DoD Financial Management Hits GAO's High Risk Report

Google ‘federal government waste’ and you’ll get almost 230 million hits on this topic. Countless stories abound about waste and mismanagement of U.S. tax dollars.  Even the late Senator Fred Thompson remarked, “You wonder if anyone is even trying to [fix it]”.  Can anything be done to remove “government waste” as the most superfluous phrase in the American lexicon?

Fortunately, a glimmer of hope may be found in the General Accounting Office’s (GAO) High Risk program. The High-Risk program focuses attention on operations identified as having the greatest vulnerability to fraud, waste, abuse, and mismanagement or in need of transformation to address economy, efficiency or effectiveness challenges. The GAO website publishes High Risk reports biannually, including (among other things) a list of programs most in need of broad reform. The High Risk report discloses the reasons why a program was reported, what GAO found and what remains to be done to resolve the cited problems/issues.   Agencies/programs remain on the list and are continually graded on performance until cited problems are addressed to GAO’s satisfaction and removed from this dubious distinction. The February 2015 issue of the High Risk report lists several major DoD program challenges …as well as identifying potential new opportunities for St. Michael’s Inc. to deploy our business, technical and financial expertise! Some very interesting reading here, folks!

Since its inception in 1990, the High Risk Series list has documented more than $40 billion in financial benefits and 866 other improvements related to high-risk areas. More than one-third of the areas previously designated as high risk have been removed from the list because sufficient progress was made in addressing the problems identified…so maybe there is hope after all!