't be audited.

02:21What does GAO suggest DOD do to help make sure

02:26that it works towards a successful audit?

02:28Yes. First, I might say

02:30that they got a clean opinion this year for the Marine Corps

02:33for the first time, so I was encouraged by that.

02:36They have a good plan, but they need to fix the problems

02:40that their independent auditors identify more promptly.

02:44They're not really fixing them as much as possible.

02:47They also need to get the better control.

02:49Why do you think they're not fixing

02:51as well as possible?

02:51Well, it's a matter of resources to them.

02:55I mean, there's a lot of benefits

02:58that they've received from this thing.

03:00And the auditors keep finding like hundreds of problems

03:04so that the number keeps growing, but the percentage

03:07of them fixing them is stuck at around 20-some percent

03:11of the corrective action.

03:12So they need to move faster.

03:14But part of the, most of the recommendations,

03:17Congressman Frost, deal with their financial systems.

03:21Their systems are not designed properly.

03:26They have a process now that they put in place to make sure

03:30that they're certified, that they meet all the requirements,

03:33and they're going to be auditable, you know.

03:35And, but that compliance

03:39with those requirements is lacking.

03:41And so we've recommended that they better stick

03:45with the guidelines they have in place

03:48to certify these systems.

03:49Not only new ones, ones under development,

03:51but existing systems.

03:53And so we're waiting for them

03:55to react to our recommendations there.

03:57They said they agreed, but we'll see what they do to implement it.

04:01But the system fixes are at the root cause of many

04:04of these corrective actions,

04:06and that's why you don't see greater progress.

04:09Yeah, yeah.

04:09I mean, and the reasoning of resources, I don't know.

04:13I don't quite buy it,

04:14as we're nearing almost $1 trillion defense budget.

04:19What I would say is quite inflated.

04:21But last thing really quick, GAO also noted fragmentation

04:25in DOD research projects on service member fatigue.

04:28The report specifically mentions that the repeated use

04:32of wearable devices, such as smart watches and heart monitors,

04:35to identify and mitigate the root causes

04:37of service member fatigue.

04:39DOD has conducted nearly 50 different studies on this.

04:42What did GAO recommend that DOD change when it comes

04:45to studying the fatigue of service members?

04:47I'll ask Kathy Barrett to do it.

04:49She's our expert in defense capabilities management.

04:53Yeah, thank you.

04:53Yeah, service member fatigue is really a significant issue

04:57at DOD.

04:58By DOD's own studies of their service members,

05:02two-thirds are reporting getting six hours or six

05:05or a few hours of sleep a night.

05:08So this, it's a readiness issue.

05:10It's a safety issue.

05:11It's a health issue.

05:12So there's a lot of research.

05:13And a workplace issue.

05:14And a workplace issue, exactly.

05:16There's a lot of research going on in the department,

05:18both monitoring service member sleep, but also looking

05:22at things like environmental factors.

05:24How can we make, you know, increase the quality of sleep,

05:27as well as the health impacts of sleep?

05:30We identified 130 research projects.

05:33And as you mentioned, 48 in particular were related

05:37to wearable technologies that track service members' sleep.

05:41These projects were very fragmented.

05:43Some of them were looking at the exact same technologies,

05:46the exact same models.

05:48And there was no coordination within the department

05:50to partner on some of this research.

05:53And as you can imagine, lots of different offices

05:55within DOD are doing this.

05:57We looked at cost information for 29 of these 48 projects.

06:01It was 25 million.

06:03DOD's planning on investing hundreds of millions,

06:07a million more in this area.

06:09The Defense Health Agency, for example, is going

06:11to let a contract for 350 million

06:14to look at six wearable technologies.

06:17So there's a lot of opportunity for potential efficiencies.

06:21If you, if DOD doesn't procure one of these technologies,

06:24it's tens of thousands in savings

06:27and potentially hundreds of millions.

06:29Thank you so much.

06:30I yield back.

06:31And thank you to the Chair for allowing the overage.

06:33The gentleman yields back his time.

06:35Thank you very much.

06:35The gentleman, Mr. Leib, is recognized.

06:39Thank you, Mr. Chair.

06:40Thank you so much for being here.

06:41One of the areas, you know, I know there's a lot

06:44of duplication in regards.

Maxwell Frost Discusses The DOD And Its Inability To Pass An Audit

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