Senator Carper Commends Department of Homeland Security on Clean Financial Audit Opinion

WASHINGTON – Today, Sen. Tom Carper (D-Del.), ranking member of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, commended the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) following its announcement that is has obtained a clean financial audit for the third year in a row:

“The mission of the Department of Homeland Security is one of the most difficult and complex of any federal agency,” said Sen. Carper. “They do everything from securing our ports of entry, to inspecting food, to defending our cyber networks, to keeping our cities and towns safe. It is no small or easy task for any agency to produce a clean financial audit, let alone one as large and complex as DHS. 

“We need to look across the federal government, find what’s working, and do more of that. It is clear that what the Department and its leadership are doing to ensure accurate and complete financial accounting is working, and could be used as a model for the Department of Defense, the only agency that has yet to meet its obligation to clean up its books. While the Department of Homeland Security’s independent auditor detailed some significant needs for further improvement, the Department is clearly making real progress. I commend them for their ongoing commitment to being a good steward of taxpayer dollars and encourage them to continue and build on these efforts.”

In 2012, Sen. Carper joined Sens. Scott Brown (R-Mass.) and Ron Johnson (R- Wisc.) in seeing passage into law of the DHS Audit Requirement Target (DART) Act, which requires DHS to obtain and pass full audits for its financial statements. By earning a clean bill of financial health from an independent auditor for the third year running, DHS continues to be in compliance with this law. 

The DHS is the third largest Department in the government, with 22 components, 240,000 employees, and a 60 billion dollar budget. The Department of Defense is the only remaining large federal department that is unable to conduct a full financial audit.