[Joint House and Senate Hearing, 112 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
NEW AUDIT FINDS PROBLEMS IN ARMY MILITARY PAY
=======================================================================
JOINT HEARING
before the
SUBCOMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT ORGANIZATION,
EFFICIENCY AND FINANCIAL MANAGEMENT
of the
COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT AND GOVERNMENT REFORM
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
and the
SUBCOMMITTEE ON FEDERAL FINANCIAL
MANAGEMENT, GOVERNMENT INFORMATION,
FEDERAL SERVICES, AND INTERNATIONAL SECURITY
of the
COMMITTEE ON HOMELAND SECURITY AND
GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS
U.S. SENATE
ONE HUNDRED TWELFTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
__________
MARCH 22, 2012
__________
Serial No. 112-154
__________
Printed for the use of the Committees on Oversight and Government
Reform
Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.fdsys.gov
http://www.house.gov/reform
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COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT AND GOVERNMENT REFORM
DARRELL E. ISSA, California, Chairman
DAN BURTON, Indiana ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland,
JOHN L. MICA, Florida Ranking Minority Member
TODD RUSSELL PLATTS, Pennsylvania EDOLPHUS TOWNS, New York
MICHAEL R. TURNER, Ohio CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York
PATRICK T. McHENRY, North Carolina ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, District of
JIM JORDAN, Ohio Columbia
JASON CHAFFETZ, Utah DENNIS J. KUCINICH, Ohio
CONNIE MACK, Florida JOHN F. TIERNEY, Massachusetts
TIM WALBERG, Michigan WM. LACY CLAY, Missouri
JAMES LANKFORD, Oklahoma STEPHEN F. LYNCH, Massachusetts
JUSTIN AMASH, Michigan JIM COOPER, Tennessee
ANN MARIE BUERKLE, New York GERALD E. CONNOLLY, Virginia
PAUL A. GOSAR, Arizona MIKE QUIGLEY, Illinois
RAUL R. LABRADOR, Idaho DANNY K. DAVIS, Illinois
PATRICK MEEHAN, Pennsylvania BRUCE L. BRALEY, Iowa
SCOTT DesJARLAIS, Tennessee PETER WELCH, Vermont
JOE WALSH, Illinois JOHN A. YARMUTH, Kentucky
TREY GOWDY, South Carolina CHRISTOPHER S. MURPHY, Connecticut
DENNIS A. ROSS, Florida JACKIE SPEIER, California
FRANK C. GUINTA, New Hampshire
BLAKE FARENTHOLD, Texas
MIKE KELLY, Pennsylvania
Lawrence J. Brady, Staff Director
John D. Cuaderes, Deputy Staff Director
Robert Borden, General Counsel
Linda A. Good, Chief Clerk
David Rapallo, Minority Staff Director
Subcommittee on Government Organization, Efficiency and Financial
Management
TODD RUSSELL PLATTS, Pennsylvania, Chairman
CONNIE MACK, Florida, Vice Chairman EDOLPHUS TOWNS, New York, Ranking
JAMES LANKFORD, Oklahoma Minority Member
JUSTIN AMASH, Michigan JIM COOPER, Tennessee
PAUL A. GOSAR, Arizona GERALD E. CONNOLLY, Virginia
FRANK C. GUINTA, New Hampshire ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, District of
BLAKE FARENTHOLD, Texas Columbia
Senate Subcommittee on Federal Financial Management, Government
Information, Federal Services, and International Security
THOMAS R. CARPER, Delaware, Chairman
CARL LEVIN, Michigan SCOTT P. BROWN, Massachusetts
DANIEL K. AKAKA, Hawaii TOM COBURN, Oklahoma
MARK L. PRYOR, Arkansas JOHN McCAIN, Arizona
CLAIRE McCASKILL, Missouri RON JOHNSON, Wisconsin
MARK BEGICH, Alaska ROB PORTMAN, Ohio
John Kilvington, Staff Director
William Wright, Minority Staff Director
Deirdre G. Armstrong, Chief Clerk
C O N T E N T S
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Page
Hearing held on March 22, 2012................................... 1
WITNESSES
Lieutenant Colonel Kirk Zecchini, U.S. Army Reserve
Oral statement............................................... 5
Written statement............................................ 7
Mr. Asif Khan, Director, Financial Management and Assurance, U.S.
Government Accountability Office
Oral statement............................................... 16
Written statement............................................ 18
Mr. James Watkins, Director, Accountability and Audit Readiness,
Deparment of the Army
Oral statement............................................... 31
Written statement............................................ 33
Jeanne M. Brooks
Oral statement............................................... 37
Written statement............................................ 39
Mr. Aaron Gillison, Acting Director, Defense Finance and
Accounting Service, Indianapolis, Department of Defense
Oral statement............................................... 41
Written statement............................................ 43
APPENDIX
The Honorable Tom Carper, U.S. Senator from the State of
Delaware, Opening Statement.................................... 60
The Honorable Scott Brown, U.S. Senator from the State of
Massachusetts.................................................. 64
The Honorable Edolphus Towns, a Member of Congress from the State
of New York, Opening Statement................................. 66
Follow up questions and answers.................................. 68
NEW AUDIT FINDS PROBLEMS IN ARMY MILITARY PAY
----------
Thursday, March 22, 2012
House of Representatives,
Committee on Oversight and Government Reform,
Subcommittee on Government Organization, Efficiency and
Financial Management, joint with the Senate Subcommittee on
Federal Financial Management, Government Information,
Federal Services, and International Security,
Washington, D.C.
The committees met, pursuant to notice, at 10:06 a.m. in
room 2154, Rayburn House Office Building, the Honorable Todd
Platts [chairman of the House Subcommittee on Government
Organization, Efficiency and Financial Management] presiding.
Present: Representatives Platts, Issa, Towns and Connolly.
Also present: Senator Carper.
Staff Present: Kurt Bardella, Majority Senior Policy
Advisor; Molly Boyl, Majority Parliamentarian; Linda Good,
Majority Chief Clerk; Mark D. Marin, Majority Director of
Oversight; Tegan Millspaw, Majority Research Analyst; Mary
Pritchau, Majority Professional Staff Member; Rebecca Watkins,
Majority Press Secretary; Jaron Bourke, Minority Director of
Administration; Beverly Britton Fraser, Minority Counsel; Devon
Hill, Minority Staff Assistant; Jennifer Hoffman, Minority
Press Secretary; and Carla Hultberg, Minority Chief Clerk.
Mr. Platts. We are pleased to also have the Chairman of our
full committee, Mr. Issa, and our Ranking Member, Mr. Towns,
with us.
In the interest of time, I am going to submit my formal
statement.
I would highlight that our real focus here is really to
achieve two purposes, how do we do a better job of doing right
by our men and women in uniform and their families to make sure
they are paid and compensated in an efficient, effective and
accurate manner without the need for corrections after the fact
repeatedly, as we will hear from our first witness what is, in
some ways, described as just the norm for military personnel to
expect problems with their pay. How do we do right by our men
and women in uniform and their families in that regard?
How do we better protect all American taxpayers that the
funds they send here are efficiently handled and appropriately
handled so that we do not have the misuse of funds or the
inaccurate disbursement of funds?
We have two primary goals, do right by the military and
their families, do right by American taxpayers and collectively
through this hearing advance that joint effort in the coming
months and years as we especially work towards the ability to
audit the Department of Defense and all of its related entities
by 2017.
With that, I will yield to the Chairman of our Senate
Subcommittee for the purpose of an opening statement.
Senator Carper. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I would ask unanimous consent that my full statement be
made a part of the record, if I could.
Mr. Platts. Without objection.
Senator Carper. I will summarize very briefly.
You are good to do this, to let an old House member come
back and work with you, Mr. Towns, Chairman Issa and others on
what I believe is not the sexiest issue but is a real important
issue.
Colonel, we welcome you. We are delighted to see you and
are privileged to have served with you in the service of our
country.
I was in the Navy for five years, active duty, during the
Vietnam War. We were in California, we were all over the U.S.
In California, our squad was home-based at Moffett Field Naval
Air Station and then off to Southeast Asia. We bounced all over
the Pacific with a lot of missions in and out of Thailand, the
Philippines and Japan and everywhere. It was hard to keep our
pay straight in a war and given the nature of the business we
were in.
I understand it is not an easy thing to do. It is made all
the more difficult when people are at war, people deployed and
serving combat positions all over the world. It is hard.
Having said that, we can do this better. Everything I do, I
know I can do better. We can do a better job of this. We had a
very good demonstration yesterday in our full committee, the
Homeland Security Committee in the Senate where our witness was
Janet Napolitano, the Secretary of the Department of Homeland
Security.
They have an obligation to become audit-ready by 2014. They
are a new department, they are standing up and have sort of
meshed together what a lot of folks call a dogs breakfast of a
department because it has so many different new elements that
have been kind of crammed together to form one.
She announced this week that their financials will be
auditable this year, two years ahead of schedule. If they can
do that at the Department of Homeland Security, we have to be
able to do better at the Department of Defense in meeting their
goal of 2017.
God bless Leon Panetta with whom I served in the House for
a number of years. He has a tough job, everyone knows that. The
Secretary of that Department, the Secretary of any Department
is a tough job but that one in the time of war is about as hard
as it gets. He is also trying to make sure that his Department
complies with the law with respect to their financials becoming
auditable by 2017. He wants to beat the date of 2017. My firm
hope is that will be the case.
Among the reasons why that is so important, for him or
whoever is going to be managing the Department in the future,
if we don't have good financials, if we don't have good
accounting systems, if we don't have good technology, we are
doomed. We look at these huge budget deficits of trillions of
dollars coming down, but still way too much and we have to be
able to get better results for less money. This is a part of
it, like ground zero where it starts.
