WASHINGTON – Today, Sen. Tom Carper (D-Del.), top Democrat on the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, commended the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) following the announcement that the agency has earned a clean financial audit for the fourth year in a row.

“The mission of the Department of Homeland Security is one of the most difficult and complex of any federal agency,” said Senator Carper. “They do everything from securing our ports of entry, to defending our cyber networks, to keeping our cities and communities safe. It’s no small or easy task for any agency to produce a clean financial audit, let alone an agency as large and complex as DHS, but these impressive results for the fourth consecutive year show that it is possible. The key to success at any organization is strong leadership and it is obvious that, under Secretary Johnson’s leadership, what the department is doing to ensure accurate and complete financial accounting is working. I applaud the team at DHS for their ongoing commitment to protecting taxpayer dollars and encourage the agency to continue and build on this progress.”

In 2012, Sen. Carper joined Sens. Scott Brown (R-Mass.) and Ron Johnson (R- Wisc.) in seeing passage into law of the DHS Audit Requirement Target (DART) Act, which requires DHS to obtain and pass full audits for its financial statements. By earning a clean bill of financial health from an independent auditor for the fourth year running, DHS continues to be in compliance with this law.

DHS is the third largest Department in the government, with 22 components, 230,000 employees, and a 60 billion dollar budget. The Department of Defense is the only remaining large federal department that is unable to conduct a full financial audit.