S.Amdt. 2057

SA 2057. Mr. SANDERS submitted an amendment intended to be proposed
to amendment SA 1463 proposed by Mr. McCain to the bill H.R. 1735, to
authorize appropriations for fiscal year 2016 for military activities
of the Department of Defense, for military construction, and for
defense activities of the Department of Energy, to prescribe military
personnel strengths for such fiscal year, and for other purposes; which
was ordered to lie on the table; as follows:

At the end of subtitle A of title X, add the following:

SEC. 1005. INDEPENDENT ASSESSMENT OF DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE
AUDIT AND FINANCIAL MANAGEMENT PROCESSES.

(a) Independent Assessment.--
(1) Assessment required.--The Secretary of Defense shall
obtain from an entity independent of the Department of
Defense selected by the Secretary for purposes of this
section an assessment of the audit and financial management
processes of the Department.
(2) Composition of assessment team.--The assessment team
used by the entity selected by the Secretary pursuant to
paragraph (1) to conduct the assessment required pursuant to
that paragraph shall be composed of individuals with
extensive experience in audit and financial management of
private sector and Federal agencies who are not currently
participating in Financial Improvement and Audit Readiness
(FIAR) activities for the Department or affiliated with
organizations who are supporting such activities.
(3) Elements.--The assessment required pursuant to
paragraph (1) shall include the following:
(A) A comparison of the audit and financial management
processes of the Department with the audit and financial
management processes of other appropriate Federal agencies,
and appropriate private sector entities, including the
qualifications of officials responsible for audit oversight
and compliance, for purposes of identifying best practices to
be adopted by the Department for its audit and financial
management processes.
(B) An analysis of the progress and investments made by the
Department under its Financial Improvement and Audit
Readiness Plan, and a comparison of such progress and
investment with the progress and investments made by other
Federal agencies and appropriate private sector entities in
audit and financial management processes, for purposes of
determining the extent to which Department progress on
financial management and audit readiness is consistent with
results achieved by other appropriate Federal agencies and
appropriate private sector entities.
(C) An identification of recommendations on policies and
management and other activities that could be undertaken by
the Department to enhance its audit and financial management
processes in order to obtain and maintain clean audit
opinions of its financial statement as effectively and
efficiently as possible.
(4) Access to information.--The Secretary shall ensure that
the entity conducting the assessment required by paragraph
(1) has access to all the information, data, and resources
necessary to conduct the assessment in a timely manner.
(5) Report.--The Secretary shall require the entity
conducting the assessment required by paragraph (1) to submit
to the Secretary and the congressional defense committees a
report on the assessment by not later than one year after the
date of the enactment of this Act.
(b) Transmittal.--Not later than 60 days after receiving
the report described in subsection (a)(5), the Secretary
shall transmit the report to Congress, together with the
following:
(1) An analysis by the Secretary of the findings and
recommendations of the report.
(2) A description of the response of the Department to such
finding and recommendations.
(3) Such other matters with respect to the audit and
financial management processes of the Department as the
Secretary considers appropriate.

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