House panel backs Homeland Security financial management bill

A House panel last week approved a bill to give Congress the authority to demand financial accountability at the Homeland Security Department.

The Select Committee on Homeland Security passed the measure (H.R. 2886) Thursday by voice vote.

"It remains imperative for the [department] to have in place all of the tools and practices that are necessary to ensure that our taxpayer dollars are spent as efficiently and effectively as possible to achieve our homeland security needs," said ranking Democrat Jim Turner of Texas.

The measure would require the department to abide by the Chief Financial Officers Act of 1990, which requires the president to appoint a chief financial officer to all Cabinet-level agencies-to be confirmed by the Senate-to oversee financial accounting practices at the departments.

Excluding the department from the law could mean its chief information officer may be barred from testifying before Congress, thus limiting lawmakers' ability to demand accountability, said Rep. Todd Platts, R-Pa., chairman of the House Government Reform Efficiency and Financial Management Subcommittee, which also approved the bill by voice vote in September. The provision was unintentionally excluded from a bill passed last year to establish the department.

Platts, along with Government Reform Chairman Tom Davis, R-Va., and other lawmakers, introduced the measure in July after an inspector general's report found 18 major weaknesses in the accounting practices of the 22 different agencies transferred over to the department in March, said a Government Reform spokeswoman.

The bill aims to ensure the department's long-term financial stability by requiring an independent audit of its accounting practices to reveal "inherent weaknesses" before "they become ingrained," a Government Reform spokeswoman said in September.

But government officials told the Homeland Security panel this month during a hearing on the bill that the audit requirement is unnecessary and costly and suggested the bill include language to delay the requirement until the mandated cost-benefit analysis is conducted.

The panel on Thursday did not include the recommendation in a substitute amendment offered by Chairman Christopher Cox, R-Calif., but made other changes to the bill. The amendment, which passed by voice vote, codified the department's program analysis and evaluation office to review program and budget requirements. It also requires the secretary to submit a comprehensive national strategy for homeland security when the president issues its annual budget to Congress, among other changes.

The bill would also require the chief financial officer to confirm the merits of the agency's accounting practices and mandate the auditor sign off on its evaluation and allow the department to delay implementing the auditing requirements until fiscal year 2005. It also calls for a report by the administration on requiring all federal chief financial officers to verify accounting practices and an auditor's certification of its assessment.

Before the bill's passage, Rep. Sheila Jackson-Lee, D-Texas, offered an amendment to require the department to issue financial accountability reports on a bi-annual basis. Jackson Lee, who argued the amendment would provide the committee with additional oversight over a department in its infancy, withdrew the amendment after Cox said the committee would work the Government Reform Committee on the provision when it takes up the measure.

A similar bill, S. 1567, was approved a week earlier by the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee.