Army Audit Offices Couldn't Produce Files After Auditors Left, and One Auditor Audited Their Own Work, Pentagon Inspector General Finds

Two Army internal audit offices could not give inspectors the files for five of the projects selected for review, one because the auditors who had access no longer worked there and the other because files were lost in a cloud migration, according to a peer review by the Defense Department's Office of Inspector General.

The report, DOWIG-2027-007, is dated Oct. 22 and was posted Oct. 27. It reviewed the Army Internal Review program, about 130 offices that serve as in-house auditors for Army commands, installations and activities, for the three years that ended Dec. 31, 2024. The inspector general's office now also uses the title Department of War Inspector General under a 2025 executive order, the report notes.

The program received a rating of "pass with deficiencies with a scope limitation." Audit organizations can be rated pass, pass with deficiencies or fail, and the report says the problems it found "were not systemic" and did not reach the level required for a fail rating.

What the Army Internal Review Peer Review Found

Inspectors picked 32 projects completed at nine Army offices from 2022 through 2024 but could not review five of them. The Army Human Resources Command's internal review office "could not provide project documentation for four" audit engagements "because the auditors who had access to the project documentation no longer worked for the agency," the report says. That office was down to one staff member during the review, and its audit software does not allow access to files without the original user's credentials, according to a footnote.

At Army Futures Command headquarters, staff "lost project documentation for one nonaudit service during a manual cloud migration in May 2023," the report says.

The review listed eight deficiencies. At the U.S. Army Civilian Human Resources Agency, the only auditor flagged a "self-review threat" on two audits but the files showed no safeguards. The auditor told inspectors they had prepared financial statements for the agency's risk management program and "were then responsible for conducting audits for the financial statements," according to the report. When the auditor left during the review, the agency said "due to reductions in staff, there was no one" who could help.

Other findings included auditors at one office who lacked the required experience for the only audit that office completed in three years, five offices whose required quality monitoring was missing or incomplete for at least one of the three years, and missing supervisory sign-off on 16 of 18 working papers at one office and 14 of 44 at another.

Army Response and Open Recommendations

The report makes 14 recommendations. Four remain unresolved, nine are resolved but open, and one is closed, according to the inspector general.

Three of the unresolved items involve the Civilian Human Resources Agency. The Army's deputy assistant secretary for financial operations and information said that agency "no longer employs any auditors and does not intend to in the foreseeable future," so a memo directing it to fix the problems was not necessary, according to the report. The inspector general said not issuing the memo "can potentially hinder" the agency if it hires auditors later. The fourth unresolved item concerns the U.S. Army Pacific-Eighth Army office and how its auditors ask about ongoing investigations or legal proceedings. The inspector general asked for a response within 30 days.

Sources: Department of Defense Office of Inspector General, "External Peer Review of the Army Internal Review Program," Report No. DOWIG-2027-007, Oct. 22, 2026 (https://www.oversight.gov/sites/default/files/documents/reports/2026-10/DOWIG-2027-007_20261022_Redacted_SECURE.pdf); Oversight.gov report page (https://www.oversight.gov/reports/external-peer-review-army-internal-review-program-0); Cover photo: The Pentagon (Air Force Staff Sgt. Brittany A. Chase, U.S. Department of Defense, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons).