Bales Testifies Before House, Industry refers to DCAA as a “Collection Agency”

DCAA Director Bales testified yesterday before the House Armed Services Subcommittee On Oversight and Investigations. Here is a link to her written testimony: http://docs.house.gov/meetings/AS/AS06/20170406/105777/HHRG-115-AS06-Wstate-BalesA-20170406.pdf

My Highlights:

The Risk Assessment program for incurred cost proposal audits will continue.
Outside CPA firms doing audits of incurred cost proposals are a bad idea because they are not qualified and lack governmental authority.
She opposes proposed legislation requiring GS-14 managers to be CPAs because CPA skills do not translate to government contracting work (Yes, we are going to have fun with that one).
She opposes proposed legislation requiring incurred costs proposal audits to be completed within one year of adequate submission because this would eliminate the efficiency of doing multiyear audits.

What is not clear is if DCAA is actually caught up. In the era of parsing words within the beltway, she states that there still is a backlog and the hiring freeze makes it impossible for them to catch up.

Best line from the industry testimony so far:

David Berteau, Professional Services Council

“As one of our member companies characterized it, DCAA should focus on being an auditing agency, not a collection agency”