specifically address i.t.a.'s contract management rules and responsibilities in support of arlington requirements. although officials told us that they were aware of their roles and responsibilities, the question is what happens when personnel change? going forward, sustained attention on the part of arlington and its partners will be important to ensure that contracts of all types and risk levels are managed effectively. third, with respect to dedicated contract staffing arrangements, three contracts specialists positions have been identified for arlington, but have not been filled. arlington is presently receiving support from fort bell vooir, contracting office in the form of ten positions. five funded by arlington and five by fort bellvoire. there's a need for more contracting specialists and

developing plans to fill this new position in fy 13. in closing, the success of the army's efforts to improve contracting and management at the cemetery will depend on management sustained attention and efforts to institutionalize positive steps taken today. accordingly we made a number of recommendations in our december 2011 report to improve contract management and oversight in the three areas where we found shortcomings. for the most part d.o.d. agreed with our findings and that there is a need to take action and provide a time frame for doing so. we will continue to monitor their progress. mr. chairman and members of the subcommittee, this concludes my short statement. i will be happy to answer questions. >> thank you very much, ms. martin. we now have mr. brian lepore. >> thank you, mr. chairman. chairman wilson, ranking member davis, chairman whitman and

ranking member cooper and members of the subcommittee, thank you for the opportunity to appear before you today to present our findings from our review of oversight and management of arlington national cemetery. as you know, we issued our report on the management and oversight of arlington on december 15th of last year. my testimony is based on our report, and i will make two points today. first, i'll discuss the policies and procedures that the current leadership team at arlington put in place to begin to address the deficiencies that became apparent, and i'll identify some of our recommendations to assist in that endeavor and secondly discuss factor that could potentially affect the feasibility and advisability of transferring arlington from the army to the department of veterans affairs. the v.a. here's the bottom line -- i think it is fair to say the current leadership team at arlington has taken many positive steps at the cemetery to address the deficiencies and

make improvements. the army has made progress in a range of areas, including chain of custody procedures to ensure proper accountability, over remains. better providing information assurance, and improving procedures to address inquiries from the families and the public. however, we believe some steps are still needed to ensure that these changes are institutionalized and will prove lasting for the long term, long after the spotlight has faded. therefore, we've made recommendations in six areas. first, we believe they should complete the enterprise technology to ensure the investments are are aligned with the future operational requirements. second, an updated workforce plan to ensure the workforce is properly sizened and trained. third, an internal assessment program gauging how the cemetery is doing and making any improvements that may be warranted. fourth, improving coordination with the cemetery's operational

partners. the military district of washington, the military honor guards and joint based mire henderson hall to ensure, for example, that scheduling conflicts are avoided, and the right honor guards are available when needed. fifth, a strategic plan, or campaign plan, with expected outcomes, performance metrics and milestones, and, sixth, written policies explaining how to assist the families when such assistance is warranted. the cemetery leadership has generally concurred with our recommendations and has begun to impment them. we are encouraged by this. now my final point. quett of the feesability and advisability of transfers arlington from the army to the v.a. it certainly is feasible. us a know, congress transferred more than 80 national cemeteries managed by the army to the v.a. in the 1970s. however, several factors could affect the advisability of this. such a change can have potential

costs and benefits challenges. it can lead to certain transition challenges, and can affect the characteristics that make arlington unique among our national cemetery. thus, it may be premature to change jurisdiction right now, since the army has significantly improved its management of arlington. here are some of the specific challenges that could arise in a jurisdictional change. first, simply identifying the goals of the transfer. second, the army and the v.a. have their own staff, processes and systems to determine burial eligibility and scheduling and managing burials. as an example, arlington has more restricted eligibility for in-ground burials than the v.a. third, arlington's appropriations structure is different than the v.a.'s and should you make a jurisdiction change congress may wish to review that and determine what is the right course of action. fourth, arlington provides military funeral honors but the v.a. does not. fifth, arlington hosts many special ceremonies every year, some involving the president and visiting heads of state, and

sixth, arlington is one of the most visited tourist destinations in washington, h t hosting over 4 million visitors a year. we do think opportunity exist for the army and vanchts to collaborate more for the mutual benefit of both organizations, most importantly for the benefit of our active duty service members, our veterans and their family. here are examples. v.a. staff, vanchts has staff dedicated to establishing eligibility for burial in their cemeteries and a central scheduling center that could assist arlington. conversely, v.a. officials are examining womener jew graphic information system or global positioning technology should be used in their cemeteries, but the army already does this and could conceivably provide assistance to the v.a. since no formal mechanism exists yet to identify collaboration opportunities, we recommended that the two departments establish one and they agreed. in conclusion, we believe the army has worked through the crisis and taken steps to put

