C'mon NASA. This isn't exactly ROCKET SCIENCE J
Posted on 03/21/2002 8:19:33 AM PST by cogitator
Panel: NASA Can't Manage Funds
WASHINGTON -- Government and private auditors testified Wednesday that NASA has operated for years with an antiquated accounting system, making it almost impossible to track how billions of public dollars are spent.
Since 1990, the General Accounting Office, Congress's investigative arm, warned lawmakers the space agency was headed for trouble without a modern financial management system.
Yet for five years, the Arthur Andersen accounting firm gave the agency a clean bill of health.
Last year, Price Waterhouse Coopers took over as NASA's independent auditor and determined the agency could not accurately account for expenses, property, equipment and materials.
It took staffers on the House Science Committee to identify a $644 million misstatement in NASA's 1999 budget statement.
The irony, Arthur Andersen has been indicted in connection with the Enron scandal, was not lost on those at Wednesday's hearing.
"Is NASA the government's Enron?" asked Rep. Stephen Horn, R-Calif., chairman of the House subcommittee on government efficiency, financial management and intergovernmental relations.
Half-joking, Horn asked whether there had been any document shredding at NASA.
"Not to my knowledge," was the somber answer from Alan Lamoreaux, NASA Assistant Inspector General for Audits.
Patrick McNamee, a Price Waterhouse Coopers partner, declined to second-guess Arthur Andersen's auditing practices.
Gregory Kutz, GAO director of financial management and assurance, testified Andersen's work did not meet professional audit standards.
Paul Pastorek, NASA's newly appointed general counsel, did not dispute the audit findings.
"It is undeniable. NASA has financial management problems," Pastorek said.
NASA Administrator Sean O'Keefe is determined to restore the agency's credibility with Congress, auditors and the public by improving its financial management performance, Pastorek said.
The core of a $835 million new integrated management system could be in place by June 2003 with the final pieces in place by 2005, two years earlier than previously projected, Pastorek said. [Which is 5.5 space missions costing $150 million dollars apiece.]
Unlike other NASA hearings, which often draw standing-room only crowds, Wednesday's hearing was sparsely attended, and for most of the session Horn was the only lawmaker present.
Throughout the 1990s, the space agency has been hounded by cost overruns and schedule delays as it developed the International Space Station, its most ambitious engineering project since the Apollo program.
The cost overruns are directly linked to the agency's inability to accurately manage its finances, said Allen Li, a GAO director.
"If you don't know what you have in the bank, you can't predict how much money you will have or need for expenses in the future," Li said.
"Not to my knowledge," was the somber answer from Alan Lamoreaux, NASA Assistant Inspector General for Audits.
"Actually, sir," Lamoreaux continued, "NASA has been pioneering waste reduction technology in all aspects of its operation, and has been using the accounting documents as additives to the Space Shuttle's solid booster fuel."
The whole freaking budget for NASA is only 15 billion. Look at the waste in the 320 plus billion dollar defense budget or the entitlement scamming inherent in 550 billion dollar Soc Sec system, not to mention Medicaid/Medicare
Fact is, NASA does not have the interest group backing these other boondoggles have. So, like the supercoillider, their fate is already determined.. (cut,cut,cut..poof!)
C'mon NASA. This isn't exactly ROCKET SCIENCE J
I beg to differ. The Boeing, Lockheed, USA, OSC, SPACEHAB, etc. lobbiests, plus the various NASA center community lobbiests and associated space activist organizations all pressure Congress and the White House every time NASA's budget is threatened.
The fact that many of these same groups also press for military and other federal spending in their areas of interest in no way makes NASA less of a pork barrel operation. The fact that NASA is getting less is representative of the relative importance of NASA projects to the American people in general and special interests in particular. Compare NASA's budget with the National Institutes of Health or the National Science Foundation budgets and with their relative performance in benefits to Americans returned. NASA looses in that comparison big time.
I dont have a problem with looking at govt waste. But it's a lot of blabbing about a budget thats less than 4 % of DOD, and what about all those 300 dollar pipe wrenches, etc?
But the American people would rather sell out next years worker with the burden of subsidizing drug prescriptions to middle class seniors who are already sucking the blood of the nation's workers (you want to tell me how much THAT would cost?)
Lockheed, OSC, etc are NOTHING compared to the leftist redistributionist lobbies pushing for a higher NIH spending on AIDS (how many billions that affect how many people?), cancer, etc. NASA's successes( ie Hubble Telescope, planet probes, etc) get short shrift, despite the additions to our understanding of the universe and solar system and secondary benefits like the invention of KEvlar and other materiel, etc (including software development, esoteric composites, high speed efficient coolers and so on, ad infinitum)
Yea, yea theres waste everywhere. Not just at NASA, is my point.
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