I look forward to a constructive hearing from our
witnesses. We appreciate the work that GAO has done on this and
look forward to hearing from our friends from the Army, too.
Again, the spirit here is if it isn't perfect, make it
better. We have to do better, all of us, and that includes me.
Thank you.
Mr. Platts. Thank you, Senator Carper.
I yield to the Chairman of the full committee, Mr. Issa.
Mr. Issa. Thank you and I, too, will be brief and submit
for the record.
I came here for two reasons. First of all, when the House
of the people and the other house get together, it means that
we have what it takes to move positive legislation all in one
room. It is always preferable to have us hear the same thing
and come away from a hearing knowing that we have to act and
how we have to act.
The second reason is that Colonel, like you, I was an
enlisted man, paper leave and earnings statements. In 1970, it
was real paper as it was for Senator Carper. If one piece of
paper got ripped out of there, it was gone forever.
My enlisted time was fairly uneventful, although I had a
lot of TDY and a lot of different supplemental dollars as an
EOD, enlisted man. When I was commissioned, I saw the other
side of it. I was responsible for up to 200 men and women who
were constantly having to get compassionate pay, having to get
$25 or $50 because when they PCSed in, the paperwork got lost.
We would keep them sometimes for a couple of months, not
getting their real pay because there was a problem,
particularly if they were coming from overseas.
That was approaching half a century ago. We have come a
long way. We have come from paper to electronic but we haven't
come far enough to have the kind of proactive effort to where
you should never have to say how do we pay this person, what do
we do? Do we send them to USO or do we in fact, find some other
way. More importantly, do we no longer have people who receive
pay and then somehow, we say that was a snafu and for the next
six months, we are going to be deducting.
I represent Camp Pendleton. As a result, I see that
happening. I see naval assets and private assets have to find
ways to take care of families because there has been an
overpayment and it has to be repaid.
Last, but not least, I had the pleasure of leaving the Army
and the only time I have been personally audited was the year I
left the Army. There is nothing worse than trying to explain
all these various per diems and pays that are tax free if x, y
and z to a man who has never served in the military but whose
job it is to try to get a little money out of you.
I believe when we get to where we do the job right, it will
make a huge difference for our men and women in uniform,
especially those who have families who are also earning and
have to bring these together in a predictable way to make
payments.
I am glad to see that my good friend, Chairman Towns, is
also here. That gives an awful lot of legacy of this committee
to hear it and respond.
Mr. Chairman, Mr. Chairman, Mr. Chairman, I thank you all
for being here today and I yield back. Chairmen are cheap here,
aren't they?
[Laughter.]
Mr. Platts. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. We appreciate your
interest in the important topic and your own service in uniform
as well.
I will now yield to the Ranking Member and former Chairman
of the full committee as well as this subcommittee, Mr. Towns
from New York.
Mr. Towns. Thank you very much.
Let me say you are right. I called someone Mr. Chairman on
the elevator and about seven members looked around, you are
right, there are a lot of folks around, ex and former chairmen
and all of that.
Let me just say, Mr. Zecchini, that I am really happy to
see you, a person who served in the military more than 50 some
years ago, ROTC and all of that. To have had problems with my
own pay while I was in there on several occasions, every time
they would transfer me somewhere, I would always have problems
with my check catching up with me. I was one who needed my
check in advance. To have to worry about your pay and at the
same time defending this country to me is just something that
should not happen.
I want to salute you for your many, many years of service.
We feel that we owe it to our military personnel to make
certain they get paid on time.
I am happy to see that we have Senator Carper, my
classmate, here with me and of course Chairman Platts and of
course the Chairman of the full committee as well, Chairman
Issa.
I think this is the way we go about it, hearing from people
who have had these experiences and at the same time, folks on
this side of aisle who are committed to trying to make certain
the situation changes.
On that note, Mr. Chairman, I will submit my entire
statement for the record and look forward to hearing from the
witnesses.
Mr. Platts. Thank you, Mr. Towns.
We will keep the record open for seven days for opening
statements and extraneous material.
We are going to move to our witnesses. In the interest of
time, if I could ask not just the Colonel, but all of our
witnesses on the second panel also, to stand and I will swear
you all in at the same time. Please rise and raise your right
hands.
Do you solemnly swear or affirm that the testimony you are
about to give will be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing
but the truth?
[Witnesses respond in the affirmative.]
Mr. Platts. May the record reflect that all witnesses
answered in the affirmative. Please be seated.
Colonel Zecchini, we are delighted to have you here with
us. The Colonel is currently serving with the United States
Army Reserve but soon to mark almost 30 years of service in one
capacity or another in uniform to our Nation. We certainly are
grateful for those many years of service and appreciate both
your written testimony and your willingness to be here in
person today.
We will set the timer for all of our witnesses at five
minutes. Because of time constraints, you could try to stay
within that time limit it will help us get to a chance to have
a good exchange with the Q and A.
Colonel, the floor is yours.
WITNESS STATEMENTS
STATEMENT OF LIEUTENANT COLONEL KIRK ZECCHINI, U.S. ARMY
RESERVE
Colonel Zecchini. Chairman Platts, Chairman Carper, Ranking
Members Towns and Brown, and members of the two subcommittees,
thank you for the opportunity to appear this morning.
During the span of my military career covering 28 years,
mostly as a member of the Ohio National Guard, I have
personally experienced a wide variety of military pay problems.
Serving as a traditional Guardsman, a full-time, active duty
soldier and as a federal technician has provided me with a
broad range of opportunities and challenges.
In my experience in the military, pay problems are
considered a normal part of Army life. Very early in my career
as a Second Lieutenant, I was mentored to keep a running travel
log to track my pay, allowances, per diem and travel costs.
This guidance proved to be valuable as I began to perform more
frequent temporary duty and additional duties with the Ohio
National Guard.
Travel vouchers were sometimes lost or misrouted during
processing. For the most part, situations like this were easily
fixed at the unit level as long as I could reproduce original
claim documents such as orders, pay vouchers, receipts, et
cetera.
Later, as a field grade officer, my pay problems became
more complex during my first deployment to Afghanistan in 2003.
My original mobilization order was not to exceed 180 days but I
volunteered to extend for an additional six months. The
extension order was published but my military pay stopped
promptly at the end of my original order. It took approximately
one and a half months to have this issue resolved while I
continued to perform in Afghanistan without pay.
Immediately following my combat tour in Afghanistan, I
began a series of missions throughout Southeast Asia and the
Pacific Rim performing humanitarian assistance and humanitarian
civic assistance in various developing countries. Several of
the countries in which I worked were designated for special
allowances such as hostile fire pay and hardship duty location
pay, which varied by amount per location. These pay types were
not familiar to me.
Upon my return to Ohio in August 2004, I inquired with my
unit administrator pay clerk about being paid the additional
allowances but this was also new terrain to the unit, so my
inquiry was sent up the chain of command to the Ohio Army
National Guard State Headquarters for review by military pay
and ultimately to the Comptroller.
After several months of emails and non-action, I created a
spreadsheet which reflected duty locations, orders, dates,
allowances, pay and per diem. All entries were color coded to
reflect status of payment. Several more months went by until I
finally had to write a memo to the Ohio Inspector General
requesting assistance.
I eventually got paid for all requested allowances late in
2005 while deployed in Iraq, approximately one and a half years
after the initial performance of duty.
During my deployment to Iraq in 2005 to 2006, I was
assigned to an active duty unit along with a team of 10 other
Ohio National Guardsmen. Our parent unit from Ohio was located
in Baghdad. My team was deployed north in Tikrit. Three or four
months into our deployment, we were notified that some
particular tax was being withheld and that we all needed to
complete additional paperwork in order to have the money
refunded and the withholding to cease. This process was neither
simple nor convenient while working in an austere environment.
Dealing with pay problems while in a combat zone is not
something that anyone should have to worry about, yet this was
my second episode in as many tours.
Since resigning and receiving an honorable discharge from
the Ohio Army National Guard in June 2011, my pay problems have
continued. Just last week, I received a leave and earnings
statement for performance of duty on January 5, 2012 only to
learn that the checking account number was entered incorrectly,
so my pay was not deposited into my bank account.
I just heard yesterday, two and a half months later, from
the Army Reserve Finance Office that they think they have
resolved the situation. I have also recently received four
separate notices from DFAS indicating a debt collection that
there is no indication of the reason or how I should contest
these erroneous claims. These debt collections seem to have
been initiated by the Ohio Army National Guard even though I
have not been a part of this organization since June of 2011.
Thank you once again for this opportunity to testify this
morning. Now that my eldest son is serving proudly in
Afghanistan, I am especially interested to see that he and his
fellow soldiers are properly taken care of while performing
their duties and without distractions of pay problems.
He loves being a soldier as much as I have always loved
being a soldier and I want nothing more than to see him come
home safely. It is all about taking care of soldiers.
[Prepared statement of Colonel Zecchini follows:]
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T5110.001
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T5110.002
Mr. Platts. Colonel, thanks for your testimony and
especially your service and now your eldest son's service as
well. Certainly Godspeed to him and all who are out there in
harms way on our behalf.
Your testimony here today throughout your almost 30 years
of service is kind of the norm, nothing new. Can you share more
often than not when there is an error of some degree, is it
something that more likely you identified or questioned because
of uncertainty and have had to initiate the efforts to correct
those errors or would it be more the norm that the military,
whether it be the Guard, the Reserve, active duty, units you
have served with, that they have caught the errors and then
come to you to try to correct them?
Colonel Zecchini. I don't recall anybody in the military
ever coming to me to identify a pay issue. I would have to say
you have to read your LES, you have to understand what you are
looking at.
