Congress

Joint hearing on NASA finances

The space subcommittee of the House Science Committee and the subcommittee on government finances of the House Government Reform Committee are joining forces for a joint hearing Thursday morning (10 am, Rayburn 2318) on NASA’s financial management system. The hearing plans to examine how NASA’s new integrated financial management system is performing, and what else the agency is doing to ensure the accuracy of NASA’s financial data, something auditors have raised concerns about in recent years. As the Government Report Committee’s announcement of the hearing noted, “Although NASA management blamed conversion to the new system for its poor audit performance in both FY2003 and FY2004, auditors also found that NASA did not follow proper accounting procedures, did not accurately account for property and equipment, and was unable to effectively reconcile its Treasury account (the equivalent of balancing its checkbook).” Witnesses include several NASA and GAO officials, including NASA CFO Gwendolyn Sykes.

3 comments to Joint hearing on NASA finances

  • William Berger

    Wasn’t O’Keefe SENT to NASA to fix its financial system? It is still broken?

    What did O’Keefe accomplish, anyway?

  • David Davenport

    What did O’Keefe accomplish, anyway?

    He got a better gig — President of Louisiana State University. It pays better, and LSU has way better looking cheerleaders than NASAA does.

  • It isn’t just that O’Keefe didn’t fix NASA’s accounting. (It’s not clear to me exactly how it was broken, but I can believe that it was.) The reform that O’Keefe introduced, full-cost accounting, introduced a host of new financial irregularities.

    It just goes to show you that managers with entirely the wrong priorities, for example counting beans instead of launching rockets, often also screw up the very things that they think are important.