The newly confirmed administrator of the Office of Federal Procurement Policy, Paul Dennett is moving to fill vacant slots on the Cost Accounting Standards Board by asking various industry groups to suggest candidates to fill the industry representative slots on the five-member board.  Other slots are for the OFPP head and representatives for the Defense Department and the General Services Administration.  With the resignation of the former CAS Board Chair David Safavian during the Abramoff scandal the CAS Board has been without a chair and hence has been on hiatus for over on year.  Industry groups have been calling for an interim chair in the light of several unresolved “very important initiatives” related to cost accounting and allocation issues on government contracts such as:

(1) finalizing proposed amendments to CAS 412 and CAS 415 concerning recognition of costs of employee stock ownership plans (ESOPs)

(2) revising CAS Disclosure Statement requirement

(3) revising capitalization thresholds and recordkeeping requirement in CAS 403, 404 and 409

(4) amending CAS 410 provisions that relate to transitioning from a cost of sales or sales base to a total cost input base

(5) revising rules and standards regarding calculation of cost impacts when a contractor makes multiple cost accounting changes on the same date

(6) determining the appropriateness of clauses applying CAS to contracts with foreign concerns

(7) exempting time-and-material and labor-hours contracts for the acquisition of commercial items from CAS coverage

(8) resolving conflicts between CAS and FAR regarding definitions of what constitutes catastrophic losses and

(9) addressing pension legislation since enacted that has major implications for pension cost accounting standards in CAS 412 and 413.

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