As November draws closer, an increasing number of overpriced defense programs are running for cover in the Defense Department budget, hoping to lock in their funding before the new administration can slay them with its fiscal pen. One of these is the Joint Improvised Explosive Device Defeat Organization (JIEDDO), the DoD agency charged with marshaling the department’s resources in thwarting deadly makeshift bombs—and wasting millions of dollars in the process, according to federal investigators.

Deputy Defense Secretary Gordon England has called “institutionalizing” JIEDDO, or enshrining it in the department’s base budget, one of his priorities. JIEDDO has received more than $11 billion from Congress since its 2006 inception, nearly all from emergency supplemental spending bills. But Congress last year slashed JIEDDO’s initial request for base-budget funding from $500 to $120 million, citing concerns about the agency’s rapid staff and budget growth.

DoD again requested $500 million for JIEDDO in 2009. However, a report released last week by the Government Accountability Office (GAO) suggests the agency needs discipline rather than reward. JIEDDO’s job is to solicit new bomb-defeating technologies, send them through a multi-step review process, and turn them over to the military services for procurement. But GAO found that funding transactions for 18 of 24 projects it reviewed were not properly authorized: While projects valued at more than $25 million should be approved by the Secretary of Defense, many were not because JIEDDO had no consistent policy for assessing the value of a program.

 Other findings:

• Of the $1.3 billion in projects reviewed, 83 percent were incorrectly categorized as management and professional support services.
• JIEDDO’s internal tracking of employees is so poor that an ad hoc attempt to tally its personnel for Congress turned up 1,466 employees, more than three times the number previously reported, while GAO found another 114.
• The ratio of contractor to government employees is nearly 5 to 1, with contractors performing “critical positions within JIEDDO management (that) might have had a significant influence on its decision making.”

In its annual report released last Month, JIEDDO says it is “aggressively” supporting Pentagon efforts to “develop alternatives to institutionalizing” the agency. Shock treatment, perhaps?

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