DCMA serves as the ACO [administrative contracting officer] with responsibility for more than 20,000 contractors and more than $223 billion in unliquidated obligations.
In 2011, Congress expressed concern about the backlog of incurred cost audits at DCAA and directed GAO to review reasons for the backlog, as well as DCAA’s plan to address it. At that time, DCAA had a backlog of more than 21,000 incurred cost audits. Since 2011, DCAA has reduced its inventory of contractors’ incurred cost proposals awaiting audit by about half to 14,208, and DCAA has substantially reduced its backlog of older proposals.
DCAA’s focus on completing incurred-cost audits has caused the DCMA contract-closeout backlog to increase. It is not a one-for-one relationship. Each incurred cost audit may have many contracts associated with it. Currently, DCMA has a backlog of approximately 65,000 over-aged contracts and can complete an average of 18,000 contracts a year.
As shown in Figure 4-22 [below], DoD recognized that DCMA needed additional resources. DoD provided funding for 30 additional full-time equivalents (FTEs) starting in FY 2019. DCMA developed the Figure 4-22 burn-down plan based on those 30 additional FTEs and the implementation of initiatives described in the discussion above… The light-blue dashed line depicts the point that even if the workforce were augmented again with an additional 30 FTEs starting in FY 2020, DCMA would still not reach a steady state by FY 2022.
That was from the Section 809 Panel Volume III report. DCMA had about three overaged contracts per contractor in 2017. Even with the Low Risk Quick Closeout Process (LRQCO) implemented in 2018 and additional resources they are poised to maintain that backlog.
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