Ayotte Welcomes Expedited Schedule to Audit Pentagon Financial Records

Press Release

U.S. Senator Kelly Ayotte (R-NH) welcomed Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta's announcement today that he has directed the Department of Defense (DoD) to move up its deadline for becoming audit-ready from 2017 to 2014. Secretary Panetta's support for moving up the audit timetable is especially important given recent Pentagon findings that DoD's financial accounting is in worse shape than previously believed.

"I applaud Secretary Panetta's commitment to ensure that DoD is audit ready by 2014. As we make difficult budget decisions, we must have reliable financial data. We cannot afford to waste a single dollar as we seek to give our troops the resources they need in this time of war and fiscal austerity," Senator Ayotte said.

During a Senate Armed Services Readiness Subcommittee hearing in July, Senator Ayotte underscored the need to find savings within the Department of Defense budget by identifying wasteful and duplicative spending at the Pentagon. She noted that DoD is one of the few agencies in the entire federal government that cannot pass an independent audit of its finances, and expressed concern that DoD needs more reliable data and financial management processes necessary to fully evaluate areas of potential savings. DoD's inability to be audited could limit its ability to successfully implement management controls and efficiency initiatives, achieve savings, and redirect increasingly scarce defense dollars to higher priorities.

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