Critical Thinking for the Federal Auditor
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Contradictory guidance not only promotes auditor weariness, but wariness, regarding management trustworthiness. In spite of its best intentions to recognize contracting ofcer needs, the Section809Panel recommendations appear redundant in that DCAA’s current mission statement (available on its external website) already acknowledges both the acquisition team (of which the contracting officer is part) and the taxpayer (DCAA, n.d., Mission ). Likewise, the DoDIG describes its audit function as including actionable recommendations, that is, actions that improve DoD programs and operations (DoDIG, n.d.). Finally, providing advice to the contracting officer is already compatible with government auditing standards that require the auditor to assist oversight ofcials by “making recommendations for corrective action” (GAO, 2018c, para. 7.50, p. 139).
Threats to Job Stability Lastly, the federal auditor deals with the continual threat of job encroachment by private sector auditors. Both the National Defense Industrial Association (Thomas, 2017) and the Section 809 Panel recently recommended the hire of “independent professional auditors” (Section 809 Panel, 2019, p. 25). However, the promotion of commercial auditors
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Defense ARJ, January 2020, Vol. 27No. 1 : 2-26
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