Coburn to military chiefs: Clean up your financial books

Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) wants the U.S. military to improve its financial management practices, which he says could yield enough savings to ward off additional program cuts.

In a letter to the four military service chiefs, Coburn said he is worried about the nation’s “extraordinary challenge regarding to its fiscal health.” And he wants the Defense Department to help hoist the nation out of the fiscal ditch.

The Senate Finance Committee member urged the military chiefs to “aggressively pursue financial improvement and audit readiness in order to preserve the military's ability to take care of our troops today and to invest in the needed modernization of our weapon systems for the future.

"If done properly, this effort to improve your financial management will yield savings and prevent cuts to military personnel and programs which could occur otherwise,” states the letter.

The Marine Corps and Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA) have had success with financial management reform in recent years, Coburn wrote.

Yet, there is ample resistance within the military for taking such steps, he said.

“For decades, the mission of the Department of Defense to comply with basic financial standards has been viewed as a waste of scarce resources, even more so during a time of war,” states the letter.

This culture means there is little quality financial information or auditable data, Coburn said. And it means Pentagon budget writers and program managers are unable to perform important “buy-versus-lease” and other financial analyses, he added.

Coburn was a member of President Obama’s fiscal commission that called for $100 billion in Pentagon cuts. He told the chiefs he will continue to urge “a budget-freeze of all base budget non-military personnel accounts at the Defense Department until it complies with the law regarding auditable financial statements.”