Mr. Platts. So when those problems are identified, it is
because you have to basically, in addition to worrying about
the enemy out there if you are in harms way, you or your family
back home looking at each pay to try to make sure you are
getting what you are supposed to, not less, not more but the
onus falls to you and all of our soldiers, airmen, sailors
individually?
Colonel Zecchini. Correct.
Mr. Platts. The example you give of when you were in Iraq,
in essence, your whole team of I think you said 10 Ohio
Guardsmen that who were attached, in that case it was a tax
issue?
Colonel Zecchini. It was some sort of withholding from
Ohio.
Mr. Platts. Did that come from back home?
Colonel Zecchini. I believe somebody in Ohio identified
that this should have been taken care of at the mobe site at
the mobilization station and for whatever reason, it wasn't
picked up, so we had to do the paperwork down range.
Mr. Platts. Was it a federal tax issue?
Colonel Zecchini. As I recall, it was some sort of State
withholding.
Mr. Platts. Did you each individually have to then move
forward to correct it for your own taxes and payroll or was
there assistance that applied to all of you, we will take care
of it?
Colonel Zecchini. Each person had to do their own paperwork
and each person was responsible to fax it back to the unit
which made it a challenge when we were spread all over northern
Iraq. It was not such an easy task.
Mr. Platts. I have had the privilege to visit our troops 11
times in Iraq and 8 in Afghanistan and I try to get to those
remote places. I have been to Tikrit and some of the FOBS and
get out there and one just logistically doing it and someone
who is more remote, I think of a base in the mountains of
Afghanistan where a young Army Captain, Adam King, leading
about 70 soldiers, you flew in by helicopter or got there by
mule but not a very easily accessible point. If they are
experiencing these types of problems, all the more challenging
to correct them and then hardship for families back home if the
pay is not correct.
In your time, have you ever had an instance where because
pay was not properly provided to you that it caused a financial
hardship because of an incorrect balance in a checking account?
Are you aware that any soldiers you have served with have had
that problem?
Colonel Zecchini. From my personal experience, the only
real hardship that I encountered was when I was in Afghanistan
and my pay just stopped for about a month and a half. I still
had a mortgage and I still had bills to pay back home.
Fortunately, I had a little bit of savings while I was
deployed. That was a pretty tense period not knowing when the
pay was going to be turned back on again.
Mr. Platts. In that example where it was delayed, was there
any compensation, meaning interest for the two months that were
not properly paid, when it finally was?
Colonel Zecchini. No, sir.
Mr. Platts. Again, I appreciate your service and your
efforts in being here today that we do right by your son and
all who are and will be serving us. That is the goal ultimately
of this hearing and our continued oversight work, that we do
right by those who are so courageously serving all of us.
With that, I yield to Senator Carper.
Senator Carper. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
My dad was a Chief Petty Officer in the Navy for many
years. During the time I served active and reserves, about 23
years, some of the best officers I served with were folks who
have been prior enlisted and earned commissions and became an
officer, and for the most part, performed admirably. How long
were you enlisted?
Colonel Zecchini. Five years.
Senator Carper. How did you get your commission?
Colonel Zecchini. Through Officer Candidate School, OCS.
Senator Carper. I am going to ask you a question, then make
a comment and then I am going to ask a question. The question I
am going to ask you so you can think about it is this. We have
some folks gathered here today who are responsible for trying
to fix this problem. The question I would ask you is help us
help them fix the problem for other folks, so just be thinking
about that and give us some practical advice as to how to do
that.
The question I want to ask before that is my guess is you
weren't the only person you served with who has had some
problems with pay. We did in my unit then and I presume you had
similar problems in your units. Were the problems of a nature
similar to those you experienced or were they different, were
there any commonalities, or was it just across the board, a
wide variety of problems?
Colonel Zecchini. I can't say that I have ever experienced
the same problem twice.
Senator Carper. When you think of your colleagues with whom
you served, did they have similar problems or were they
different kinds of problems?
Colonel Zecchini. I would have to say different. Again, my
experiences were kind of different from the typical Guardsman
where I had a lot of active duty time, a lot of TDYs and I did
a lot more outside of the one weekend a month, two weeks in the
summer. Yes, I would have to say mine are probably a little bit
different and broader than most of my peers.
Senator Carper. I think you said you had a period of a
month or two where you didn't get paid at all. When I was
overseas, I was not married and had no wife or children and the
Navy pretty much took care of our immediate needs. They fed us
and there was a place to sleep, there was medical care and that
kind of thing, so guys like me were able to save every other
paycheck. We didn't make much money but we didn't spend much
either. I had no wife or children to support. I tried to help
my sister a little bit to go to college but that was the only
big obligation that I had.
That is not the case with a lot of folks, especially today
when we have a lot of Reservists deployed, actively deployed,
we have a lot of Guardsmen and women actively deployed and a
lot of them do have families. When they have problems with
their pay, it is a whole lot more difficult, a lot more
complex.
Put yourself in the position of providing good advice sort
of through us but with us to the folks charged with fixing
these problems. I realize we will never get to perfection but
that should be our goal. If you were to provide some good
advice, friendly advice to the folks charged with fixing this,
and our job is oversight and making sure that it is addressed,
what would be the advice? It can be fairly general, doesn't
have to be very specific.
I will give you an example. We had a guy before us
testifying on the Finance Committee a couple months ago on
deficit reduction. I asked him what we need to do on deficit
reduction. He is Alan Blinder, former Vice Chairman of the
Federal Reserve, Professor of Economics at Princeton. I said
what should we do about deficit reduction? His big deal on
deficit reduction is health care costs. If we don't reign in
health care costs, we are doomed. He said, I am not a health
economist.
I said what should we do about health care to reign in
health costs. He said, I am not a health economist but here is
what I would do. I would find out what works and I would do
more of that. That is exactly what he said. I would find out
what works and do more of that. I said, you mean find out what
doesn't work and do less of that? He said, yes.
Actually that is pretty good advice in everything we do not
just in reigning in health care costs. What should we do here?
What should the folks at the Department of Defense do to help
address this problem?
Colonel Zecchini. Obviously, I have seen a lot of changes
in 28 years from paper statements to electronic statements now
and those have all been good things. Most recently, the Defense
travel system came online where you can enter your travel
claims online and that was huge. That really took the paperwork
piece and streamlined the process for travel vouchers. You get
paid now in three or four days where it used to take a month
sometimes to get your travel pay.
Senator Carper. That is a great improvement.
Colonel Zecchini. DTS was, in my mind, great but not
everybody has access to DTS. I had access to it because I was a
full-time federal technician where most traditional Guardsmen
and Reservists don't have that system yet.
Senator Carper. Should they?
Colonel Zecchini. I think they should especially if you are
doing a lot of traveling. If you come back from a TDY period,
then you have to go into your unit to submit a claim, you may
or may not be within reasonable commuting distance to your unit
and you can't do it at home. So things like that, everybody
should have access to all the same databases and DTS
especially.
I would also think they could make some progress in
connecting G1 to G8 maybe where if you are on orders and in a
specific pay zone for allowances, somehow that should trigger
G8 to connect the dots. That doesn't seem to be taking place.
Senator Carper. Thank you very much for being here today. I
appreciate those 28 years that you have shared with our
Country, given our Country. Our very best to you and to your
son.
Mr. Platts. Thank you, Senator Carper.
I will now yield to the Ranking Member, Mr. Towns, from New
York.
Mr. Towns. Let me thank you too for your many, many years
of service.
I recall in terms of my years that when they had trouble
with my pay, it was that I had orders to go one place and they
changed my orders and sent me somewhere else. Then they had
trouble finding me. That was the problem they had. Other than
that, I must say that I got paid pretty much on time.
How many times did you have the problem?
Colonel Zecchini. How many times?
Mr. Towns. The pay problem during your years of service?
Colonel Zecchini. After I started talking to Mr. Tyler last
week, I started thinking back in my career and I gave him some
good examples of the ones I just testified to, but I can think
of several other ones that weren't such a big deal and they
were pretty easily fixed at the unit level.
Mr. Towns. It was so many times you can't remember, is that
what you're saying?
Colonel Zecchini. Yes.
Mr. Towns. Wow! How widespread is the problem among others?
Colonel Zecchini. You hear people talking about pay issues,
chow hall talk. Somebody always seems to have a pay issue they
are dealing with.
Mr. Towns. How long did it take, the longest period, for
you to correct your pay?
Colonel Zecchini. The example I mentioned about my one and
a half months without pay in Afghanistan, that was the longest
that I ever went without a paycheck. That is the longest I ever
had to deal with a problem and getting resolution to the
problem was the one where I didn't get my various allowances
from my missions in Southeast Asia. That took about a year and
a half.
Mr. Towns. Could you walk us through one process in terms
of how you went about getting paid? Walk us through a process
you had to take in order to get paid? In other words, you
didn't get your check and what you had to do in order to get
it.
Colonel Zecchini. The example I mentioned about the pay and
allowances from Southeast Asia, I was working in Bangladesh,
the Philippines and all through Southeast Asia. Each of these
different countries has a different rate for hostile fire pay
in the Philippines as hardship duty location pay in Bangladesh
and I wasn't even aware that these allowances were there when I
was performing the duty. It was just through talking to my
active duty counterparts who were there with me, I was informed
that we were entitled to these allowances.
When I got back to Ohio, I went to my unit and inquired
about getting these allowances. I actually had to look through
the regulations. There is a chart they have in the reg that
tells you if you are in this location during this time of year,
you are entitled to this much money. It was a pretty complex
set of numbers. My unit clerk, my unit administrator certainly
didn't know how to process that, so that is when it got pushed
up the chain of command and went to Military Pay. Military Pay
didn't seem to know anything about it.
