Pentagon IG Responds to Grassley Report

Gordon S. Heddell, the Pentagon's Inspector General, responded last night to a report issued by the office of Senator Charles Grassley (R-IA) that was highly critical of the DoD IG office's audits.

“I’m in the process of transforming the Department of Defense Office of Inspector General," said Heddell in a written statement to POGO. "The observations and recommendations made by Senator Grassley are relevant—and important—but they are only one piece of a much bigger transformation that I embarked upon well over a year ago when I was confirmed by the Senate as IG.”

Heddell also said his office "has provided Senator Grassley with full access to our management staff and hundreds of pages of documents in response to requests for information." He also says that he plans to use Grassley's report to try to improve his office.

In an email distributed internally to all employees of the DoD Office of Inspector General this morning—and obtained by POGO—Heddell detailed the following changes he has made to the audit department of the DoD OIG. He wrote that he has:

• Adjusted how it approaches performing financial audits of the Department


• Realigned its assets to focus on duplicative requirements in major acquisition systems


• Initiated audits aimed at identifying redundancies and savings in the Department's spare parts programs


• Initiated processes to improve timeliness of reports


• Sponsored a team to revise the way we communicate audit findings.

"Providing oversight of the Department of Defense is an enormous challenge, especially in time of war. Timeliness and relevance are essential and we are strongly moving in a direction that coincides with this report," Heddell added in his written statement to POGO.

Included with Heddell's statement is a listing of numerous awards given to the Pentagon Office of Inspector General awarded by the Council of Inspectors General for Integrity and Efficiency (CIGIE) and its predecessor, the President’s Council on Integrity and Efficiency (PCIE). That list of awards can be found here.

Also, Mary L. Ugone, the Pentagon's Deputy Inspector General for Auditing, whose division of the DoD IG office was targeted by Grassley in his report, issued a written statement to POGO.

“This year alone, our auditors have saved the Department $4.1 billion," Ugone said. "We have placed significant emphasis on life and safety issues affecting our men and women in uniform such as testing body armor and the acquiring of counter IED devices. The work of audit is not just about dollars, it’s about protecting the warfighter.”

Grassley's report is a fascinating and troubling read into one of the government's most important watchdog offices. POGO will be writing more about the Grassley report in the days to come.

-- Nick Schwellenbach

Comments

[DON]

Apparently, Ms Ugone and her Director for Contact Audits, Mr. Jollif plan to retire by the end of the year.

[Joe]

The DoD IG's office has been in trouble for years. Finally someone has reviewed the IG with an eye to the value it provides to the Department rather than the fluff peer reviews performed by equally incompentent IG. Everyone knows that the IG's office does not perform audits, merely inspections. One of the issues is that reports sit on managements' desk for months and the results are outdated by the time a report is issued. Many times the reviews are cancelled due to the outdated nature of the assignment. Mr. Heddell has not done his job. He has been in place far more than a year. He was acting since about July 2008. It has been over two years and the period of time covered by the Senator's review fits squarel on Heddell, not to mention Urgone. One last thought, it was the DoD IG that missed all the deficienies that were reported by the GAO on DCAA. The only reason that the IG was not in trouble with the Senate last year is that Heddell was confirmed by this administration. Otherwise, Heddell would have felt a far greater wrath from the Senate. This is the tip of the iceberg for the IG, can't wait for POGO to dig into DCIS, now talk about an organization with waste and abuse.