Department of Defense: Improving the DOD Payment Process, Using Recovery
Auditing and Changing the Prompt Payment Act (Testimony, 06/16/1999,
GAO/T-NSIAD-99-193).

Unless the Pentagon gains control over its payment process, it will
continue to risk erroneously paying contractors hundreds of millions of
dollars and perpetuating other financial management and accounting
control problems. Improving the efficiency of the payment process could
save millions of dollars each year. Although the Defense Department
(DOD) is trying to improve its payment process and controls, it will
likely take many years before DOD gets its payment problems under
control. DOD needs to make better use of technology to improve and
integrate its payment systems and to streamline and simplify its payment
requirements. These actions will require sustained attention from top
management. DOD also needs to concentrate on reducing overpayments and
to adopt best practices to quickly identify and recover them.
Contractors do not have to notify the government when they have been
overpaid. GAO believes that contractors should be required to do so.
Also, it may be time to raise the minimum dollar threshold required by
the Prompt Payment Act. The Defense Finance and Accounting Service now
sends out interest payments whose processing costs total more than the
face value of the checks.

--------------------------- Indexing Terms -----------------------------

 REPORTNUM:  T-NSIAD-99-193
     TITLE:  Department of Defense: Improving the DOD Payment Process,
	     Using Recovery Auditing and Changing the Prompt
	     Payment Act
      DATE:  06/16/1999
   SUBJECT:  Overpayments
	     Internal controls
	     Federal agency accounting systems
	     Department of Defense contractors
	     Contract oversight
	     Defense cost control
	     Contractor payments
	     Defense procurement
	     Financial management
	     Refunds to government

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    United States General Accounting Office GAO
    Testimony Before the Subcommittee on National Security,Veterans'
    Affairs, and International Relations, Committee on Government
    Reform, House of Representatives For Release on Delivery Expected
    at 10:00 a.m.,                            DEPARTMENT OF Wednesday,
    June 16, 1999                          DEFENSE Improving the DOD
    Payment Process, Using Recovery Auditing and Changing the Prompt
    Payment Act Statement of David Cooper, Associate Director, Defense
    Acquisition Issues, National Security and International Affairs
    Division GAO/T-NSIAD-99-193 Mr. Chairman and Members of the
    Subcommittee: I appreciate the opportunity to discuss the
    Department of Defense's (DOD) payment problems and how recovery
    auditing is being used to identify and recover overpayments.  I
    will also make some comments on changes to the Prompt Payment Act.
    To put these issues in perspective, in fiscal year 1998, DOD spent
    about $115 billion contracting for goods and services.  DOD
    contract dollars account for about two-thirds of total federal
    government contract spending for goods and services.  Thus, it is
    vital that DOD have sound controls to ensure that contract
    payments are proper, accurate, and timely. Results in Brief
    The need for DOD to achieve effective control over its payment
    process remains an imperative.  If DOD does not, it will continue
    to risk erroneously paying contractors hundreds of millions of
    dollars and perpetuating other financial management and accounting
    control problems.  Further, improving the efficiency of the
    payment process could save millions of dollars annually in reduced
    processing costs. While DOD is taking steps to improve its payment
    process and controls, it will likely take many years before DOD
    gets its payment problems under control.  The focus of DOD's
    actions needs to be on making better use of technology to improve
    and integrate its payment systems and to streamline and simplify
    its payment requirements.  These actions will, however, require
    sustained top-management efforts. DOD needs to also concentrate on
    reducing overpayments and, recognizing that some overpayments are
    inevitable, adopt best practices to quickly identify and recover
    them. We believe that recovery auditing offers a low-risk
    opportunity to achieve both these goals, and we are supportive of
    the recently introduced legislation to require federal agencies to
    use recovery auditing. Currently, contractors are not required to
    inform the government when they have been overpaid.  Contractors
    should be required to notify the government of overpayments when
    they become aware of them.  This requirement should not impose a
    significant burden on the contractor. Once notified, government
    contracting personnel should immediately ask contractors to refund
    the overpayment. Letter    Page 1
    GAO/T-NSIAD-99-193 It may be time to raise the minimum dollar
    threshold required by the Prompt Payment Act.  Currently, the
    Defense Finance and Accounting Service (DFAS) pays interest
    amounts that are less than it costs them to process the checks.
