New Audit Goal

Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said today the Pentagon would accelerate its plans to be ready for a full budget audit from 2017 to 2014. The Defense Department has made “significant progress” toward meeting the congressional deadline for audit-ready financial statements by 2017, he said, focusing first on improving the categories of information that are most relevant to managing the budget, but it must do better.

“Today I am announcing that I have directed the Department to cut in half the time it will take to achieve audit readiness for the Statement of Budgetary Resources, so that by 2014 we will have the ability to conduct a full budget audit,” he said. “This focused approach prioritizes the information that we use in managing the department, and will give our financial managers the key tools they need to track spending, identify waste, and improve the way the Pentagon does business as soon as possible.”

He said he has directed the DOD Comptroller “to revise the current plan within 60 days to meet these new goals, and still achieve the requirement of overall audit readiness by 2017.” This plan will move the department closer to fulfilling its responsibility to be transparent and accountable for how its spend taxpayer dollars, he said.