mr. lepore, will discuss gao's work on management issues. on the contracting side, gao identified 56 active contracts over $100,000 that supported cemetery operations, construction and facility maintenance and new efforts to enhance i.t. systems for the automation of burial operations. arlington does not have its own contracting authority but relies on relationships with contracting offices to award and manage its contracts. these contracting authorities obligated roughlies $35.2 million in support of the 56 contracts that were included in our review. as the i.g. noted, the army has taken a number of positive steps since june 2010 at different levels to provide for more effective management and oversight of contracts, including improving contracting policies and practices, establishing new support relationships, formalizing policies and procedures, and increasing the use of dedicated contracting staff to manage and improve its acquisitions, however you we found three areas at arlington where additional improvements are needed. first, maintai

mr. lepore can talk a bit 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 sort of immediate deficiencies. insuring you've got a good fire wall 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 pran transition to putting 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 call 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 it completed later this year. >> let me follow up on that long-term sustainable path. you also point out in the report that there is a lack of a strategic plan. it seems like to me an organization can't get to where it needs to be without a cle

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 th

mr. lepore, you said that in the '70s at some point jurisdictional responsibility for -- is it every other national -- or any other veterans cemetery was transferred to the va? >> the army at the time managed 82 cemeteries -- or 82 national cemeteries, and under the 1973 national cemeteries act, those cemeteries transferred to the department of -- what was then just the va, now the department of veterans affair, except for two. arlington did not transfer and the soldiers and airmen's home here in washington did not transfer. the army retained those. >> okay. are there any trouble like we experienced at arlington at any of these other cemeteries? >> we have not audited anybody beyond the activities at arlington, so i really can't say. i have certainly seen some press accounts but our audit was focus and arlington. >> prior to what was reported -- what's that, almost four years ago, had there ever been an audit of arlington's record keeping prior? >> i am not aware of one by gao. i do not know whether the inspector general had ever done one, but we had not, to my knowledge. >> was arlington'

mr. brian lepore, thank you for coming. we appreciate your efforts to gao. we know is always the gao does an excellent job and we appreciate your service. we are here today for two important reasons. first to figure what progress has been made with respect to accountability issues at arlington and determine what challenges remain that need to be addressed moving forward. i've said many times how important it is to me personally that we were to achieve 100% accountability in the army has done a great job with helping us get there with the great site accountability task force. validating almost 200,000 grave sites is difficult and challenging, that you cover your staff in the old guard cut it down. however, i do remain concerned about a number of issues. first, lack of accountability with respect to former officials for their misconduct. if my understanding of criminal action has been taken and investigations are ongoing and no pity. i find this very, very difficult to believe an unacceptable and i will continue to follow this very closely. second, despite the