arlington national cemetery on a sustainable path to ensure effective cemetery operations. our recommendations are offered in the spirit of assisting that process along so that we never have to come before you again to have this conversation. mr. chairman that concludes my prepared remarks and i would be happy to answer any questions that you or any member ever the subcommittee may have. >> thank you, director lepore and i want to thank director martin. both of you were very helpful and i appreciated your final comment that you didn't want to have to come back. so that's -- truly, you're helping make that possible. so, thank you. arlington executive director, ms. kathryn condon. >> chairman wilson, chairman whitman and distinguished members of both subcommittee, thank you for the opportunity to appear before you today to discuss the progress that we have made at arlington national cemetery. as both of the chairman and ranking member davis and cooper both know, from our monthly updates, there still is a lot of

work left that we have to do at arlington, but the army and the entire cemetery are prepared to address the challenges that remain, but today significant progress has been made. progress as a result of our concerted focus on establishing repeatable standards, measures and operating procedures that emphasize safety, proficiency, professionalism and accountability. the implementation of state of the the art technology now make the ha haloed grounds of arlington one of the most advanced technological cemeteries in the country. a different perspective than 19 months ago when the cemetery lacked stewardship was a paper-based operation using a typewriter and having only one fax machine. when call was not answered, and the workforce was not properly manned, trained or equipped. but practicing sound fiscal stewardship and displaying transparency at cemetery

operations is paramount in our effort to restore the faith, trust and honor our veterans and their families so gratefully deserve. a formal chain of custody process has been implemented to maintain positive, verifiable control of remains throughout both the internment and enternment process at the cemetery and we've reviewed years of financial records and recovered funds. $26.8 million, to be exact. funds that were fully used to fully fund, as you know, chairman whitman, the construction of the ninth call um barium and make necessary maintenance and repair. you have my commitment we will continue to examine prior year funding records to see if there are more dollars that can be recovered to put back into arlington. in the accountability report recently submitted to this congress, we have examined and photograph the 259,978 grave

sites, markers and in the accountability task force compiling the photos and coupled them with our existing records. for the first time we now have consolidated 147 years of cemetery records. records are that were created from log book entries. our paper-based records of internment and grave cards we used to have in our internment schedules, but they are no longer there, and the automated records we did have and now have them into a single accountable database. since the submission of the report, the total validated grave sites without any burial discrepancies and evidence and now 212,674. and we are working diligently to continue to close the remaining 18% of the cases to bring our efforts on accountability to closure. the creation of the single complete verifiable database

will soon allow families and other stakeholders with internet access to search and produce a picture of each and every marker in the cemetery, and to review that with publicly available information pertaining to each grave site. they can do this on our state-of-the-art website, and soon to be smartphone application we will be launching to the public. in the area of contracting, we have made significant progress in contract management, transforming our contracting activities to position the army national cemetery's program for long-term sustainment. the army has resourced our contracting support and oversight adding skilled acquisition, support personnel to support my staff, and properly training the work force involved in the acquisition process. in order to ark straight the many activities required to effectively run arlington, we have developed the army national cemetery's campaign plan, which codifies in one strategic

document, the long-term vision for the operation ever the cemetery at both arlington and the soldier airman's home. the vehicle the superintendent pat and i will use to ensure we do achieve our future vision for the cemetery. it incorporates the significant guidance, support and recommendations received from secretary mchugh, the gao, from the army inspector general, from the army audit agency, from the northern virginia technology council, and from distinguished members of congress, and particular, members of this committee. coupled with the campaign plan, we are developed our enterprise architecture and technology acquisition road map which will serve as our i.t. blueprint and ensure our i.t. investments are effectively and efficiently meeting the needs well into the future. in conclusion, i personally wish to thank both committees again for your leadership and monthly guidance as we restore honor and dignity to arlington national cemetery. i look forward to your

questions. >> thank you very much, and at this time we'll proceed to questions from each member of both of the subcommittees, and we will be on a straight five-minute rule. this will be upheld by mr. john chapla who is a professional staff member of the armied services committee, and above reproach. he is very good about keeping the five-minute rule, including with both chairman. and at this time, i'd like to ask mr. condon, first of all, it's exciting, and i hope people do hear the good news that you can access records now by the internet, as a person who has a direct family member there. it means a lot to me. as a citizen of our country, and, also, as a member of congress. in your report you have identified that more than 57,000 grave discrepancies still have to be resolved. i'd like to focus on what the most serious are, and

particularly 14,000 critical discrepancies. what is the correction timeline and funding required to address the critical deficiencies? >> mr. chairman, the critical -- in our accountability what we have done is, we started the process with business rules. in one of our business rules to match the photo that the old guard took of each and every grave site and ditch was that, we had to match that with at least two records. most of those 14,000 discrepancies which are really not discrepancies per se, means we didn't have two records. we only had one record. we're finding from the civil war we only had one document, which is the document in a handwritten transxribd law book. blaut our accountability task force did and ended it the 22nd of december, but we now have 45 analysts, most of them are temporary employees, who have dedicated themselves to looking at the social security death

