Washington

Examiners: Accounting at NASA still a mess

WASHINGTON - NASA's finances are such a jumbled mess that lawmakers fear the agen-cy's $100 billion moon-Mars venture might spark massive cost overruns such as those that plagued the international space station for years. Auditors from two agencies on Thursday testified that NASA has made little progress in accounting for how it spends taxpayer money. Their key findings: ● NASA still can't balance its own checkbook - but its ledger is now off by tens of millions instead of billions a few years ago. ● The agency is on the verge of getting yet another failing grade on its outside audit. That would be the third time in four years it has not earned a passing grade. And government auditors since 1990 have listed NASA's contracting system as at high risk for waste and fraud. ● NASA relies too heavily on outside contractors for accounting numbers, leaving room for fraud and abuse and making it difficult to monitor them. ● Of 45 changes the Government Accountability Office said NASA needed, only three have been made and 13 others are partly in place, leaving 29 areas that still need major improvement. "The lack of reliable, day-to-day information continues to threaten NASA's ability to manage its programs, oversee its contractors and effectively allocate its budget across its numerous projects and programs," said Gregory Kutz of the GAO. But NASA Chief Financial Officer Gwendolyn Sykes said the space agency has made significant strides since Congress and auditors began taking it to task over serious bookkeeping problems years ago. And she disagreed with their numbers, saying the agency had fixed 34 of the problems previously cited. NASA's failings could spell trouble for its plans to return to the moon by 2018 and begin planning a manned exploration of Mars, auditors said. Just a few years ago, NASA's accounting woes led to a surprise $4.5 billion cost overrun on the space station, noted the GAO's Allen Li. Kutz and Li testified before combined House panels from the Science and Government Reform committees. Sykes and NASA Inspector General Robert Cobb also appeared.