The DoD’s discretionary spending is almost half of the total U.S. Government’s discretionary funding. In addition, the DoD owns the majority of the U.S Government’s financial assets—in FY 2018, it reported $2.7 trillion in assets, which is approximately 77 percent of total government assets…
Collectively, these IPA firms assigned over 1,000 auditors to perform the audits of the DoD components. The DoD OIG assigned over 150 auditors to oversee the work of the IPA firms, to conduct individual audits of Components, and to complete the Agency‑Wide Basic Financial Statement audit.
According to the DoD CFO, this was one of the largest financial statement audits in history. The DoD CFO reported that the audit cost approximately $413 million, with $192 million of that paid to the independent public accounting firms, and the remainder covering government costs to support the audits.
However, the scope of the audit was also massive. In total, DoD OIG [Office of the Inspector General] and IPA auditors visited over 600 DoD locations, sent over 40,000 requests for documentation, and tested over 90,000 sample items for the audits of the DoD and its Components.
That was from a nice resource released by the Inspector General on the DOD audit. Accountability is just good business for accountants.
I’m sure that $413 figure doesn’t include any number of other tangential costs. What about the costs of bringing new systems online, or other IT issues that also work toward the audit? The whole ordeal might be in the billions in terms total cost avoidance, but I imagine it’s hard to distinguish between recurring operations, normal investments in financial management, and the FY 2018 audit itself.
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