DCAA Takes Another Shot to the Gut

By Robert Brodsky

When it rains at the Defense Contract Audit Agency, it certainly pours.

In the past year, the embattled agency has taken a pounding by the Government Accountability Office , the Defense Department Inspector General and the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee for charges that management was too cozy with some of the contractors they were assigned to audit. The GAO also said auditors who complied with their investigation were subject to harassment and intimidation from their supervisors.

Now Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, has another complaint. Grassley, the ranking member of the Senate Finance Committee, has sent a letter to the head of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services seeking an explanation for why they are using DCAA to conduct an audit of its Quality Improvement Program, which is responsible for improving Medicare quality.

"The fact that CMS is relying on a substandard auditor to review the QIO program is discouraging and calls into question the agency's commitment to using the resources it has to improve Medicare quality," Grassley said.

The senator has requested that CMS provide his office with:

All contracts, memorandum and other other agreements between CMS and DCAA regarding the performance of audit functions for the last five years;

How much DCAA is paid annually for these contracts for the last 5 years;

The procedures in place to insure that DCAA is abiding by government auditing guidelines and that it produces an accurate report.

Incidentally, DCAA's troubles may be just beginning. The GAO and DoD IG are preparing to release follow-up reports to their findings last summer and what I've heard from agency spies, it's expected to be a doozy. The reports have been finished for several weeks with DCAA working on detailed responses. We've heard both reports could be issued within a matter of weeks but if any helpful Government Executive readers get an advanced copy, feel free to send it to yours truly at rbrodsky@govexec.com