DOD Has Never Passed a Full Financial Audit. GAO Explains Why
Description
GAO’s testimony discusses DOD's efforts to achieve a clean financial audit opinion by 2028, recent audit progress by some military components, and major questions surrounding DOD's revised audit strategy. GAO highlighted longstanding weaknesses involving financial systems, internal controls, fraud risk management, and accountability over trillions of dollars in assets and spending. The testimony also raises concerns about DOD’s plan to rely more heavily on centralized coordination, manual testing, automation, and artificial intelligence tools to accelerate audit readiness. GAO emphasized that DOD still needs to:
• Address longstanding material weaknesses and audit findings
• Improve corrective action plans and root-cause analysis
• Modernize financial management systems • Strengthen internal controls and fraud risk management
• Develop a comprehensive department-wide plan for achieving and sustaining a clean audit opinion GAO also noted that sustaining long-term financial management improvements--not just achieving a one-time clean audit opinion--will be critical to improving transparency, operational readiness, and stewardship of taxpayer dollars.
• Address longstanding material weaknesses and audit findings
• Improve corrective action plans and root-cause analysis
• Modernize financial management systems • Strengthen internal controls and fraud risk management
• Develop a comprehensive department-wide plan for achieving and sustaining a clean audit opinion GAO also noted that sustaining long-term financial management improvements--not just achieving a one-time clean audit opinion--will be critical to improving transparency, operational readiness, and stewardship of taxpayer dollars.