    However, raising the threshold should be part of an overall
    assessment of the efficiency of the payment process. Erroneous DOD
    In recent years, our reports have identified hundreds of millions
    of dollars Payments Are a         in erroneous government
    payments, and interest expense on late payments, and other
    financial management problems.  For example, in March 1994, Long-
    standing Issue    we reported that during a 6-month period in
    fiscal year 1993, DFAS in Columbus, Ohio-a principal DOD contract
    paying activity-processed $751 million in payments returned by
    defense contractors.1  Our examination of about one-half of these
    checks disclosed that about 78 percent represented overpayments by
    the government.  We also found that while some contractors
    returned overpayments, others did not.  In one case, an
    overpayment of $7.5 million was outstanding for 8 years.  We
    estimate that the government lost interest on the overpayment
    amounting to nearly $5 million.  We concluded that neither DOD nor
    some contractors appeared to be aggressively pursuing resolution
    of payment discrepancies. DOD continues to make substantial
    erroneous payments to its contractors. For example, in the 5 years
    between fiscal year 1994 and 1998, defense contractors returned
    about $4.6 billion to DFAS Columbus-in fiscal year 1998, they
    returned $746 million.  However, some contractors were still
    retaining overpayments.  For example, 4 of the 13 contractors we
    visited during a recent review were retaining overpayments
    totaling about $1.1 million.  At each location contractor
    personnel told us that they had a practice of retaining
    overpayments until the government issued a demand letter
    requesting the overpayments be returned.2  There is no requirement
    for contractors who have been overpaid to notify the government of
    overpayments or to return overpayments prior to the government
    issuing a demand letter for a refund.  The magnitude of
    overpayments defense contractors are retaining is not known. 1DOD
    Procurement: Millions in Overpayments Returned by DOD Contractors
    (GAO/NSIAD-94-106, Mar. 14, 1994). 2A demand letter is a formal
    notification to the contractor that it owes the government money.
    Letter     Page 2
    GAO/T-NSIAD-99-193 We have also found problems that contribute to
    improper and fraudulent payments.  For example, in September 1998,
    we reported on internal control and system weaknesses that
    contributed to two cases of Air Force vendor payment fraud-one
    resulting in the embezzlement of over $500,000 and the other
    resulting in embezzlement of $435,000 and attempted theft of over
    $500,000.3  We found that the lack of segregation of duties and
    other control weaknesses created an environment where employees
    were given broad authority and the capability, without
    compensating controls, to perform functions that should have been
    performed by separate individuals under proper supervision.  We
    also found that over 1,800 DFAS and Air Force employees had access
    to the vendor payment system that allowed them to submit all the
    information necessary to create fraudulent and improper payments.
    In testimony before the Congress earlier this year, the DOD
    Inspector General commented on the vulnerability of DOD finance
    operations, particularly to fraud in the vendor pay area.
    According to the Inspector General, the Defense Criminal
    Investigative Service (DCIS), an arm of the DOD Inspector General,
    is working with the DFAS to decrease that vulnerability through
    such measures as increased fraud awareness training. She said at
    the time that DCIS has about 80 open criminal investigations
    related to finance operations. Factors Contributing to     In an
    April 1997 report,4 we concluded that DOD's erroneous payments are
    Erroneous Payments          due, in part, to (1) nonintegrated
    computer systems that often require data to be entered manually,
    and with data that are often erroneous or incomplete and (2)
    payments that are required to be allocated among numerous
    accounting classifications.  In addition, these factors increase
    the cost of paying contract invoices. The need for DOD to
    effectively control its payment process remains imperative.  If
    DOD does not, it will continue to risk erroneously paying
    contractors hundreds of millions of dollars and perpetuating other
    financial management and accounting control problems.  Further,
    improving the efficiency of the payment process would save
    additional millions of dollars 3Financial Management: Improvements
    Needed in Air Force Vendor Payment Systems and Controls (GAO/AIMD-
    98-274, Sept. 28, 1998). 4Contract Management: Fixing DOD's
    Payment Problems Is Imperative  (GAO/NSIAD-97-37, Apr. 10, 1997).
