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Pentagon Axes $5.1 Billion in IT and Consulting Contracts With Accenture, Deloitte 101

Posted by msmash from the more-efficient dept.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has ordered the termination of multiple IT and consulting contracts with firms including Accenture, Deloitte, and Booz Allen Hamilton, describing them as "wasteful spending."

A Department of Defense memo indicates the cuts target the Defense Health Agency's consulting services contract and the Air Force's agreement with Accenture to "re-sell third-party Enterprise Cloud IT Services," services the government can "already fulfill directly with existing procurement resources."

The terminations also include 11 other contracts supporting "non-essential" activities like DEI programs, climate initiatives, and COVID-19 response efforts. The cuts represent $5.1 billion in spending and will yield nearly $4 billion in savings, according to Hegseth. The funds will be redirected toward "critical priorities to Revive the Warrior Ethos, Rebuild the Military, and Reestablish Deterrence," with Hegseth noting the money would better serve "healthcare for our warfighters and their families, instead of $500 an hour business process consultant."

Pentagon Axes $5.1 Billion in IT and Consulting Contracts With Accenture, Deloitte More | Reply

Pentagon Axes $5.1 Billion in IT and Consulting Contracts With Accenture, Deloitte

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  • Well.. (Score:5, Informative)

    by ogar572 ( 531320 ) on Friday April 11, 2025 @08:02AM (#65297089)
    First off they are just bad consulting companies

  • Good (Score:5, Interesting)

    by jrnvk ( 4197967 ) on Friday April 11, 2025 @08:12AM (#65297107)

    They should have been the first ones to go, though.

    • Agreed.

      Though, they will need to hire *someone* to do these tasks. Seems like that is forbidden under the current climate though.

      • Why? Had they replaced the procurement department with consultants? If not, they have people to do it already.

        • Re:Good (Score:5, Informative)

          by Gilgaron ( 575091 ) on Friday April 11, 2025 @08:53AM (#65297217)
          Consultants like that are more for implementation, you can pay for software from Microsoft or ServiceNow with your procurement department but it doesn't actually work until an analyst or admin maps the processes and infra and networking set it up, dev integrates it, and someone trains the staff. Sure you can do that internally but if you're not continually setting up new systems then some of those folks rotate out, which is why they tend to work for consultant firms that keep them employed somewhere that is implementing new systems.
        • Having worked in the federal govt at the highest levels, I can tell you that using a contractor for procurement is much easier and cheaper than using internal or existing contracts. This is how you hear stories about the govt buying a $20k screwdriver.

      • Though, they will need to hire *someone* to do these tasks.

        Does Guiliani still have that IT consulting firm?

    • Re:Good (Score:4, Insightful)

      by stikves ( 127823 ) on Friday April 11, 2025 @09:07AM (#65297263) Homepage

      Completely agree.

      These contracts are not only wasteful, Accenture and others are some of the worst offenders of H1B abuse. It makes zero sense to pay for them to bring replacements for US citizens or lawful permanent residents.

      Not to mention the security implications of having an organization with transitory foreign nationals to handle pentagon contracts.

      This is two birds with a single stone.

      • Re:Good (Score:5, Insightful)

        by CubicleZombie ( 2590497 ) on Friday April 11, 2025 @10:14AM (#65297487)

        These contracts are not only wasteful, Accenture and others are some of the worst offenders of H1B abuse. It makes zero sense to pay for them to bring replacements for US citizens or lawful permanent residents. Not to mention the security implications of having an organization with transitory foreign nationals to handle pentagon contracts.

        In general, DoD requires everyone on a contract to have a security clearance, and H1Bs are not eligible for one. It's one of the few segments in IT where you're not directly at constant risk of being replaced by an H1B. But now you can get DOGE'd.

        • Re:Good (Score:4, Insightful)

          by jafac ( 1449 ) on Friday April 11, 2025 @12:49PM (#65297947) Homepage

          >It's one of the few segments in IT where you're not directly at constant risk of being replaced by an H1B.

