McCaskill Questions Defense Department on Contracting Oversight

High turnover and poor retention hurting ability to oversee defense contracting

June 3, 2008 -- WASHINGTON, D.C. – U.S. Senator Claire McCaskill today took the Department of Defense to task for contracting mishaps in recent years due in part to high turnover and vacancies in the offices responsible for overseeing defense contracts. At stake, McCaskill says, are billions of dollars as the military experiences high-levels of cost overruns and delays.

McCaskill questioned the top official in the Department of Defense acquisitions office and a Government Accountability Office (GAO) official in a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing. GAO data shows that Department of Defense’s major defense acquisition programs have an average cost overrun of 26 percent and average delay of 21 months over original estimates. More than a third exceed original budgets by 50 percent. Meanwhile, the average tenure of acquisition program managers is 17 months. McCaskill says something needs to change in order to retain staff overseeing contracts and control costs.

“I’m new here, but this is sickening. This is unacceptable. This would never be tolerated in the private sector,” McCaskill said. “And the reason it’s tolerated here is because we care about our military, we want them to have the best, and because, frankly, it’s not our money – it’s taxpayer money. I think we need to do something dramatic and different in terms of how these processes are working.”

McCaskill specifically asked those testifying about the role that high staff turnover in acquisition offices has played, and inquired into what they are doing to retain staff. Most acquisition programs last between 5 and 10 years, yet the average tenure of program managers for 39 different projects since 2001 was only 17 months, creating serious continuity problems in overseeing contracts. Vacancies have also plagued acquisition oversight. In fact, the three departments of the military did not send witnesses to the hearing today in part because the senior positions at two remain vacant.

“This is a disaster. We’re talking about hundreds of billions of dollars. Isn’t it time for someone to stand up and say this is a crisis and we can no longer use this model in terms of the kind of longevity it is producing in these critical oversight and accountability positions?” McCaskill asked at the hearing.

Since joining the Senate almost a year and a half ago, McCaskill has made government contracting oversight a priority. McCaskill, along with Senator Jim Webb from Virginia, introduced legislation that creates a commission to examine wartime contracting in an effort to cut waste. The commission was signed into law early this year, and appointments to the commission are expected in the coming weeks. In the hearing today, Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl Levin acknowledged McCaskill’s vigilance on contracting issues.

Source: Senator Claire McCaskill

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