Time went on and I put together a spreadsheet, actually did
a lot of the legwork for them to make it easier to understand
what I was supposed to get versus what I did get. It languished
and eventually I wrote a letter to the Ohio Inspector General
requesting assistance. That is when I finally got some action.
Mr. Towns. Let me ask, as a Lieutenant Colonel, did folks
come to you asking you to help them get their pay, to help them
resolve their problems?
Colonel Zecchini. When I was a Company Commander years ago,
I routinely worked with pay issues with my soldiers.
Mr. Towns. Did you get a lot of complaints?
Colonel Zecchini. I was a Company Commander for five years,
so it was a little bit longer than usual. Yes, I would have to
say that over five years, I got a fair number of pay issues
that we worked through. Most of that we were able to fix most
of that at the unit level. I had a unit administrator, a pay
clerk, who was able to fix most of the pay problems at our
level.
Mr. Towns. Do you have any suggestions for us or to the
folks that will be testifying later as to what might be done to
eliminate some of this? Do you have any suggestions? You have
had 28 years of this. I didn't stick around that long.
Colonel Zecchini. Again, the guidance I give to my son is
the same guidance I received as a young soldier, keep track of
all your records, keep track of all your pay documents, your
orders. You never know when you might need this stuff again
some day.
Mr. Towns. Thank you very much for service.
On that note, I yield.
Mr. Platts. Thank you, Mr. Towns.
Before I go to Mr. Connolly, just a quick follow up. You
said on the example of your Southeast Asia time, you were not
even aware of the allowances. Other than active duty soldiers
that you were serving with who then said, are you aware, you
were not given any formal notification of what you were
entitled to relating to those deployments?
Colonel Zecchini. That is correct.
Mr. Platts. As you worked through it, you mentioned
ultimately you had to go the Ohio Inspector General to assist.
At what point in that year and a half long process, how long
had you tried working through the channels before you went that
route to get it taken care of?
Colonel Zecchini. I went to my unit initially in August
2004. I would say the very next month, in September, it got
pushed up the chain to the Ohio State Headquarters. I worked
the issue with them until probably August 2005 when I was
getting ready to go to Iraq. I knew I was going to be deployed
again, so at that point I really had to do something.
Mr. Platts. So for about a year, you kind of worked through
their regular channels without success?
Colonel Zecchini. Right.
Mr. Platts. This was something, once you were aware, seemed
pretty straight forward. You were in this country, you
qualified, yet a year later you still weren't being compensated
appropriately.
Colonel Zecchini. It was a significant dollar amount too.
Mr. Platts. Roughly, a round number?
Colonel Zecchini. As I recall, it was a couple thousand
dollars allowances.
Mr. Platts. Thank you.
I yield to the gentleman from Virginia, Mr. Connolly.
Mr. Connolly. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I want to welcome our colleague from the Senate, Senator
Carper, who has been a great ally on so many other issues
including postal issues. We thank him for being here today.
Welcome to you, Lieutenant Colonel Zecchini. Thank you for
your service and thank you for being here.
You have a family?
Colonel Zecchini. Yes, I do.
Mr. Connolly. Mortgage?
Colonel Zecchini. Yes.
Mr. Connolly. Maybe a car loan, student loans?
Colonel Zecchini. Not currently.
Mr. Connolly. Not currently, but maybe you did?
Colonel Zecchini. I did.
Mr. Connolly. Delay in pay could be kind of significant not
just for you, it is more inconvenient is the point, and
actually could be pretty disruptive to the family household and
its budget?
Colonel Zecchini. Yes.
Mr. Connolly. Are you aware of cases, either your own or
others, where that was the case?
Colonel Zecchini. The example I mentioned of being in
Afghanistan where I went about a month and a half without pay,
that was a tense period, not knowing how long that was going to
continue without pay. That was the only thing. I was working
with my wife who was back home trying to pay the bills and
stretch the savings we had for as long as we could.
Mr. Connolly. While you were on a war front?
Colonel Zecchini. Yes, sir.
Mr. Connolly. Why do you think there are these problems? I
have to tell you, I spent 20 years in the private sector and I
never once had a paycheck problem. They never once made a
mistake about my amounts, my withholding or what name to send
it to, whether it be electronic transfer or a paycheck. Why do
you think we have a problem in the Pentagon?
Colonel Zecchini. In that example, I was on orders for 180
days and I may have over complicated the situation by
volunteering to extend that when the order was cut authorizing
the extension, in my mind, everything else should have fallen
into place but pay didn't catch up with the orders.
Mr. Connolly. You mentioned that you went to, I think you
said, the company clerk but the clerk was not really equipped
to resolve the problem and you had to go to a higher level?
Colonel Zecchini. Right.
Mr. Connolly. Does the Army not have or do other services
not have people designated as ombudsmen to try to help the men
and women in uniform when they have this kind of problem?
Colonel Zecchini. At the State Headquarters, that is my
understanding.
Mr. Connolly. The State Headquarters?
Colonel Zecchini. The Ohio National Guard State
Headquarters.
Mr. Connolly. If you are in Afghanistan, going back to
State Headquarters in Ohio is a bit of a challenge.
Colonel Zecchini. The pay issues I had in Afghanistan, the
active duty finance people did work with me on that one and got
that one resolved in the end.
Mr. Connolly. On-site?
Colonel Zecchini. On-site.
Mr. Connolly. But you still went a month and a half, you
said?
Colonel Zecchini. A month and a half.
Mr. Connolly. Mr. Chairman, I am so struck by the fact that
Lieutenant Colonel Zecchini puts on the uniform, is active duty
in a war front in Afghanistan on behalf of his Country because
his Country called, and we can't resolve his compensation. He
and his family back home suffering the anxiety of the war front
now have to add to that anxiety can we meet the mortgage or
other family household obligations. It seems to me no way to
treat our men and women in uniform and it also seems to me this
is not rocket science. The private sector somehow manages to do
this every day of the week.
As I said, I worked for 20 years in the private sector, I
never once heard a complaint about a mistake. Maybe there were
some and I am sure there were, but it certainly was not
commonplace. It is very troubling to hear that is not the case
in the U.S. military.
I look forward to the next panel's testimony but I think
Lieutenant Colonel Zecchini and his fellow men and women in
uniform deserve better from their country.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back.
Mr. Platts. I thank the gentleman and would echo the
concern. As you well highlighted, that impacts not just the men
and women in uniform but the family and certainly with
deployments, enough stress associated with overseas deployments
for the whole military family, let alone adding a pack issue
and financial stress that comes with that.
Colonel, again, we thank you for your almost 30 years of
service in uniform to our Nation as well as your willingness to
be here as we work to try to make sure we do better by you and
all who are serving us and will continue to serve as your son
is in harms way as we speak. Please convey to your wife as well
for her service on the home front while you have been serving
us far from home, our thanks.
We are going to take a very brief recess while we reset for
the second panel. We stand in recess momentarily.
[Recess.]
Mr. Platts. We will reconvene. We appreciate the quickness
of our witnesses getting settled. Again, I apologize for the
time restraints we are working under. I would ask you to try
stay within your five minutes and if you want to yield back any
of that time so we can get to exchange Q and A with you, we
welcome that.
I want to add my thanks to each of you for your current
service as well as I know a number of you who have served in
uniform for many years as well. We are very fortunate to have
your commitment to your Nation and your fellow citizens both
now as well as in the past in uniform. Thanks for being here
and being a part of this process.
We are going to go right to your testimony. Asif Khan is
Director, Financial Management and Assurance, U.S. Government
Accountability Office.
STATEMENT OF ASIF KHAN
Mr. Khan. Thank you, Chairman Platts, Chairman Carper,
Ranking Member Towns and Congressman Connolly. It is a pleasure
to be here today to discuss our work on the challenges in
assuring the accuracy and the validity of Army's military
payroll.
Deficiencies in Army payroll processes and control were
most recently reported by GAO in 2009 and by the DOD Inspector
General in 2011. Such deficiencies increase the risk of
inaccurate and invalid payments to Army military personnel and
impede the Army's efforts to prepare an auditable statement of
the budget, the SBR.
The SBR is one of the principal financial statements
required of major government agencies including the military
components of DOD. According to the Defense Finance Accounting
Service, DFAS the Army fiscal year 2010 active duty military
payroll was $46.1 billion, a material amount in the Army's SBR.
We found there continues to be significant deficiencies in
the Army and DFAS processes and systems. Today, I will focus on
three problem areas highlighted in our report: first,
significant deficiencies in the processes used to maintain and
retrieve payroll records for active duty military personnel;
second, problems in the automated systems used to store,
process and reporting these records; and third, lack of
supporting documentation for payroll transactions.
To test whether Army's payroll processes were effective in
making data readily available for an audit, we requested a list
of service members who had received active duty pay in fiscal
year 2010. DFAS staff made three attempts to provide us with a
complete and accurate file. The first attempt included more
than 11,000 duplicate accounts; the second attempt found over
28,000 more accounts than the first; and finally, with a third
attempt, we were able to perform reconciliation procedures that
satisfied us that the data were reasonably complete.
The inability to readily provide this information, if not
effectively addressed, will impede the Army's ability to meet
the 2014 SBR audit readiness goal. Non-integrated systems and
cumbersome processes also contribute to the Army's difficulty
in maintaining and reporting timely, accurate and complete
data.
The Army's pay and personnel system for example are not
integrated. Active duty payroll data is maintained in one
system; the personnel data is compiled from several systems
that are fed data from the recruit reception office in each
battalion and from at least 45 other feeder systems and
spreadsheets.