          Truth. One of the reasons why I keep gravitating back to defense work. Only since around 2004 or so; there's now this "government shutdown" nonsense, which is a bit of a vicious circle, because programs get fucked over, then you have to roll off the contract and find work on another. And sometimes, there isn't any. (happened to me at Lockheed), so some people have to cycle back into the private sector for a few years (which isn't a bad thing; because THAT is where you pick up new skills, to be honest). Then when some asshole "businessman" crashes the business and does layoffs (to replace you with H1B's), you're back on the street again, and you end up back in the "safe" sector: defense. Oh, and if your Clearance expires while you're in the private sector, then the contractor just pays the $10k (or whatever it is now) to re-do your investigation. This has happened to me twice now.

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward

      I can't speak to these directly, so no comment as to whether this is good or bad, other than to say if these projects cease, what else is impacted?

      However, I do work for a government contractor, and work on a government project. My project is designed to save money in the long run - but in the short term, it's all cost. It's also not 'obvious', in so much as it's not attached to any particularly recognisable programme or "thing". As such, it's the sort of thing that might get cut if my government is looking

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by Junta ( 36770 )

        Think there's two things tied together causing some mixed feelings.

        On the one hand, they are taking an axe to all sorts of endeavors that either have value we want or like you say, saves money over a long haul.

        On the other hand, at least Deloitte is pretty damn useless in all my private sector encounters with them, so to see them lose business it just feels like a "nothing of value was lost" scenario. I haven't dealt with Accenture at all, but for whatever reason I've hit some Deloitte projects and I was al

        • I haven't dealt with Accenture at all, but for whatever reason I've hit some Deloitte projects and I was always left wondering how they were retaining their contract.

          Interesting, my reaction was exactly the opposite: I don't know about Deloitte, but getting rid of Accenture is surely a benefit.

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by Anonymous Coward
        I've worked on the other side of government contractors for years during integration and implementation - and met people who spend their entire careers doing nothing more than inserting and deleting rows on a single table on a single database. There is nothing efficient about government contracts and the people who implement them. And the security rules go out the window the second anyone gets word that there won't be any oversight or enforcement. Contract says that only American eyes can see the data? Afte

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      I'm glad you are 100% sure these things are not needed, because otherwise it would seem like a very effective way to weaken the US military.

    • I came to the comment section to see whether Slashdotters hated Trump or consulting companies more and I think I've found my answer.

  • wow again (Score:1, Flamebait)

    by ghinckley68 ( 590599 )

    Not cut Elon musk is going to get the contracts.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by ichthus ( 72442 )
      Dont if tRump gives cut to get the Elon contracts in.

    • Not cut Elon musk is going to get the contracts.

      And? Do you have proof that he would do it worse and/or more expensive? Here, let me give you a little hint.

      NASA vs. SpaceX. Compare ingenuity, technology, and efficiency, and cost.

      Thats what I fucking thought.

  • Can I invent the term "Amalrician budget management"

    Named after Arnaud Amalric, the military commander of a Crusade, who when asked how they would know which people were christian and should be saved and which were muslim and should be killed, said:

    "Kill them all, let god decide"

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caedite_eos._Novit_enim_Dominus_qui_sunt_eius.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by gtall ( 79522 )

      Ah, direct from the Elmo School of Stupid Management Policy. Good luck running a company.

    • In this case you're killing your own army, so the analogy doesn't work.

      You can say here the army you're killing had no value, but that's the opposite of your kill-them-all-without-evaluation concept.

  • Remember lads, we hated then *last* week (Score:3, Insightful)

    by RightwingNutjob ( 1302813 ) on Friday April 11, 2025 @08:40AM (#65297171)

    But this week we hate Hegseth more. So we love Booz Allen and think they've always done a bang-up job.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by ichthus ( 72442 )
      No, no. Bitches gotta bitch.

    • But this week we hate Hegseth more. So we love Booz Allen and think they've always done a bang-up job.

      Show me a stupid population that perpetually puts up Bad vs. Worse arguments when selecting leaders, and I’ll show you an ignorant population too stupid to realize that is nothing but a race to the bottom.

      I would say Democrats should have tried harder, but that would assume they actually intended to win the last election instead of cashing out on it. Failure by design. For profit.

    • But this week we hate Hegseth more. So we love Booz Allen and think they've always done a bang-up job.

      It's like cheering when a big IBM mainframe contract is cancelled.

      The CEO hired some 19 year old tech bros (69GorillaBallz69, waifu82765, timr, wanksterator) to rewrite 50 million lines of COBOL, 20TB of DB2, and an Indiana Jones warehouse full of tape backups in Rust, cocaine, and a nosql you never heard of. The first sprint goal is "www.ssa.gov" and their whiteboard has several rust/wasm options listed right now, but they'll settle on two of them by COB and shoot it out.

