Broad Reform Ordered for Arlington

The secretary of the Army has ordered broad changes in the operation of Arlington National Cemetery after a report declared a “general breakdown in sound business practices.” That "breakdown" included millions of dollars being spent in digitizing the cemetery’s paper records with no returns and more than 200 graves being unmarked or mislabeled. The report, which confirmed many of the findings from the June review that prompted last week’s Senate hearings into the matter, found poor financial oversight, violation of contracting regulations, and no competing bids for some of the most lucrative contracts. It also found that the cemetery’s former deputy superintendent, Thurman Higginbotham, had created no-bid contracts for “select vendors,” that these contracts were created without any market research or justification, and that they did not detail the scope or expected performance of any of the work. Higginbotham declined to answer Senate questions last week, although his lawyer said his client had done “nothing inappropriate.”