The Door to Armed Services Board of Contract Appeals is Through a COFD

Recent Northrop Appeal

Northrop attempted to open up a dialog with Government as to the allowability of litigation settlement costs it planned to include in its 2019-2023 Sector Home Office Allocation Submission. Of course, Northrop believed the cost was allowable, and the Corporate Administrative Contracting Officer (CACO) believed the costs to be unallowable.

Read More

Topics: Non-US Government Contractor, Litigation Consulting Support, Incurred Cost Proposal Submission (ICP/ICE), DCAA Audit Support, Government Regulations, Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR)

DoD-IG has two Opposing Views on DCAA

DoD-IG Goes After DCMA for not Supporting DCAA Findings

On February 26, 2021, the DoD-IG issued an audit report raising significant concern about the actions taken by DCMA Administrative Contracting Officers (ACOs) in relation to DCAA audit findings. The Finding section of the DoD-IG report found that out of 30 DCAA audit reports at two of the largest DoD contractors, 14 were not properly addressed per Federal Acquisition Regulation requirements by the cognizant ACO. Our guess and POGO believes the large DoD contractors are Lockheed Martin and Boeing – but this is only our guess. The DoD-IG report goes on to state that: “As a result, DCMA contracting officer actions on the eight audit reports may have resulted in improperly reimbursing DoD contractors up to $97 million in unallowable costs on Government contracts. In addition, because DCMA contracting officers did not take timely action on six audit reports, they delayed the correction of CAS noncompliances and the recovery of any increased costs due to the Government.” The report goes on to state that: “The Defense Contract Management Agency Director agreed with all five recommendations,” including reviewing ACO decisions to “Disallow and recoup any unallowable costs not previously disallowed.” (Evaluation of Defense Contract Management Agency Actions Taken on Defense Contract Audit Agency Report Findings Involving Two of the Largest Department of Defense Contractors – DoD-IG-2021-056, Dated February 26, 2021)

Read More

Topics: Litigation Consulting Support, Contracts & Subcontracts Administration, DOD IG, DCAA Audit Support, Government Regulations, Cost Accounting Standards (CAS), Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR)

DCAA – The Hidden Cost of Audits

Where does DCAA’s View of the Contractor and their Role in Acquisition Come From?

DCAA Auditor Training

DCAA website provides that new auditors receive in-depth professional training from DCAA’s Defense Contract Audit Institute (DCAI), along with on-the-job training at their assigned field audit office. DCAI is located in Atlanta, GA and provides auditors with an excellent basis on which to start their careers in contract audit. Many at Redstone GCI can speak from personal experience that, once you get past the exciting MARTA ride from the airport, the instructors at DCAI provide a good hands-on learning environment. However, we are not sure if it is a subliminal message piped into the classroom or local indoctrination at assigned field offices, but the auditors are coming away with the impression that no contractors can be trusted, and a good audit opinion has to include questioned cost.

Read More

Topics: Compliant Accounting Infrastructure, Litigation Consulting Support, Incurred Cost Proposal Submission (ICP/ICE), DOD IG, Government Compliance Training, DFARS Business Systems, DCAA Audit Support, Government Regulations, Cost Accounting Standards (CAS), Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR)

DCMA to Take the Lead on Resolving TINA Audit Findings


Defense Pricing Memo – September 30, 2020

Acting Principal Director, Defense Pricing and Contracting, Mr. Kim Harrington issued a memo on September 30, 2020 to announce that the Defense Contract Management Agency (DCMA) has a new Defective Pricing Pilot Team to provide support to Procuring Contracting Officers (PCOs) to resolve and disposition Defense Contract Audit Agency (DCAA) Truth in Negotiations Act (TINA) compliance audits. DCAA’s new favorite audit it appears. Reading a little into the memo (ok – not too much reading as the memo uses the word – backlog) DCAA has apparently created a new backlog for DoD of what they affectionately call TiN audits. Not a real surprise as DCAA created a TiN team a few years back. DCAA historically had an extensive workload development process to audit all large fixed priced contracts and sample smaller ones that created more audits than resources could accommodate. As we have reported before, now that DCAA is looking for work, the rush appears to be on for DCAA auditors to get back into more defective pricing audits.

Read More

Topics: Proposal Cost Volume Development & Pricing, Litigation Consulting Support, DCAA Audit Support, Defense Procurement and Acquisition Policy (DPAP)

Redstone Success Program – How We Help Government Contractors Succeed

How would you feel if you had unlimited access to all the resources Redstone Government Consulting had to offer?  Relief?  Security?  Control?  Protected?  Re-focused?

Read More

Topics: Redstone GCI, Litigation Consulting Support, Small Business Compliance, Contracts & Subcontracts Administration

DOJ Media Release: False Claims Act Cases in FY14

The Continuing Trend of Relatively Few Involving Defense Contractors

The False Claims Act (FCA) and the alleged misdeeds of companies doing business with the government made it possible for the U.S. Department of Justice to recover a record amount of $5.69 billion in civil settlements and judgments for the government for this past fiscal year.  Notably a trend continues where relatively few actions involve defense contractors, albeit this group continues to be miscast as the bad players in government contracting.  In FY2014, the true bad players continued to be those involved with federal health care programs ($2.3 billion) and the new kid on the block, bank and other financial institutions fraud ($3.1 billion).

Read More

Topics: Compliant Accounting Infrastructure, Litigation Consulting Support, DFARS Business Systems

Contractor Dilemma: Are Back Pay Amounts Allowable?

Contractor Agrees to Reimburse Employees for Back Wages after Cited SCA Violation

An investigation conducted by the U.S. Department of Labor’s (DOL) Wage and Hour Division for compliance with the McNamara-O’Hara Service Contract Act (SCA) and the Contract Work Hours and Safety Standards Act (CWHSSA) revealed that CH, Inc. violated the provisions of these two statutes by underpaying 35 employees $268,899 in fringe benefits and overtime which, under the statutes, those employees were entitled to receive.

Read More

Topics: Compliant Accounting Infrastructure, Litigation Consulting Support, Small Business Compliance, Contracts & Subcontracts Administration