index to look at census data, to look at military records, to go on ancestry.com to make sure we could find another record to validate the information we have on the grave site and headstone, and that incorporates most of what that 14,000 is. >> that's very creative and i'm delighted to hear that 3 additionally, press reports thathat $12 million previously appropriated funds could not be found and you indicated you recovered $28.6 million. could you say how the recovery was done? whether there are any other unobligated funds still to be found and how is this situation of unobligated funds to be prevented in the future? >> sir, i can first start by talking how the $12 million came about. on page 15 of ms. martin's gao report on contracting, they cited a 2010 army audit that said that $15 million was of

unliquided was recoveredtake the total of amount we found and is a tract the $48 million you get $12 million they said was unaccounted for. that was not unaccounted for bep recovered all of that $26.8 million, because the i.g. reports, the army audit reports, and the gao reports were all snatched out on time. that data, we were continuing to recover those funds. how did the staff, my resource management staff harks been working meticulously to look at each and every contract to make sure that we close out those contracts, and recover funds, and to also look at each and every, you know, when you give money out to an organization to provide support to make sure that we close out and bring back those dollars. that is how we were able to recoup the $26 million we found. >> i want to congratulate you. i can't imagine rov thaerg much

money. i'm very, very pleased for everyone, and it can be very brief, since my time is brief. should the department of veterans affairs assume responsibility for arlington national cemetery and the cemetery at the soldiers hope he home here in the district of columbia and we begin with general van jee. >> vangiel. i con cuko concur with what the already. the army should keep it and collaboration is probably better, at least for the next few years and then we'll take another look and do whatever the president and congress want us to do. >> thank you. >> refer to my colleague. >> yes, mr. chairman. as we noted in our report, given the progress, the army has made, and given the potential short-term costs of actually doing a transfer, it seems to us that it might be more prudent to

give the army a chance to see if they can complete the, their progress and bring this to a successful conclusion, and you'll have a pretty good idea how they do when general vangiel and his team come back. making that decision might be a little premature. >> that, ms. condon? >> chairman wilson i'm nothing going to answer this proek cooley. my job, fix arlington for veterans and loved ones. the decision where organize arrington is placed, all i can tell you if it is transferred you will have a fixed, much improved arlington. >> thank you all, and we now proceed to the ranking members susan davis of san diego, california. >> thank you. to you, general vangiel, if were you to give arlington a grade right now, what would that be?

>> i got a chance to go down and essentially talk to some people, and i've looked at some past reports. i haven't had a chance to look at it in-depth like i'm going to do with the inspection team as we go down. what i can say is that being deployed for the past two years, as i heard what was going on at arlington, i'd have to give them a zero. when we -- with what i heard. i have to be honest with you, because it's just not somethi something -- it was inconceivable that that was happening, because what i saw was, they were a very respectful ceremony, everything seemed to be going well. i will say, though, that looking at the progress that's been made, and i -- as i say, i go back and look at the reports that the department of the army i.g. has done. there have been two now. there has been significant progress. so if you're asking me to put it on a number scale, ma'am, that would be difficult for me to do at this point, because i don't

usually give 10s. so -- i'd have to say they're tens so i would probably say they are probably around -- they're better than five. >> of what you know and certainly from the testimony today, one of the things i kept hearing was about staffing issues and making sure that the issues around that are really sustained so that no mat whole is there, you know, that those issues are addressed. is that one that would certainly improve the grade or is there anything else that really stands out to you from that's been said? >> in 10 2010 we identified the fact that they just -- the staff wasn't robust enough to be able to do the jobs they were being asked to do, particularly from an oversight function. we recommended that the army force management support agency and the united states army manpower analysis agency come down and take a look. they did.

they made recommendations and we -- the secretary of the arm authorized 63 personnel, i believe. they have been hiring folks. i don't believe she's got them all yet. i defer for her for the actual status. in my mind, a documentation of sots documentation controls. if i had to say what really in my mind influencing the score, the service to the families is remarkable. they're doing a good job with that. ceremonies have always been done well. in fact, in one circumstance you could argue that that, in fact, they were done well because of lack of oversight in other areas. there was an assumption that everything was okay. and as you take a look at that, though, i think at the end of the day it really is about establishing documents and making these processes that they've made so much progress with so far but it's all about making sure the sops max execution right now.

