Fort Belvoir, Va. – Members from the Defense Threat Reduction Agency’s (DTRA), Audit Team were announced as the winner of the Large Team Achievement Award from the Society of Defense Financial Management (SDFM), Washington Chapter at a ceremony at the Washington Convention Center, March 26th.

Throughout calendar year 2024, this exceptional group of professionals demonstrated unwavering commitment and expertise, leading the way within the Department by earning an unmodified opinion for FY 2024 – in the second year of audit.  This is a truly remarkable achievement!

“A clean financial statement audit opinion is invaluable.” said Mr. Hunter Lutinski, Director of DTRA’s Strategic Integration directorate. “Our Audit Team presented and executed an aggressive plan, which has been identified as a best practice within the Department of Defense.  This is a huge accomplishment for this group of professionals and for the Agency.”

The DTRA Audit Team was entrusted with the responsibility of leading the initiative for the Agency to Address Institutional Management Priorities, a vital strategic priority for the Department of Defense (DoD). The team crafted a strategic approach to audit readiness, internal control effectiveness, corrective action implementation, and prompt support for auditor requests. The financial statement audit process is complex, given its comprehensive scope, which spans all agency activities involving financial resources.

An Agency audit ensures American taxpayers and Congress trust in DTRA's financial management and ensures their confidence in DTRA when approving the budget for our mission.  Furthermore, auditability enhances the accuracy, reliability, and relevance of financial information used by our decision makers.

DTRA is devoted to supporting the DoD by sharing best practices with peers. This “audit success” can now be shared with other agencies, helping those organizations prepare for auditability, implement DTRA’s best practices, and avoid establishing internal controls and processes from scratch, which will substantially expedite preparation.