      It's OK to hate both for very diffe

    • Remember lads, we hated then *last* week. But this week we hate Hegseth more. So we love Booz Allen and think they've always done a bang-up job.

      Bullshit. I'm allowed to think they are all grifters. What they refuse to put in defense contracts are harsh monetary penalties for not meeting deadlines that the companies themselves proposed. Honestly, the work should be "payable upon delivery" where you make the thing you said and then and only then you get paid for it. Don't finish it on time? You get paid less. Don't finish it? OK but you don't cent and are barred from getting new defense contracts.

  • About time... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Ritz_Just_Ritz ( 883997 ) on Friday April 11, 2025 @08:41AM (#65297173)

    These firms have been feeding at the government trough for decades. I have zero problem with reigning in shoveling money down the toilet to fund perpetual engagements with these companies.

    • Agreed. I used to be a gov contractor. The amount they paid me, vs what they billed the gov for my time, was insane. like 1:10 ratio.

      better to just have the gov hire them directly as feds, and save money.

      • Re:About time... (Score:5, Informative)

        by Junta ( 36770 ) on Friday April 11, 2025 @09:41AM (#65297369)

        Not just public sector, those companies impose absurd overhead to private sector too. A no-benefit hourly contractor with no paid leave will commonly only get a 33% pre-tax cut of their billing rate under one of these companies. Then those companies will gleefully turn around and tell the employees there's just no money in the budget for raises, even when they bump up the billing rate. However they immediately make the employees eat a rate cut if they happen.

        The good news is that if there's a good worker stuck under one of these regimes, it's *easy* to poach them because they obviously have no idea about their market value.

      • I worked on a government contract where my team was responsible for everything from gathering the requirements to installing the software and everything in between. One time we had a project wide meeting, and there were three times as many people there as the number on my team. And I had no idea what any of them did. Whatever it was, it had zero affect on the end product, but they were still paid for it.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Barny ( 103770 )

      Yup. All commercial companies getting payouts from the government should have their contracts nulled out and be forced to justify why they are being paid each and every penny.

  • um... (Score:3, Informative)

    by oneiros27 ( 46144 ) on Friday April 11, 2025 @08:49AM (#65297199) Homepage

    "with Hegseth noting the money would better serve "healthcare for our warfighters and their families, instead of $500 an hour business process consultant.""

    And yet they're cutting how many people who provide those services?

    or is just the VA? So they can promise people they'll get medical for life if the serve our country, then renege in that promise?

    • And yet they're cutting how many people who provide those services?

      Yes, they are cutting VA staffing and services. First they plant to get rid of up to 80,000 staff within VA [apnews.com], and they're getting rid of a program which helps veterans not lose their homes [npr.org].

      This is on top of the Russian asset calling veterans who get wounded or die suckers [nbcnews.com] and losers [thehill.com].

      • And yet they're cutting how many people who provide those services?

        Yes, they are cutting VA staffing and services. First they plant to get rid of up to 80,000 staff within VA [apnews.com], and they're getting rid of a program which helps veterans not lose their homes [npr.org].

        Maybe you should read that NPR article to understand why they are ending that program. As for the AP article, it says they are trying to get back to the 400,000 employee level of 2019. That's a lot of employees and I would guess they have lots of contractors too. I don't know how they justified growing by 80,000 employees in 5 years to begin with.

        • Re:um... (Score:5, Informative)

          by wonkavader ( 605434 ) on Friday April 11, 2025 @11:31AM (#65297703)

          We were active in wars where a lot more people survived with serious wounds than in past. We have gotten very good at stabilizing people in the field and getting them to medical facilities. So we have a higher percentage of damaged people who need help. We had a rough period where there wasn't enough help for the initially wounded. But their health problems need maintenance for lifetimes, and those number only increase until we have a prolonged period of peace -- so long that people die of old age. The VA was understaffed, and hiring was necessary.

        • I don't know how they justified growing by 80,000 employees in 5 years to begin with.

          Maybe because the VA needs a lot more people to serve the veterans of this country, and finally got the green light from Congress to staff up to appropriate levels to deliver the services needed?

          I mean, that's just my first guess without looking at any data. By the way, who was President in 2019 and 2020 when that growth apparently started happening?