>> thank you. thank you very much. ms. martin, you mention in your testimony that the need for contracting specialists and certainly for senior -- senior staffers, as well. and i'm just wondering, what do you think is a reasonable time frame to -- if we look back six months from -- look forward six months from now, should those issues be addressed by then or should it be three months, a year? what is reasonable to assume that a lot of these areas have been addressed? >> rewell, congressman, i would certainly have to say that the president has been denied a more senior contracting specialist and she has taken some steps to get that in 2013. my understanding is there is a process to do that. so she has already put the steps in place. the fact that she is getting the

support that she needs at the present time is certainly a positive, but our point would be that at some point if there is another urgent need within the aes army, that support may not be there for arlington. waez have seen, it's important again to put the policies, procedures, have the right people in place in order to sustain. so sustainment, again, is the key. but she has certainty and her team has certainly taken the steps to identify what she needs and hopefully bring those people on board. >> thank you. ms. condit, what do you think is a reasonable time frame to come back and make sure -- six months, is that reasonable? or three months? >> six months is fair. ma'am, we're currently in the process of hire that senior contracting professional to be personally on my staff. the reason why i'm very comfortable with the agreement we have now with the army contracting command with having them provide our contracting

support because that means that we have trained acquisition professionals who are in the acquisition chain so that i will make sure that they have the right training, the right credentials, the right levels of certification and the right warrants because arlington really isn't that large of an organization to have a large contracting structure embedded in our tva. so if i have the one senior professional on the staff personally and then reach back to the contracting command for support, i think that will satisfy the contracting oversight requirements that we will need at the cemetery. >> thank you. thank you, mr. chairman. >> thank you, ms. davis. we proceed now to chairman rob whitman of virginia. >> thank you, mr. chairman. ms. martin, i want to begin with you. i find it interesting in the report you talk about, contract management and deficiencies there with arlington with contract management, specifically in the area of i.t. it appears as though that $5 million spent in i.t. contracts

that appear to be wasteful and that haven't produced any results. on page 9 of the report you've said that the i.t. contract management system is not guided by a modernization blueprint and it's duplicative, and costly to maintain. from that b stastandpoint, why u believe that was occurring as well as what are the current efforts to overcome those deficiencies? where are they in this modernization effort to make th there is not duplication? >> thank you, mr. chairman, for the question. and it actually spans both of the reports. we -- the external reviews found that over 5 million that had been spent to try to modernize the i.t. systems really didn't get us very much. and there were a number of

reasons, starting from some basic stuff, like the people who were executing the contracts were not properly trained and did not have the right experience and mrs. condon kind of referred to the importance of doing that upfront planning for contracts. but -- in a couple of the systems really did not get us very much in terms of trying to modernize. as a part of the mandate, we were required to look at five particular systems that were called out. and what we found is that two of these systems are active and those two are the internment scheduling system and the geographic information system. that's the one that ms. condon and my colleague referred to be able to use gps to do the mapping, et cetera. one system is in you, the boss system, a va system, so it's not really a arlington contract but arlington does use that system to order the headstones and grave markers, but there's no payment to va under that

contract. and then the last two, the internment management system and the total cemetery management system are the ones that we basically got nothing for in terms of the monies that were spent. so there were a number of reasons in terms of, you know, the contracts not having the specific -- again, oversight, the deliverables not being very clear, documentation, planning, oversight. so it spanned the gamut in terms of things that you would not want to do for contracts. and so in the oversight and management report, we made some specific recommendations in terms of having an architecture, and mr. lepore can talk more about that. >> mr. chairman, the point that my colleague ms. martin is making is we made the point in our report that the cemetery staff took some very reasonable initial steps to deal with certain of immediate deficiencies. i'm sure you've got a good

firewall and virus protection and pretty fundamental stuff. probably things that needed to be done urgently, very reasonable steps. our point then was, as the cemetery staff begins to transition to put in the organizational on a long-term, sustainable path, having a good plan that ties the future operational environment back to the technology investments will be needed, or what we're calling an enterprise architecture, would be an important step to make sure that for the long term, the cemetery is on a sustainable path. they've begun that process and expect to xleep it later this year. >> let me follow up on that long-term sustainable path. you also point out in the report there is a lack of a strategic plan. seems like to me an organization can't get to where it needs to be without a clear vision that's stated in the strategic plan. can you tell me where you believe the deficiencies lie as far as not having that plan, what that means and really where the organization there at arlington needs to go with that

plan? >> yes, i would be happy to. when we did the work, plan, there wasn't a plan at that time. it turns out that the cemetery was working on one. just a couple weeks ago really we saw for the first time the army's campaign plan, as they call it, which is -- that's their jargon. okay. good enough. among the kinds of things we look for in the strategic plan is goals and objectives, where are you trying to take the organization, performance metrics, so you have some way of knowing did i get there or not, and milestones that sort of force you, sort of a forcing action to help you get there, and then a process to go back and look at yourself and figure out did i get where i need to go. we just saw the campaign plan for the first time a couple weeks ago. ms. condon and her staff were gracious enough to share it with us. we vice president had a chance to fully review it yet since we just got it but i can tell you it does seem to have the basic fundamentals that we would look for in such a plan. >> thank you. >> thank you, chairman