    Page 3
    GAO/T-NSIAD-99-193 annually in reduced processing costs.  Two key
    areas where DOD needs to focus its efforts are (1) better using
    available technology by developing seamless, fully integrated
    payment systems and (2) streamlining and simplifying, to the
    extent practical, its payment processes. Detailed Accounting
    Let me give a few examples of the detailed accounting requirements
    that Requirements Are a Burden on             DFAS payment
    personnel are faced with when paying a bill.  These Payment
    Process                          examples clearly suggest the need
    for simplification. DOD uses what is called a "long line of
    accounting" to accumulate appropriation, budget, and management
    information for contract payments.  For all contracts, the buying
    activity assigns a two-character code called an accounting
    classification reference number (ACRN) to each accounting line
    containing unique information.  Figure 1 is an example of an
    accounting line-the type and quantity of information varies among
    the services. Figure 1:  Example of DOD's Long Line of Accounting
    Source:  DOD. Page 4
    GAO/T-NSIAD-99-193 Contracts can be assigned anywhere from 1 to
    over 1,000 ACRNs.  A contract with numerous ACRNs may involve
    extensive data entry, increasing the chance for errors and manual
    payment processing.  Manual payment processing costs an average of
    $15 per ACRN, according to a consulting firm's study. Payment
    allocations to numerous ACRNs can be time consuming and may not
    provide useful or reliable management information.  For example,
    in one case we reviewed, a single payment on a contract with many
    ACRNs took 6 to 8 hours to process.  The contractor, required to
    bill by ACRN, took 487 pages to assign $2.1 million in costs and
    fees to 267 ACRNs.  Ten of the ACRNs cited by the contractor had
    insufficient obligation balances to cover the payment, according
    to DFAS records.  The remaining 257 ACRNs corresponded to 8 annual
    appropriations covering from 1 to 5 fiscal years and included
    Army, Air Force, and general defense funds.  Of the 257
    transactions processed, 38 were for less than $10, and some
    involved debits or credits for pennies.  Unresolved discrepancies,
    such as insufficient funds on some ACRNs, have persisted for about
    3 years. Even for a simple purchase, assigning numerous ACRNs can
    cause extensive and costly rework and provide information of
    questionable management value.  For example, a $1,209-Navy
    contract for children's toys, candy, and holiday decorations for a
    child care center was written with most line items (e.g., bubble
    gum, tootsie rolls, and balloons) assigned a separate ACRN.  A
    separate requisition number was generated for each item ordered,
    and a separate ACRN was assigned for each number.  In total, the
    contract was assigned 46 ACRNs to account for contract obligations
    against the same appropriation.  To record this payment against
    the 1 appropriation, DFAS had to manually allocate the payment to
    all 46 ACRNs.   Figure 2 is an actual portion of this contract
    showing the ACRNs assigned to each item. Page 5
    GAO/T-NSIAD-99-193 Figure 2:  Contract Excerpt Source:  DOD. The
    contract was modified three times-twice to correct funding data
    and once to delete funding for out-of-stock items.  The
    modification deleting funding did not list all of the affected
    ACRNs.  DFAS personnel made errors in both entering and allocating
    payment data, compounding errors made in the modification.
    Consequently, DFAS allocated payment for the toy jewelry line item
    to fruit chew, jump rope, and jack set ACRNs-all of which should
    have been deleted by the modification.  Contract delivery was
    completed in March 1995, but payment was delayed until October
    1995.  DFAS officials acknowledged that this payment consumed an
    excessive amount of time and effort when compared to the time to
    process a payment charged to only one ACRN.   The contract could
    have been assigned a single ACRN, according to a Navy official,
    thus making it easier to pay without losing useful information.  A
    single ACRN would also have significantly reduced the amount of
    data entered into the system and the opportunities for errors.
