Watchdog will probe DISA contracts
The Defense Department inspector general will audit the way one of the largest IT buyers in the federal government doles out its contracts, officials announced Monday.
Auditors will start work this month at the Fort Meade, Maryland, headquarters and the Scott Air Force Base, Illinois, offices of the Defense Information Systems Agency, according to a letter from the IG dated May 12, but released Monday.
“Our objective is to determine whether [DISA] awarded contracts in accordance with Federal and DOD regulations,” states the letter. “We will consider suggestions from management on additional or revised objectives.”
Douglas Packard, a DISA official, told FedScoop the audit was routine, designed “to provide independent, relevant, and timely oversight in our particular area, in order to promote accountability, integrity and efficiency.”
Packard, who is also chief of the Defense Information Technology Contracting Organization, added that “DISA and DITCO welcome the opportunity to meet with the DOD IG team to review best practices and learn all we can to enhance and improve the support we bring to the warfighter.”
According to its website, DISA spends about $9.4 billion per year — almost a third of the $30.47 billion annual DOD IT budget. Only $2.2 billion of that is appropriated funds, though. Much of the rest is in the form of a working capital fund financed by DOD agencies or the military branches that buy telecommunications, IT or acquisition services from DISA.
DISA provides IT and computing services through its Defense Enterprise Computing Centers, “which provide mainframe and server-processing operations, data storage, production support, technical services, and end-user assistance” for more than 4 million DoD users through 30 mainframes, more than 7,000 servers and 8,000 terabytes of data.
Contact the reporter on this story via email at Shaun.Waterman@FedScoop.com, or follow him on Twitter @WatermanReports. Subscribe to the Daily Scoop to get all the federal IT news you need every morning in your inbox at 6 a.m. www.fedscoop.com/subscribe