  • But this is most likely because the contracts are going to be shifted to Elon Musk. One of the main things Musk is doing is firing people and shutting down departments so that he can privatize them. His businesses would collapse without the government and he knows that so he's put himself in a position where he can just hand himself government contracts.

    And we literally have a president that did a cryptocurrency rug pulls. It's also stupidly obvious he and his buddies did the largest inside of trading

    • There was already that suspect $400 million contract for armored Cybertrucks that "disappeared".

      But that was nothing. Given the sales of Tesla are falling out and the brand it like shiny poo, there will have to be a pivot.

      Given Musk's current position, moving to become a military supplier makes the most sense. Big fat government tit. The biggest.

      Musk wants to build 5,000 Optimus humanoid robots THIS YEAR. What are those going to be doing?

      Hint: Musk himself called it a "legion"...

      https://www.teslarati.c [teslarati.com]

  • How in the world hasn't viasat been ripped completely out of the government yet? Starlink can do everything viasat does better and would cost pennies on the dollar compared to their contracts. I'm not a huge fan of Elon these days, but viasat is just complete garbage.

  • Destructive (Score:5, Insightful)

    by satsuke ( 263225 ) on Friday April 11, 2025 @09:50AM (#65297407)

    While I'm all for reducing military spending,.

    given DOGE prior history, I'm going to bet that these cuts will be more destructive than anything and will actually cost more than the money saved.

    Since DOGE cuts without any real analysis, instead cutting based on gut reactions and ideological goals more than actually wanting to ferret out waste.

  • Zero Chance (Score:2, Troll)

    by OverlordQ ( 264228 )

    GOP already hates the VA, little chance they actually spend it on on the troops.

  • Accenture and Deloitte, yet the Pentagon can't provide audited accounts. You would think the two of them could create an audit system. It's the way the Pentagon wants it to be.

  • "If you are not part of the solution, there is aot of money to be made prolonging the problem"

  • DOGE is doing the work in the most ineffective way possible, but this needs to be done. There are way too many contractors taking advantage of taxpayers. The entire system is broken and built to reward federal workers to waste as much money as possible. I worked for the federal govt for 15 years and would be forced to piss away our annual budget (and go negative) every year just so it would look like we needed more money.

    • Nope. the problem is not just that they are ineffective. It's corrupt as incompetent as fuck. They fire all oversight and accounting. Accenture was a shitty accounting company but it is still accounting! The #1 problem at the pentagon is probably accounting; all they do is fudge numbers and hide info. Such as purposely wasting money which needs to be accounted for so a problem can be spotted.

      Your situation isn't new; that is a classic tactic to get more funding. Even private corp departments do such thi

  • Who knows what these "consulting" fees are actually for - basically just a jobs program I guess. And now the funds are being "redirected" to the most inane bullshit imaginable. So there's no money saved. There's no costs cut. The defense budget is completely immune to cuts.

  • I'm sure that's where all the savings will go. Not a giant parade or a contract for bullshit to a more obedient CEO.

  • Al Gore's ox is being gored.

  • Wait, something I agree with? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by whitroth ( 9367 ) <whitroth.5-cent@us> on Friday April 11, 2025 @12:58PM (#65297973) Homepage

    Dumping Accenture (formerly Anderson Consulting), who consider their people disposable (ask me how I know)? And the company that my late ex's brother, a CPA, refers to as DeToilette?

  • "Revive the Warrior Ethos"
    We need to invest in Warrior Ethos boner pills for all the warfighters!
    Where did the "warfighters" thing come from? It's a stupid word.
    Hegseth talks like the "ex-Navy Seal" at the bar who uses swat hands to act out colorful combat stories he heard from actual soldiers.

  • I'm surprised they didn't axe for more.

  • It's rather telling that he lumped a COVID-19 response under DEI. What part of a disease response involves diversity, equity, or inclusion specifically?

    This incompetent clown is like all the others. They use a cumbersome label like "waste, fraud, and abuse" because what that really means is corruption. But if you say you're looking for corruption and you don't start at the top, it's more obvious that you're lying. If any of these contracts are actually wasteful (or for that matter if their costs are actuall

  • When I worked for the govt, all of these firms were INFAMOUS for outrageously expensive "studies" that would recommend further study. But it gave agency executives a way to tell Congress we were "working on it" without doing anything.

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