    User requirements for detailed accounting place unreasonable or
    unachievable demands on the payment system.  Moreover, DOD's
    current pricing structure does not reflect the time it takes DFAS
    to meet user Page 6
    GAO/T-NSIAD-99-193 requirements.  Thus, the user has little
    incentive to critically evaluate the level of detail being
    required and its associated costs. DOD Is Taking Actions to
    DOD is taking steps to address its payment problems.  Its
    initiatives include Address Payment Problems testing and adopting
    some best practices.  In the long term, it is developing
    procurement and payment systems that will be linked by sharing
    common data.  This linkage is expected to allow one-time entry of
    contract data critical to making correct payments.  In the
    meantime, DOD is enhancing its current technologies to further
    automate the payment process.  It is also testing streamlined
    payment practices and making efforts to reduce the number of
    contract fund citations.  But, as we point out in our January 1999
    recent high-risk report,5 it will be many years before DOD gets
    its payment problems under control. Additional Steps Could Be
    Recognizing DOD's actions and the fact that DOD continues to
    overpay its Taken                             contractors, one
    question is: are there additional steps that DOD might take to
    improve the process for both identifying and collecting
    overpayments? The answer is yes. First, we believe that defense
    contractors should be required to promptly notify the government
    of overpayments when they become aware of them. This seems simple
    enough, but currently a contractor is not required to return an
    overpayment until the government becomes aware of the overpayment
    and issues a demand letter for repayment.  And, as pointed out
    earlier, the true magnitude of contractor retention of
    overpayments is not known.  In this regard, we will shortly begin
    a review to assess the extent to which defense contractors are
    retaining and not promptly returning overpayments to the
    government. Second, we believe that DOD should take advantage of
    best practices that commercial companies use to identify and
    recover overpayments.  One such practice is the use of recovery
    auditing procedures.  For both private industry and government
    agencies, some payments are processed incorrectly for a variety of
    reasons.  For instance, vendors make pricing errors on their
    invoices, forget to include discounts that have been publicized to
    the general public, neglect to offer allowances and rebates, or
    miscalculate freight charges.  Government payment activities may
    also 5Major Management Challenges and Program Risks, Department of
    Defense (GAO/OCG-99-4, Jan. 1999). Page 7
    GAO/T-NSIAD-99-193 neglect to take discounts to which they are
    entitled.  These mistakes, when not caught, result in
    overpayments.  Identifying and recovering overpayments is referred
    to as recovery auditing. Recovery Auditing               Recovery
    auditing started about 30 years ago, and it is used in several
    Offers Potential to             industries, including the
    automobile, retail store, and food service industries.  Within
    DOD, the Army and the Air Force Exchange Service, and Identify
    Overpayments the Navy Exchange Service use recovery auditing.  An
    external audit recovery group may be the only group used by an
    organization or it may be used in combination with an internal
    group that examines invoices for overpayments prior to an external
    group's review. Recognizing its potential value to the government,
    the Fiscal Year 1996 National Defense Authorization Act required
    the Secretary of Defense to conduct a demonstration program to
    evaluate the feasibility of using recovery auditing to identify
    overpayments made to vendors by DOD. Authority to expand the
    program was provided in the Fiscal Year 1998 National Defense
    Authorization Act. The DOD demonstration program began in
    September 1996, when the Defense Supply Center, Philadelphia
    (DSCP), competitively contracted with Profit Recovery Group
    International (PRGI).  The contract covers purchases made during
    fiscal years 1993-95 and requires PRGI to identify and document
    overpayments and to make recommendations to reduce future
    overpayments.  PRGI receives a fee of 20 percent of net collected
    funds. In our review of the demonstration program, we concluded
    that recovery auditing offers potential to identify overpayments
    but implementation problems hindered DOD from fully realizing the
    benefits of the program.6 As of August 1998, PRGI had identified
    $19.1 million in overpayments. However, recoveries of overpayments
    amounted to only $1.9 million, in large part, because vendors took
    issue with some of the overpayments. This caused the recovery
    process to virtually stop for 8 months while DSCP reviewed the
    merits of the vendors' issues.  DSCP has concluded that the claims
    of overpayment are valid.  However, according to the contracting
    officer, his letter of final decision regarding vendors'
    indebtedness has not 6Contract Management: Recovery Auditing
    Offers Potential to Identify Overpayments (GAO/NSIAD-99-12, Dec.
