A property accounting system implemented by the Defense Department at several Defense Information Systems Agency offices needs to be enhanced to meet federal accounting standards prior to its installation in all DoD offices, a recent GAO report concluded.
After identifying the accurate reporting of real and personal property as a high-risk area, the Defense Department began implementing the Defense Property and Accountability System (DPAS) at more than 150 DISA sites to better account for DoD's assets.
DPAS is expected to provide on-line capability and support to all functions that are associated with property accountability, equipment management, financial control and reporting.
The GAO report concluded that DPAS' functional design can provide financial control and generate information to account for most property, plant and equipment. However, DPAS does not contain information needed to meet new federal accounting standards for deferred maintenance and environmental clean-up costs.
Also, when DPAS was installed, it was not correctly interfaced with the DISA accounting system because of errors in the computer program used to translate DPAS data to data understandable to DISA's general ledger. This caused transactions to be recorded incorrectly in the general ledger, resulting in a difference of more than $118 million in property values between DPAS and general ledger records.
In response to the report, acting undersecretary of Defense Alice C. Maroni said that the Defense Department "generally agrees with the report's findings." However, she said that since not all accounting standards are fully defined, "the Department believes it is erroneous to find deficiencies in DPAS."
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