Comparing and reconciling the pay and personnel data
requires labor intensive research. It took the data center over
two months to confirm that all service members who received
active duty military pay in fiscal year 2010 had an active duty
personnel file for one of the personnel systems.
The third problem is supporting documentation which is the
fundamental control over all financial accounting and
reporting. It provides evidence that a recorded transaction is
accurate and valid. To test this control, we selected a sample
of 250 service members' records and requested the related leave
and earnings statements, and also documents that support basic
pay allowances and entitlements.
After initial difficulties in locating the documents, we
suggested the Army focus on the first 20 pay account sample
items. After further delay, we narrowed our request for
documents to the first five sample items. As of the end of
September 2011, six months after our initial request, we were
able to obtain a complete documentation for 2 of the 250 sample
items, partial support for 3, and no support for the remaining
245.
Without support documentation, the Army cannot verify the
validity of its payment and is at increased risk of payments to
the wrong persons or in the wrong amounts. Further, without
documentation, the Army will not be able to pass an audit of
its SBR.
DOD has recently taken important steps toward improving
financial management at the Department and its components. The
Army has begun efforts to prepare for the audit of its SBR by
2014 and ultimately, all principal statements by 2017.
Other military components such as the Air Force and the
Navy share some of the same processes and system risks as the
Army. They also will need to resolve significant problems
before their SBRs are auditable.
Chairman Platts, Senator Carper, Ranking Member Towns,
Congressman Connolly, this concludes my prepared statement. I
would be happy to answer any questions you may have at this
time.
Thank you.
[Prepared statement of Mr. Khan follows:]
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Mr. Platts. Thank you, Mr. Khan.
Next is Mr. James Watkins, Director, Accountability and
Audit Readiness, Department of the Army.
STATEMENT OF JAMES WATKINS
Mr. Watkins. Thank you.
Chairman Platts, Chairman Carper, Ranking Member Towns,
members of the committee, especially my own representative in
Congress, Representative Connolly, thank you for the
opportunity to testify today regarding Army military pay, audit
readiness and our commitment to achieving auditable financial
statements.
Secretary McHugh, Army Chief of Staff Odierno, Under
Secretary Dr. Westphal, the Assistant Secretary for Financial
Management and Comptroller, Dr. Matiella; and all of our senior
leaders are committed to achieving auditable financial
statements including the Army's military pay business
processes.
I also thank the Government Accountability Office for their
military pay audit. We concur that the Army faces challenges in
achieving audit readiness for military pay. The military pay
audit provided additional insight with specific recommendations
to address deficiencies. We concur with the GAO findings and
have included their recommendations in the Army's Financial
Improvement Plan.
While we are confident that we do a good job paying our
soldiers the right amount of money at the right times. We know
we have a lot of work to do to prove it via an audit. Military
pay at approximately $50 billion annually represents a
significant component of the Army's Statement of Budgetary
Resources. Because of the amount of resources dedicated to and
the importance of military pay, the Army and the Defense
Finance and Accounting Service must ensure controls are in
place to continue paying soldiers the right entitlements, the
right amounts at the right time and to accurately report these
transactions on the financial statements. This requires
teamwork between the Army, DFAS and the Office of the Under
Secretary Defense Comptroller.
Our progress to date includes working with DFAS to develop
and document a repeatable process for identifying the total
population of active duty military payroll accounts each fiscal
year. In fact, the Army and DFAS, in October 2011, implemented
a monthly reconciliation of all detailed military pay
transactions to the summary financial reporting records. This
process improvement represents a significant accomplishment in
advancing the Army's audit readiness efforts.
Other initiatives include documenting the military
personnel and payroll business processes; identifying the key
pay-related substantiating documents; and standardizing the
procedures for maintaining these documents. As part of this
effort, we are creating a matrix that identifies the relevant
substantiating documents and the retention location of those
documents for each payroll entitlement. The matrix will
simplify the retrieval of documents, demonstrate proof of
military pay and assist in our response in future audit
requests.
Finally, we are reviewing all policies governing the
storage and retention of key documents to ensure policies,
processes and supporting business systems enable timely access
to substantiating documentation in a cost effective manner.
The pace at which the Army has supported financial
improvement the past three years is unprecedented in the more
than 30 years I have served in the Army, including 27 years as
an infantryman and finance officer, and 6 as a civilian in the
financial management and audit readiness community.
With critical help from Congress, GAO, OSD and DFAS, we
have generated the necessary momentum across the Army to
achieve the goal of financial improvement in audit readiness.
We have dedicated appropriate funding to meet this goal; we
have established a robust government structure; we have shifted
the culture of the Army toward greater personal and collective
accountability.
The Army's senior leaders are actively engaged in ensuring
we meet Secretary Panetta's directive of an auditable statement
of budgetary resources in 2014 and all financial statements by
2017. I met with congressional staff in the spring of 2010 to
describe the Army's financial improvement plan and the
milestones between that time and 2017 that would demonstrate
progress.
I am proud to report that we have met our interim goals
since that time and we continue to prove we are on the right
path. To meet Secretary Panetta's 2014 deadline, we have
accelerated some milestones, all of which I am very confident
we will achieve.
While we have made great progress, a tremendous amount of
challenges lie before us. As Mr. Khan pointed out last July
2011 in front of the Senate Committee on Armed Services, I am
personally committed to this historic effort to improve
financial management in the Army, to enhance support to
soldiers and to improve accountability to the American
taxpayers.
I look forward to working with you to ensure the Army's
success and I welcome your questions.
[Prepared statement of Mr. Watkins follows:]
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Mr. Platts. Thank you, Mr. Watkins.
Next, we have Ms. Jeanne Brooks, Director, Technology &
Business Architecture Integration, Office of the Deputy Chief
of Staff, G-1, Department of the Army. Thank you for being
here, Ms. Brooks.
STATEMENT OF JEANNE M. BROOKS
Ms. Brooks. Good morning.
Chairman Platts, Chairman Carper, Ranking Member Towns, and
Congressman Connolly, thank you for the opportunity to testify
today regarding the audit readiness of the Army's military pay
appropriation and the draft report issued by the Government
Accountability Office.
Military pay is a significant portion of the Army's budget
authority and we are committed to providing an accurate and
comprehensive accountability of the monies authorized and
appropriated by Congress for the purpose of paying our most
viable assets, our soldiers.
The Army G-1 is working diligently with the Assistant
Secretary of the Army for Financial Management, Dr. Matiella,
and her point person on audit readiness, Mr. Jim Watkins, to
ensure that our G-1 processes, systems and procedures that
impact military pay fully support the effort to be audit ready
for the Statement of Budgetary Resources by 2014 and for all
financial statements by 2017.
We are using the Financial Improvement and Audit Readiness
principles to guide our efforts. We appreciate the balanced and
constructive approach used by GAO in assessing our audit
readiness for active duty military pay. The dual focus of GAO
was to validate the accuracy of the population paid and to
verify all documentation for entitlements received. GAO
highlighted that these two areas currently being worked in
support of the overall audit readiness require significant
additional emphasis.
In the short term, we are aggressively analyzing the
expansion of our Personnel Integrated Records Management System
or IPPS-A to address the GAO finding of the document storage
shortcomings. This analysis has focused on the inclusion of pay
supporting documentation as well as the personnel documentation
already being captured.
Our current process for capturing pay documentation is
paper centric and it relies on the National Archives and
Records Administration storage facility. This process is
outmoded and cumbersome and does not support our move to the
auditable environment.
Additionally, the Defense Finance and Accounting Service
and the Army's Human Resources Command have processes in place
outlining the procedures that are required to validate the
Army's pay accounts against official personnel records. These
agreements have been in place for a number of years. Currently,
we are validating the efficacy of these comparisons in today's
environment.
The Army's Integrated Personnel and Pay System Program
IPPS-A is our major effort to address these shortcomings in the
long term. The initial release of IPPS-A will give us an
integrated database of all active Guard and Reserve soldiers.
Subsequently releases will eventually get us to an Integrated
Personnel and Pay System. This implementation of the commercial
PeopleSoft Human Resources Management System will be configured
to meet the Army's needs and will strengthen our internal
controls and ensure that our entire population is paid
accurately.
No longer will there be separate personnel and pay
databases. Digital signatures, strong audit capabilities, a
built-in business engine rule, and a strict roles and
permissions structure will further ensure accuracy and internal
control rigor for military pay.
Expanding IPERMS and validating that personnel and pay
comparisons are routinely performed will prepare the Army for
the fiscal year 2014 SBR audit as well as address the GAO audit
findings in the short term. IPPS-A will be the Army's long term
solution to eliminate the need for personnel and payroll
comparisons. This coupled with the enhanced iPERMS capabilities
will prepare the Army for the full audit in fiscal year 2017.
This concludes my statement. I welcome your questions.
[Prepared statement of Ms. Brooks follows:]
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Mr. Platts. Thank you, Ms. Brooks.
Next, we have Mr. Aaron Gillison, Acting Director, Defense
Finance and Accounting Service, Indianapolis, Department of
Defense. Mr. Gillison?
STATEMENT OF AARON P. GILLISON
Mr. Gillison. Chairman Platts, Chairman Carper, Ranking
Member Towns, and Representative Connolly, thank you for the
opportunity to speak at this hearing.
I would like to thank the Government Accountability Office
for their work on the study. I am pleased to be here to discuss
DFAS commitment and actions to achieve audit readiness.
The GAO report confirms the Army and DFAS have more work to
do to be ready for an Army military pay audit assertion. Today,
I will discuss the services DFAS provides the Department, DFAS
specific improvements in support of an Army military pay audit,
and how DFAS is collaborating with customers to support audit
readiness and prepare for assertions.