    3, 1998). Page 8
    GAO/T-NSIAD-99-193 been issued.  PRGI continues to identify
    overpayments.  As of June 1999, according to PRGI, it had
    identified $29.3 million in overpayments, and collections by DOD
    amount to $2.6 million. PRGI has also made recommendations to DFAS
    and DSCP to reduce future overpayments, but, at the time of our
    review, DOD had not implemented them.  In addition, PRGI
    identified about $1.8 million in overpayments that were outside
    the scope of its contract, either because they were not within the
    contractual review period or because they involved other
    government agencies.  Neither DFAS nor DSCP chose to pursue
    payment recovery or inform the other government agencies of the
    overpayments so that they could pursue recovery and take steps to
    avoid future overpayments. DOD Is Slow to Use     DOD has been
    slow to embrace recovery auditing.  For example, in House Recovery
    Auditing      Report 105-532, which related to a bill providing
    for fiscal year 1999 DOD Techniques             authorizations,
    DOD was directed to use recovery auditing by selecting at least
    two commercial functions within its working capital fund and
    issuing a competitive request for proposal by December 31, 1998.
    We found, however, that DOD had not done either.7 While DOD issued
    an August 1998 memorandum encouraging the use of recovery
    auditing, and some activities have expressed interest, no
    contracts had been awarded at the time we completed our work in
    March 1999.  In June 1999, we checked with the recipients of the
    August 1998 memorandum and, with the exception of the U.S.
    Transportation Command, which told us it just entered into a
    contract for recovery auditing services, no other contracts have
    been let. The Defense Commissary Agency said it has completed a
    statement of work, and plans to have a contract by July 30, 1999.
    The Defense Logistics Agency told us it issued a solicitation on
    May 28, 1999, to expand the use of recovery auditing from the
    demonstration program in place at DSCP to its other four supply
    centers.  The Defense Logistics Agency said it plans to have a
    contract by August 31, 1999.  Each of the services and the Defense
    Information Services Agency also expressed an interest in recovery
    auditing and they are evaluating whether to use it. 7Contract
    Management: DOD Is Examining Opportunities to Further Use Recovery
    Auditing (GAO/NSIAD-99-78, Mar. 17, 1999). Page 9
    GAO/T-NSIAD-99-193 Issues Related to Using     While we believe
    that recovery auditing could be beneficial to DOD and Recovery
    Auditing           other federal agencies, there are some
    important implementation issues that need to be considered as
    federal agencies evaluate using recovery auditing to identify and
    recover overpayments.  First, it is not clear how DOD agencies
    should organize to perform recovery auditing.  Should it be
    contracted out?  Should it be performed with in-house personnel?
    Should some combination of the two be used?  We believe that
    agencies need to carefully consider the extent to which recovery
    auditing is applicable to their operations and, if applicable, if
    it would be cost-effective to undertake moderate internal recovery
    auditing efforts to pick the "low hanging fruit" before turning
    audit recovery efforts over to an external group. Second, it is
    important that there be (1) periodic reporting by those performing
    recovery auditing on the factors causing overpayments and on
    recommendations to reduce overpayments and (2) a process to
    evaluate these recommendations and implement those that make
    sense.  One of the criticisms we made of the demonstration program
    was that DOD did not implement the contractor's recommendations to
    reduce overpayments. These issues have been addressed in the
    "Government Waste Corrections Act of 1999" (H.R. 1827), introduced
    on May 17, 1999, by Congressmen Burton, Armey, and Ose.  We
    believe the bill is a positive step in the government's effort to
    reduce overpayments and to obtain timely identification and
    recovery of overpayments when they occur. Prompt Payment Act
    Mr. Chairman, you also asked us for our views on how the Prompt
    Payment Issues                      Act could be improved to
    support DOD's efforts to reduce the risk of overpayments. The
    Prompt Payment Act of 1982, as amended, provides governmentwide
    guidelines for establishing due dates on commercial invoices and
    paying interest on invoices paid late.  Except where otherwise
    specified within contracts, the act provides that agencies should
    pay within 30 days after the designated office receives the vendor
    invoice or the government accepts the items ordered as
    satisfactory, whichever is later.  The act also states that if a
    payment is late, a business concern shall be entitled to any
    interest penalty of $1 or more from the government (interest
    penalties of less than $1 are not required to be paid). Page 10
    GAO/T-NSIAD-99-193 In a report we issued in May 1997,8 we stated
    that small interest payments made by the DFAS Columbus Contract
    Entitlement Directorate comprised a large portion of the number of
    payments made but accounted for a very small portion of the total
    interest dollars paid.  For example, of the 47,773 interest
    payments in fiscal year 1996, 10,789, about one quarter of all
    interest payments, were for $5 or less, and totaled $28,701-less
    than one quarter of 1 percent of total interest payment dollars.
