Defense Department
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The Defense Department reported making just $1.1 billion in improper payments in fiscal 2011, a small fraction of the Pentagon's total outlays of more than $1 trillion. But, in a new report, the Government Accountability Office said those estimates are neither reliable nor statistically valid because of "longstanding and pervasive" weaknesses in DoD financial-management practices as well as specific deficiencies in the department's procedures for estimating improper payments.
June 10, 2013 -
By July 1, the Pentagon will provide the Senate Armed Services Committee its plan for managing reduced fiscal 2014 budget levels, Deputy Defense Secretary Ashton Carter said in a speech Wednesday. The committee had asked DoD to provide a list of spending reductions after the White House submitted a budget proposal for next fiscal year that simply ignored sequestration, ostensibly in the hope that the automatic budget cuts would be canceled or otherwise avoided in 2014.
June 06, 2013 -
This week's guests on BGov's Capital Impact show include Robert Levinson and Sanford Reback.
June 06, 2013 -
The Partnership for Public Service nominated Kevin Geiss, the Air Force's deputy assistant secretary for energy, for a 2013 Service to America Medal. Geiss' planning helped the service find $1 billion in savings through more efficient fuel usage.
June 05, 2013 -
In an open letter to congressional leaders and to Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel, a broad array of military scholars argue the cost of running the Pentagon bureaucracy soon will crowd out the spending necessary to fight and win wars.
June 04, 2013 -
In the initial round of installations, the Navy hoped to outfit 15 ships with the new standardized IT architecture. But fiscal 2013 budget problems will cut the number of ships roughly in half.
June 03, 2013 -
The Marine Corps will transition on Saturday to a government-owned, government-operated IT network, ending its 12-year reliance on the Navy-Marine Corps Intranet (NMCI). The Navy said it expects to award the follow-on contract to NMCI by June 30.
May 31, 2013 -
Navy CIO Terry Halvorsen says the Navy and Marine Corps have already reduced IT spending by $2 billion, and will soon target billions more in technology spending.
May 30, 2013 -
Roughly 680,000 DoD civilians will be forced to take one day off per week without pay between July 8 and the end of the fiscal year as a result of the automatic budget cuts, known as sequestration. Jessica Wright, acting undersecretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness, told In Depth with Francis Rose the decision wasn't an easy one.
May 29, 2013 -
Frank Kendall, Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology and Logistics; and Dr. Ash Carter, Deputy Secretary of Defense, recently gave an update on the agency's Better Buying initiative at an event held by the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
May 29, 2013 -
The Pentagon will begin tracking how much time its acquisition managers spend performing and responding to oversight in an effort to remove "non-value-added" processes from the procurement system.
May 28, 2013 -
News and buzz in the acquisition and IT communities that you may have missed this week.
May 28, 2013 -
On this week's Capital Impact show, Bloomberg Government analysts discuss the billions of dollars spent on intelligence operations by the federal government, and the latest jobs report. May 23, 2013
May 23, 2013 -
Frank Kendall says many different factors played into the Pentagon's decision to go with a competitive bidding process to develop its integrated electronic health record system, instead of adopting VA's VistA program. He said DoD wants to ensure its system is interoperable not just with VA hospitals but with civilian health facilities as well. In addition, Kendall cited cultural differences between the two large agencies.
May 23, 2013 -
The Army says hard-won lessons on the battlefield have taught it that stovepiped IT systems have no place in the business of intelligence collection and sharing. It also acknowledges that enforcing a single set of common standards comes with some tradeoffs.
May 17, 2013