As background, DFAS proudly pays America's military,
government civilians and commercial vendors. We also pay
travelers and perform accounting and financial reporting
services including the summary level financial reports for the
Department. DFAS is applying the Financial Improvement and
Audit Readiness Plan to help our customers achieve
auditability.
In fiscal year 2010, the active Army payroll accounted for
$46.1 billion in Army resources or 20 percent of Army net
outlays. This included about $9.6 million Army military pay
transactions. The GAO report confirmed the active duty military
members paid in fiscal year 2010 had an active duty personnel
file. We recognize all process partners must provide
documentation within reasonable time lines.
While we have made improvements, we are committed to
executing additional DFAS owned actions identified in the
Army's Financial Improvement Plan. To improve the audit
process, the Army and DFAS will use data query capability
against the Master Military Pay Account which is the backbone
of the Joint Military Pay System.
In addition, our team is developing a matrix that includes
entitlements, supporting document location and the responsible
organizations. We will use this matrix to clarify roles,
responsibilities and acceptable standard retrieval time lines.
These steps coupled with the Army's Electronic Document
Repository for Personnel Actions will help get documents to
auditors more quickly.
There is a weekly reconciliation of Army military pay
directly to the personnel system. In October 2011, DFAS also
implemented monthly payroll reconciliations that traced active
duty Army payroll from the military pay system to the
accounting system. This extracts soldier level data for all pay
and allowance categories and includes all records.
Generated and archived each month, reconciliations can be
extracted for a single payroll period or combined to create a
population for broader time periods providing an easier way to
sample the transactions. DFAS established a senior executive as
Director of Audit Readiness to provide oversight and guidance
for agency support to the Department's audit readiness.
DFAS is collaborating with process partners on systems we
have used using the GAO Federal Information Systems Control
Audit Manual. We are also using the American Institute of
Certified Public Accountants Standards to prepare for and
conduct audits of DFAS common processes in civilian pay, in
military pay, disbursing and contract pay to ensure systems and
controls are operated as intended.
In addition, we are using lessons learned to reduce or
eliminate repeat audit findings. We have dedicated teams at
DFAS sites to coordinate all audit readiness efforts. While a
number of these team members are certified public accountants,
our training strategy must instill an audit ready every day
philosophy into every employee.
All DFAS senior executives now have audit readiness goals
and performance plans. We are making progress toward financial
auditability. Collaboration with our process partners and
continuous improvement with an all in philosophy of leaders and
employees is key to achieving military payroll audit readiness.
Chairman Platts, Chairman Carper, Ranking Member Towns,
Representative Connolly, and distinguished members, thank you
for your time today. I look forward to your questions.
[Prepared statement of Mr. Gillison follows:]
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Mr. Platts. Thank you, Mr. Gillison.
I will go directly to questions. I will give myself five
minutes as again we try to beat the clock with the Floor votes.
I want to say up front that I certainly appreciate that
each and every one of you is committed and determined to make
sure we get this right. We all share that goal and our exchange
here is trying to identify how do we better achieve that goal.
Mr. Gillison, I am going to start with your written
testimony and your reference here. Mr. Watkins, you alluded to
it as it well. Mr. Gillison, in your written testimony, you
make the statement ``While we did pay these members
correctly.'' When I read the GAO's report, their testimony here
today and in writing as well, how do you know that to be able
to make that statement because of the lack of documentation
that they uncovered related to their 2010 study or report? How
do you have the certainty to be able to make the statement that
you know you paid correctly?
Mr. Gillison. Number one, I do have confidence in the
backbone of the system, the Match Military Pay Account. I can
trace the actual computer update that it was processed on, I
can trace back to which office processed it. What we could not
do at the time was actually present some of those documents.
I was as frustrated as the GAO was when I looked at it and
asked questions. The team came together and said, have we
thought about this system? Have we thought about it might be
located over here in this other system. Over the course of the
last two weeks, we have identified the documents for all those
five cases.
Mr. Platts. But there were 250 total though and that goes
to the point that for 5, pulling together 2 completely
initially, three partially, 245 is my understanding, no
documentation.
Mr. Gillison. Mr. Chairman, what I would say to that is the
human element that's involved in this process, all of us, that
is why I say really all in, we have to do our job every day.
That is the audit ready every day component. Quickly, I will
say this. Those documents are there the day it is processed
into the computer system and they are retained at the
respective finance office for one year. That very next morning,
you know it is there because you do a comparison, then we ship
it off.
Mr. Platts. I apologize for interrupting, but I think that
is the issue here. One, for internal controls to work, you have
to be able to go back and say not just that we believe when
that payment was made the document was there to justify the
payment, we can go back and do the audit and say, yes, it was
and still is. Otherwise, today we really don't know that it
was. We are taking the word of whoever processed it that they
looked at documentation.
That is a significant internal control breakdown. That is
why I asked you about the statement because we really cannot
say, when we look at the number, on average in 2010, 364,000
cases that were not all directly payroll related but my
understanding is the majority, we have some serious challenges
here.
I appreciate that is what we are working through and trying
to address. I think we have to be cautious. We cannot say today
that we know we paid all of our military accurately because we
know we haven't based on facts brought to your attention and
that is what we are really trying to get after here.
You also talked about and there was reference in a couple
testimonies, the changes in October 2011. If we made the same
request today that GAO made for the 2010 records, how quickly
could you provide me, if I picked out any soldier who was paid
in February of this year, how quickly could you provide me the
backup documentation to show this is why he was paid what he
was paid?
Mr. Gillison. It is a three part answer, sir. We do affirm
every month, first off, that we are paying the correct soldiers
the correct pay and identified those that we are not.
Mr. Platts. How do you do that every month?
Mr. Gillison. We use the Unit Commander's finance report
and pay is also a Commander's responsibility. That Commander
and First Sergeant in every unit, affirms to us, signs off on
the document that comes back and says I have 100 soldiers, this
is the pay by category. We hold that document on hand for six
months.
Mr. Platts. So it is the Commander's assertion at that
point, not the root documentation or the source documentation,
you don't have at that point?
Mr. Gillison. We also are supposed to retain it, the key
word is supposed to retain it, within the finance office for
one year and then we ship it to the records holding.
As far as being able to support a GAO audit or a public
accounting firm audit at this point, with the capability we
have built, we can pull out and say that the following 1,000
soldiers or 600,000 or 590,000 soldiers have received this
amount of pay by this category of entitlements and allowances
traced to the accounting system.
Where we are still deficient is, this is what we are
building, we have this table we are working on right now that
then says who is responsible for the source document, where is
it located, how do I get there from here, and we are going to
have to expand the horizons of all of our individuals so they
understand what the person left and the person right is doing
and give them the accesses to that computer system.
Mr. Platts. I am going to run out of time. I already am out
of time. Hopefully I can come back to that issue because
ultimately that is where we have to get. I know the iPERMS
system is intended to help us do that, that we are going to
have, as the Colonel testified, with the travel system,
technology is a good thing if we are able to properly and
efficiently implement it so that all that documentation is
there, electronically stored and able to be pulled up.
When you mentioned in the last two weeks, I won't ask how
many hours you would calculate you and how many others put in
to try to document just five soldiers? We do need to do it for
all 500,000-plus that we are talking about. We have to get away
from the labor intensive. This should be when you are working
towards a system when you want that information on one soldier,
last month you pulled up the source documentation and saw
everything that we ultimately get to that.
It is not heroic efforts because a hearing or heroic
efforts because an audit is going to be done. It is so it is
just routine. I know that is what you and all of you are
working toward. I don't want to minimize that the commitment is
there, starting with the Secretary of Defense and his
commitment that we are going to do this and do it right.
I am way over my time. Senator Carper has asked because of
what may happen on the Floor with votes, I am going to yield to
Mr. Connolly from Virginia.
Mr. Connolly. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I thank the
Senator.
Thank you all for your testimony and your service,
especially my constituent, Mr. Watkins, whose outstanding
testimony I think should be framed, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Platts. With the exception of that chairman remark,
trying to push me out of my seat here.
[Laughter.]
Mr. Connolly. I guess one of the things I would say to the
panel is it seems to me progress achieved, not withstanding, we
need to move from sort of the administrative clutter to the
human level. No soldier on the ground in Afghanistan, Iraq or
anywhere else serving in uniform ought to, on top of everything
else, we worried about whether the spouse and kids back home
can pay the bills. That ought to be our goal bottom line. That
part, don't worry about, focus on the mission. We got the rest
of it.
It is very difficult to hear testimony, as we did this
morning from Lieutenant Colonel Zecchini that in the middle of
Afghanistan in a war front, he is worried about trying to pay
the bills back home and so is his spouse and his kids. That is
a very human concern and a very legitimate one.
We may never get to perfection, it is a big, complex system
with lots of change orders, bigger than any private sector
enterprise. I understand, but that ought to be our goal. It is
a human goal. We need to be seized with the mission. This isn't
about numbers; this is about men and women and their lives.
I say that as someone who has managed a big enterprise. If
that is our mentality, we will fix this problem. I commend it
to you. I know you are committed but we need to redouble that
commitment so that we never have that kind of testimony again
and Lieutenant Colonel Zecchini and his colleagues never have
to worry about that again.
Mr. Watkins, in your outstanding testimony you indicated
you were pretty confident that we were going to meet the
deadlines we have set for ourselves to finally have a
certifiable audit like most other federal agencies. The
Pentagon is not like every other federal agency, so we
understand the complications. On a scale of 1 to 10, how
confident are you that we, in fact, will meet that deadline
finally?
Mr. Watkins. Representative Connolly, I am very confident.
I would rate it about 8.
Mr. Connolly. Ok Thank you.
