Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel announced Monday that the Marine Corps was the first military service to undergo an audit of its current-year budget statement by the Defense Department Inspector General.
DoD auditors completed the audit on Friday and granted "an unqualified, favorable audit opinion," according to a Pentagon statement.
"This development marks an important milestone on the path to achieving greater accountability in our financial operations and more effective management of the defense enterprise writ large," Hagel said in the statement.
By law, since 1990, all federal agency budgets should be audited annually. The Pentagon has yet to meet this legal mandate.
Pentagon officials originally posted a goal of 1996 to start its first audit. The Defense Department watched that deadline sail past. Congress passed a law in 2009 mandating the Pentagon be audit ready by 2017.
Hagel said more work needs to be done to reach this goal, despite the Marine Corps' efforts, but the defense secretary said he remains committed to the goal.
"There is more work to do in preparing our other military services to pass an audit, but I remain fully committed to making the Pentagon fully audit-ready by 2017," he said.