    Interest payments up to $25 comprised over 50 percent of all
    interest payments but less than 2 percent of total interest
    dollars paid. DOD officials said that the current minimum payment
    of $1 might need to be increased because the benefits from such
    small interest payments may not justify the costs of making the
    payments.  According to DOD, it takes an average of 45 minutes to
    process each interest payment at DFAS, Columbus, and that the time
    spent processing such payments could be better spent on other high
    priority tasks. We recently obtained updated information on the
    interest payments made by the DFAS Columbus Contract Entitlement
    Directorate under the act. This information shows that in fiscal
    year 1998, the directorate issued 23,355 checks totaling $15
    million in interest payments to defense contractors.  Thirty-eight
    percent were for payments of $25 or less. According to the
    Contract Entitlement Directorate, its cost to process an interest
    payment check in fiscal year 1998 was at least $24.  DFAS issues a
    separate check  for interest payments. Through the first half of
    fiscal year 1999, the DFAS Columbus Contract Entitlement
    Directorate issued 30,781 checks totaling $16.6 million in
    interest for late payments.  About 41 percent of these checks
    representing less than 1 percent of the dollars were for $25 or
    less.  According to directorate personnel, the increase in
    interest payments is due to a priority initiative to reduce the
    backlog of late payments. Given the cost of processing an interest
    payment check, it might be cost-effective to increase the minimum
    dollar requirement for paying interest under the act.
    Alternatively, the late payment interest could be included in the
    same check with the principal payment, which would significantly
    reduce the costs of processing interest payments.  We believe
    8Financial Management: The Prompt Payment Act and DOD Problem
    Disbursements (GAO/AIMD-97-71, May 23, 1997). Letter    Page 11
    GAO/T-NSIAD-99-193 that any initiative to change the minimum
    interest payment should consider the efficiency of agency payment
    processes. Conclusions              In closing, Mr. Chairman, DOD
    needs to achieve more effective control over its payment process.
    If DOD does not, it will continue to risk erroneously paying
    contractors hundreds of millions of dollars and perpetuating other
    financial management and accounting control problems. Recovery
    auditing, which has a long-standing track record in the private
    sector, offers a low-risk opportunity to identify overpayments and
    to recover them and we are supportive of the recently introduced
    legislation to require federal agencies to use recovery auditing.
    Currently, contractors are not required to inform the government
    when they have been overpaid.  Contractors should be required to
    notify the government of overpayments when they become aware of
    them.  Once notified, government contracting personnel should
    immediately ask contractors to refund the overpayment. Finally, it
    may be time to raise the minimum dollar threshold required by the
    Prompt Payment Act.  However, raising the threshold should be part
    of an overall assessment of the efficiency of the payment process.
    Mr. Chairman, this concludes my statement.  I will be glad to
    answer any questions you or the other Members of the Subcommittee
    may have at this time.  Major contributors to this testimony were
    Daniel J. Hauser and Charles W. Thompson. (707429)       Letter
    Page 12                                                    GAO/T-
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