Mr. Khan, your testimony, if I understood you correctly,
has the GAO found appreciable progress has been made on the
fronts we are talking about, is that correct?
Mr. Khan. Some progress has been made but there is a lot
more work which needs to be done to be able to meet the 2014
deadline.
Mr. Connolly. That is on the audit?
Mr. Khan. Correct.
Mr. Connolly. What about the issue of accurate pay?
Mr. Khan. That continues to be a problem.
Mr. Connolly. Statistically, how much of a problem is it
from GAO's point of view? The Chairman was talking about 250,
but obviously the problem has to be bigger than that given the
size of our armed forces.
Mr. Khan. Let me just pick up where you left off. Our
sample of 250 was a statistical sample. That means the results
could be generalized or extrapolated.
Mr. Connolly. If we extrapolate, what would we say?
Mr. Khan. We could not say anything on the accuracy or
validity of Army's military active duty pay for fiscal year
2010.
Mr. Connolly. If we don't have some metrics for these folks
to measure against and to gauge progress, then it remains
anecdotal. Based on that statistical sample, what percentage of
active duty military do we feel suffer from mistakes in their
payroll?
Mr. Khan. Based on our work, that would be very difficult
to say. Getting two payroll records out of 250 doesn't really
say much.
Mr. Connolly. Right.
Mr. Chairman, I have to go vote. I thank the Senator for
his consideration. I just do think the GAO could be helpful
here in helping to try to get our arms around some of the
metrics so that we know what we are measuring against and we
know what goals we need to be setting for ourselves. Is it 20
percent at any given time of active duty who are having payroll
complications, the severity of which obviously is another
spectrum. Is it 5 percent, is it 2 percent? What is it?
If we don't know that or have some way of trying to measure
that, it seems to me it remains an illusive goal to try to get
to zero so that Lieutenant Colonel Zecchini and his colleagues
never suffer from that kind of malady again. I commend it to
the GAO to try to work with us a little bit on more substantial
metrics that we can use as a tool. So can the Pentagon in terms
of a management tool.
I yield back and I thank the Chair.
Mr. Platts. I thank the gentleman. Because we don't
actually know the total breadth of the number of cases, that
means we also don't know how much time, effort and money we are
spending on trying to correct the problems when they do occur.
If we get the system right up front, we can avoid it in the
long term.
With that, I yield to Senator Carper.
Senator Carper. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Take a few seconds each of you and react to what we heard
from Colonel Zecchini today. Mr. Khan, just a brief reaction to
what you heard from him.
Mr. Khan. I am sorry, Senator Carper?
Senator Carper. I am going to ask you to briefly react to
what you heard in the testimony of Colonel Zecchini, just your
off-the-cuff reaction.
Mr. Khan. That was pretty consistent with our observations
on the deficiencies in the systems and payroll processes in the
Army, that there is a high risk of incorrect payments, whether
the amounts are wrong or they could be paid to the wrong
person.
Senator Carper. Mr. Watkins?
Mr. Watkins. Yes, sir. First of all, I would say that is
unacceptable, that is going on in more than one isolated case
is unacceptable to the Army, it is unacceptable to the people
in the Finance Corps and to the people doing the payroll.
I spent 27 years on active duty. For 15 years, I have been
receiving retired pay and four 4 years, I was in ROTC,
different payroll systems, all administered by DFAS. I never
had a pay complaint. I don't know if I am the oddball or if the
pay issues that were brought up today is the oddball, but I do
know we keep statistics on the pay time and pay accuracy. DFAS
can provide those.
I was a Commander, a platoon leader, Company Commander,
Battalion Commander, Brigade Commander, I was the Commandant of
the Army's Finance School and the Chief of the Finance Corps
and I dealt with paying hundreds of thousands of soldiers and
we did not have rampant problems with pay.
First of all, I can tell you as a Commander, if you have a
soldier that has a pay problem, you have a problem because he
is not focused on the mission and you have to get that problem
fixed. When I was the Finance Officer at the 5th Corps in
Germany, at the 2nd Division in Korea and in I Corps at Ft.
Lewis, if on payday we had long lines that indicated we had a
problem but we didn't have long lines. The number of pay
complaints were small compared to the number of people we paid.
Senator Carper. Ms. Brooks, same question. Be brief.
Ms. Brooks. I agree the situation is unacceptable. That is
one of the reasons we are passionate and working very, very
hard to correct our personnel systems and processes so that we
can fix this problem. We truly need an integrated, active
component, reserve component personnel and payroll system and
we are working very hard toward that goal.
Senator Carper. Mr. Gillison?
Mr. Gillison. Any pay problem is an issue for us. I will
say that during the time frame 2003 to 2004, we did react to
the audit then and put in a 65-point action plan to address
those deficiencies and put more speed on paying soldiers
properly in all components. Today, we are data and metric rich.
We pay 97 percent on time and we aggressively go after that
other 3 percent. We are aggressive about this and we are
looking forward to making further changes. Continuous
improvement is the name of this game and everyone all in to get
this done right.
Mr. Connolly. Would the Senator yield?
Senator Carper. Sure.
Mr. Connolly. Mr. Gillison, your response to Senator Carper
would suggest that you do have metrics in terms of error rate.
If I heard you correctly, it is 3 percent?
Mr. Gillison. Sir, we do have metrics we measure at each
month and we report the metrics to OSD level. It is part of the
Military Pay Improvement Action Plan that started in April
2006. Our timeliness was much lower in that period of time,
about 88 percent, and we have moved it to close to 97 percent.
We are all about collaboration with all process partners and
the continuous improvement. We are identifying these targets as
soon as we can and trying to automate as much as we can. We are
committed.
Mr. Connolly. Thank you and I thank the Senator.
Senator Carper. Sure.
Mr. Khan, you heard the testimonies of Mr. Watkins, Ms.
Brooks and Mr. Gillison and how they responded to GAO's work
and to our questions. What did you hear that were happy to hear
and what did you hear you weren't so pleased with?
Mr. Khan. I was pleased to hear the response both from DFAS
and the Army and the expectation is if they follow through with
the commitment, they should be able to see some results in the
short term.
At the same time, this is a real problem. The length of
time it took to produce the documentation is not going to
enable an auditor to stay there and be able to give a valid
audit opinion in a timely fashion.
The other is the issue of supporting documentation.
Regardless of the robustness of the system, the auditor will
need access to the supporting documentation, the underlying
records of the information which is maintained in the system.
Those are the two points which need to be recognized. One
is the timeliness and the other one is the accuracy and
validity of the information in the system.
Senator Carper. Mr. Khan, I think in responding to the
GAO's work, the Army official letter to GAO said, ``We
appreciate your confirmation that no significant issues were
identified in your review of the military pay accounts for the
Army.'' That is part of what it said. Based on what we heard
from you and some from the Colonel, it seems a bit of an odd
comment based on your testimony. Do you believe, as the Army
stated, that your audit showed no significant issues?
Mr. Khan. Our report has been very clear in highlighting
the deficiencies in the Army's processes and systems. The
deficiencies in the systems and processes really increase the
risk of inaccurate payments as I mentioned before. Along with
the timeliness with which the information that is provided,
those are very significant issues, both towards the accuracy
and validity of the information in the system and also to be
able to get ready for an audit whether it is 2014 or 2017. The
issues we highlighted are very significant.
Senator Carper. Thank you.
Mr. Platts. I am going to ask one question and then yield
to Senator Carper before wrapping this up. We may have some
follow up in writing because of time constraint.
Ms. Brooks, key here is the Integrated Personnel Pay System
you are moving forward with that ultimately will combine both
active, Reserve, Guard and ultimately also payroll and
personnel records. You talk in your testimony about that is in
process. What is the time frame we see for that implementation?
Ms. Brooks. The IPPS-A Program will be fielded in five
different releases. Acquisition-wise, there are two increments.
The first release will be an integrated database. It will be
populated from the existing legacy databases. That first
capability will be available around March 2013. Then each year,
we have increasing capability. In 2014 and 2015, we have added
personnel transactions. Those transactions are critical to
eventually get to payroll. In fiscal year 2016, we will move on
to the payroll piece of the program and move off DJMS, the
DFAS-based system.
Mr. Platts. When we look at the 2014 mid step to getting to
a full audit of budgetary resources, we really are going to be
in the early stages of this system even being started?
Ms. Brooks. Correct.
Mr. Platts. That is not going to help us really get to that
audit capability we are talking about in 2014 that Secretary
Panetta has laid out?
Ms. Brooks. That is correct. The integrated database will
help us to some extent but it will not give us those
transactions.
Mr. Platts. One final question related to access to
information. You reference also that you are studying the
expansion of the Personnel Electronic Records Management
System, iPERMS, to include all the supporting documentation.
Where is that study and what do you anticipate coming from
that?
Ms. Brooks. We still have a long ways to go on that study.
The regulation that governs that system is up for review right
now and under revision. The system itself will have to be
changed once we determine what the policies are. It takes quite
a bit of time because there are a large number of stakeholders
involved in changing the policies that exist right now to
include the Reserve components.
As we do that, we have to take a look at the level of
intrusion we are considering with documentation going into this
electronic system. When we talk about birth certificates and
marriage licenses, that does not seem very intrusive but
certain pay events are also driven or authorized by documents
such as divorce decrees, custody suits, paternity suits. It is
going to take us some time to work with all of our stakeholders
and get to the right level of documentation that is not so
intrusive but is still authorizing.
Mr. Platts. Getting through all that is going to be key to
getting to ultimately one which is having in the system, easily
accessible proper documentation to support whatever actions we
take. With the study of that issue and iPERMS as well as the
long term Integrated Personnel pay system, it is going to be
critically important to achieving what we are all after. The
bottom line is paying our soldiers and doing right by them and
their families.
I will yield to Senator Carper.
Senator Carper. One of the things Mr. Connolly knows I
sometimes like to do when I chair hearings over in the Senate
is we get to the end of the hearing, I ask the witnesses given
what you have heard, what you have said and what we have asked
and some thoughts you have had, make a brief closing statement.
We always ask you to make an opening statement, we give
five minutes and then we ask you to consider making just a
brief closing statement for 30 to 60 seconds about what you
would like to have us walk out of here thinking about as well.
Mr. Khan, we heard a fair amount from Mr. Watkins, Ms.
Brooks and Mr. Gillison here today through testimony. I am sure
a lot of work has gone into them preparing for today. As we
listen to what they are saying and watch what they are doing,
what kind of actions will say, boy, they have it, they are on
the right track? They have turned the corner, they are going to
do this. What should we be looking for?
Mr. Khan. It is encouraging with the response we got from
the Army that they are taking the steps they should be taking
to identify their process. That is the key to really
understanding where the internal controls are. However, they
really need to go beyond that, just working with DFAS, and also
include the system owners and human resources, so it should not
really be in isolation.
I am encouraged that they are heading in the right
direction but I guess it is first, one step at a time. The only
thing is the time line is compressed and 2014 is going to be
here before we know it.
Senator Carper. So there is a sense of urgency. In the
Senate, we don't always operate with a sense of urgency as my
friend from Pennsylvania knows. As a recovering governor, it
drives me crazy sometimes and I am sure I drive my colleagues
crazy as well sometimes. As much as anything I want to really
impart a sense of urgency to you. I think that is what
Secretary Panetta was trying to do as he takes on his
responsibilities here.
Speaking of Secretary Panetta, in my opening statement, I
mentioned he had been very vocal in his support for improved
financial information and financial management at the
Department he now leads. I very much applaud his commitment to
that goal. We will work with him during my time as chairman of
our subcommittee in the Senate while we continue to try to
partner with the Department of Defense and also with GAO
towards supporting the goal of better accountability. I just
think knowing that war fighters need our best efforts on this,
so do the taxpayers.
Mr. Watkins, you sort of alluded to this already. Can you
again tell us what changes are forthcoming and how the new Army
payroll and other related systems will be improved to meet
Secretary Panetta's commitment to not only meet the 2017 goal
of auditability but to meet the Secretary's challenge to the
Department of being auditable before 2017? For example, how
have your goals changed to meet the new goal to audit the
Statement of Budgetary Resources by 2014?
Mr. Watkins. Sir, that is a multi-faceted question. I will
try and address each part.
First of all, the changes you will see in the Army's
rolling out its Enterprise Resource Planning Systems, the first
thing we need to do in order to be auditable by 2017 is we need
enterprise systems, not stovepipe systems that are old. The
problems the Lieutenant Colonel brought up today, a lot of
those are because of the built-in inefficiencies and
ineffectiveness of some of our old systems, so these enterprise
systems are key. That is number one.
Number two is change management. We have a huge issue
before us of change management because we are changing systems,
we are changing processes, we are changing procedures and we
are changing standard operating systems. Change management
requires a competent workforce because what we are asking the
workforce to do is different than what we used to ask them to
do. We need more analysts and more people that have credentials
than data entry folks because the systems allow different
inputs and different analysis. We need training, so we have
stepped up the training. We are doing a lot of training across
the Army for this audit readiness.
In 237 years, the Army has never had a financial statement
audit. We have never been asked until recently the passage of
the recent laws. We have had a lot of compliance audits and
program audits, but a financial statement audit is a different
beast. As GAO points out one of the biggest things is having
the documentation to prove we are doing it right. We can't
prove it today and that is the weakness we have. That is what
we are about doing.
To the second piece of your question concerning 2014,
because we don't have an integrated pay and personnel system
for 2014, we have to look at our current system which we call
our legacy system, the Defense Joint Military Pay System. Our
intention was not to use DJMS to go to audit in 2017; our
intention was to use IPPS-A.
Now that we are not going to have IPPS-A, we have to get
these problems with our legacy system fixed and those are the
recent activities I mentioned in my statement, the successes we
have had about tying up detailed transactions to the General,
summary data and tying the disbursing data to the accounting
system so it is transaction-driven. We can drill it all the way
down and get the proof for it.
Senator Carper. I said earlier I would ask you all each to
just give a closing statement, if it is all right with you, Mr.
Chairman. I will start with you Mr. Gillison. Use no more than
a minute, please.
Mr. Gillison. Yes, sir.
First, I appreciate being here today and telling the story
of the proud Americans, some who have served in uniform, some
who have not, that are committed to continuous improvement in
paying our soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines properly.
We live in two worlds. We live in the current world where
we have to be ready by 2014 for the SBR military pay. We have
to continue to improve on our current system and we have to be
able to show proof that we have the documents. We will get
there. We are committed.
We had a mock audit out briefing this week from a public
accounting firm looking at some of the very same things
identified and they think we can get there. They believe we can
get there.
We are going to do an SSA-16 study with accounting looking
at military pay by September 2012. That will position us so we
can do corrective actions in 2013 and we are ready in 2014. I
am more on the scale of a paratrooper on top of a hill knowing
that we are going to achieve the mission. I have no doubt about
that with the personnel we have and the commitment.
Thank you.
Senator Carper. From your lips to God's ears.
Ms. Brooks.
Ms. Brooks. Again, I would like to thank you for the
opportunity to appear here this morning. We are very, very
committed to making sure that things are correct on the
personnel side and on the pay side and eventually, the
integration of the personnel and payrolls.
We need the additional support for our ERP programs, as Mr.
Watkins has explained, and we appreciate the oversight that we
are getting from GAO because they are going to collaborate with
us and help us so that we achieve our eventual goal whether it
is in the near term with things that are less automated and in
the long term when we get our fully fielded personnel and pay
system.
Senator Carper. Thank you.
Mr. Watkins?
Mr. Watkins. First, I would like to thank you and the
Committee and the staffers who worked in preparation of this
hearing.
Senator Carper. Even Peter Tyler?
Mr. Watkins. Even Peter. I have been working with Peter for
over two years now because of other hearings on your side.
Senator Carper. My heart goes out to you. He is great.
Mr. Watkins. He is and I have enjoyed working with him and
enjoy looking forward to the continuing relationship.
My message is there is an old expression when I first came
in the Army that said the organization only does well those
things that the boss checks. I think it is very important for
the Congress to continue it's oversight and conduct these
hearings because that has given impetus to this change that we
are undergoing. I think it is important that Congress continues
that because our leaders have the message. Our leaders are
committed to it and we are checking and getting better. I think
the future is brighter today than it was two years ago.
Senator Carper. Thank you.
Mr. Khan?
Mr. Khan. Thank you very much.
I have really been encouraged with the tone of this hearing
and with how the Army and DEFAS responded to our findings. At
the same time, it is very important that they follow through
and commitment exists. We obviously will be providing our
oversight. Our work is done with the spirit of providing
constructive advice. At the same time, exactly as Mr. Watkins
said those charged with government and oversight it is very
important that they stay involved so that the pace of progress
continues and if there is any help needed by the audit team,
that is provided on a timely basis.
Thank you.
Senator Carper. We appreciate very much the work that you
and your colleagues at GAO continue to do with us for the
American people on so many fronts. I would also say that I am
encouraged by the tone of the testimony here and the comments
we received from everyone.
Sometimes Mr. Chairman, I have seen, as I am sure you have,
where GAO comes in and has done a very good job on an audit and
the folks who come from the agency about whom the hearing is
being held are in like a state of denial and not really
acknowledging they have a problem. It's usually somebody elses
and we're not hearing that today.
As we leave here I just want us to keep in mind the men and
women who are serving us all around the world in some places
not in the middle of hostility are not in imminent danger but
in some places, they are in real danger. In some cases, they
are single and have no wife, no husband, no children, no
dependents. But in some cases, they have all of the above. The
last thing we want them to have to worry about is how are we
going to pay our bills, how is my family getting by, they are
depending on me and I am not able to help them. That is a
problem we don't need. They don't need that and we don't need
that as a country.
As we look at these goals that we set ahead to 2014 and
2017, let us keep in mind this is not so much about complying
with the law, staying in line with the GAO audit; there are
real people involved in this.
Thank you.
Mr. Platts. Chairman Carper, I certainly thank you and your
staff for partnering with our House Subcommittee.
Senator Carper. We love doing it.
Mr. Platts. It is a good example. Maybe in the public eye,
they think Republicans and Democrats, House and Senate, just
can never agree on anything and work together. This is a good
example where we can and do, not just within the committees but
with the witnesses here today, GAO, the DFAS and the Army,
Colonel Zecchini and his testimony, how it impacts a soldier
and a family ultimately when we don't get it right. I know we
are all on the same page of what we are after and we are
committed to getting there.
While I can't make a commitment for myself beyond the end
of this year because my chairmanship and tenure here will end
in the House for at least the remainder of this year, I know
Senator Carper and others, House and Senate, will continue well
beyond the end of this year working with each of you in that
partnership.
I like the motto about what the boss checks. I think it is
a good approach and certainly we try in our Oversight
Committee, and I know Chairman Carper does it as well on the
Senate side, is doing oversight, it is not a gotcha, it is just
trying to make sure we are keeping an eye on the ball. In this
case, it is good financial management that ultimately means we
do right by our courageous men and women in uniform.
We appreciate all of your testimonies and we will keep the
record open for seven days for any additional information you
can submit. We do look forward to continuing to work with each
of you along with our staffs in moving forward.
This joint hearing stands adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 11:44 a.m., the committees were adjourned.]
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