Federal Financial Management News Web Log

Agency CFOs feel strain of impending budget cuts

2012-01-26T15:29:00.000-05:00

Federal chief financial officers and deputy CFOs are feeling more pressure to help their agencies deal with impending budget cuts.

With the White House planning to release the fiscal 2013 budget request Feb. 13, agency CFOs and deputy CFOs said in an exclusive online survey by Federal News Radio that their top three priorities and challenges all revolve around improving how their agency manages spending. Agencies expect the 2013 request to include significant cuts in across-the-board discretionary spending.

CFOs and deputy CFOs said helping their agencies deal with budget cuts is their top priority for 2012 with an average ranking of 1.9 out of eight choices. Respondents ranked second "helping my agency use financial data to make better decisions." Reducing improper payments, solving data quality and integrity issues, and modernizing or improving their agency's general ledger financial systems rounded out their top five priorities.

CFOs and deputy CFOs also worried that their workforces are not ready to help them use data to make better decisions or to figure out how best to save money. In two related questions, a majority of respondents said their workforces needed help.

And finally, when asked to rate priorities on a scale of 1-to-5, with five being very important, workforce training received the highest average rank of 2.7, while reducing improper payments (2.8) and cutting costs (2.82) rounded out the top three.

At the same time, however, CFOs and deputy CFOs said the biggest challenge facing the financial-management community was budget reductions and too many unfunded mandates, while workforce issues ranked much lower.

While workforce training is a major concern, only 9 percent of respondents said they were likely to move their financial-management system to a shared-service provider in 2012. Just under half of the respondents, 45 percent, said they do not plan on using the Treasury Department's electronic payment processing system in 2012 either.

CFOs and deputy CFOs gave good marks to Treasury's 12-step plan to improve financial management, with 46 percent saying it's making a difference. But 37 percent said it's moving too slowly — so there seems to be agreement and also desire for improving the federal financial management process.

In fact, 55 percent said the 1990 CFO Act needs to be updated, while 18 percent said there are some parts that need to be revised.

Finally, CFOs were unsure how the Government Accountability and Transparency (GAT) Board would affect the government. Of the respondents, 18 percent said it will improve oversight and help gain control of spending, 36 percent said it will be another bureaucratic oversight body and 46 percent said it was too early to tell if it will help or hurt.

-Jason Miller, FederalNewsRadio
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DoD's audit goals achievable, Congressional inquiry finds

2012-01-26T14:32:00.000-05:00

A new report by a special panel of the House Armed Services Committee finds the Defense Department has come up with a solid plan for meeting its deadlines to become auditable, though meeting the goals will take sustained commitment by the military services and continued leadership from the secretary of defense.

It's becoming a familiar storyline: the findings are strikingly similar to earlier opinions offered by the Government Accountability Office, and to the Pentagon comptroller's own assessment of DoD's path toward auditability.

Panetta got the ball rolling on DoD's accelerated audit deadline. He administratively imposed the interim 2014 date for an auditable statement of budgetary resources last year, which has since been written into law. He also ordered up a new audit strategy for meeting that deadline, which he signed off on in December.

DoD's Chief Financial Officer and Comptroller Robert Hale, who is in charge of the Pentagon's path toward auditability, said he found the panel's report to be balanced and constructive. He also echoed the importance of leadership commitment to audits.

But Hale said one of his biggest challenges is making sure DoD's managers and workforce embrace the idea that audits are their responsibility too. DoD has just started developing auditability related evaluation criteria for members of its Senior Executive Service. Conaway said Congress needs to make sure those evaluations are taken seriously.

The department also is trying to make sure its SESers and rank-and-file workforce know what they need to know about audit readiness. Congress gave DoD some new authorities in the 2012 National Defense Authorization Act to create a course-based certification program for its financial management workforce, something Hale thinks would help a lot.

-Jared Serbu, FederalNewsRadio.com
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AGA recommends new COO, PIO job descriptions

2012-01-23T11:59:00.000-05:00

A new push to improve performance also could change how the government chooses chief operating officers, with an eye toward candidates who find true interest in data-driven reviews of federal programs.

The recommendation, by the Association of Government Accountants (AGA), would bake performance improvement into the chief operating officer's job description and require the Office of Presidential Personnel (OPP), which is instrumental in hiring political appointees, to determine how willing and able candidates are to actively pursue data-driven performance improvement programs. Without that, AGA said, sustaining the programs becomes more difficult.

The AGA study also recommended evaluating where performance improvement officers fall on agencies' organization charts and converting every PIO position into a full time role.

Despite finding a number of shortcomings, the AGA found that the data-driven performance review process is working.

The analysis comes in the form of data-driven, or at least data-informed, reviews of programs, according to AGA.

-Ruben Gomez, FederalNewsRadio.com
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Federal Accounting Standards Advisory Board Issues 3 Year Plan

2012-01-13T10:26:00.000-05:00

This report is intended to better inform and engage FASAB stakeholders. The board’s stakeholders include those who use, prepare and audit financial reports. Users of federal financial information include citizens, citizen intermediaries, elected and appointed officials, and financial and program managers. We hope publishing this three-year plan allows our stakeholders to:

Participate fully in the standards-setting process
Plan for changes in generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP)

Download the Report Here...

Federal financial report is in, but GAO offers no opinion

2011-12-31T23:00:00.000-05:00

The federal government's consolidated financial report for 2011 is out and the picture isn't pretty. The Government Accountability Office found once again that it can't render an opinion on that statement. That's despite the fact that several departments received their own clean financial statements.

In Fiscal Year 2011, 20 of the 24 individual CFO Act agencies received unqualified opinion on all of their financial statements, Dacey said. One agency received an unqualified opinion on all of its statements with the exception of its statements on social insurance and changes of social insurance. Another agency received a qualified opinion.

The three main obstacles to GAO giving an opinion on the accrual based financial statements:

1.Serious financial problems at the Department of Defense have prevented its statements from being auditable.

2.The federal government has been unable to adequately account for and reconcile intergovernmental activity and balances between agencies.

3.The federal government has an ineffective process for preparing consolidated financial statements.

-Michael O'Connell, FederalNewsRadio.com
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New online toolkit aims to help agencies combat fraud

2011-12-08T17:29:00.000-05:00

When it comes to fraud, some seem to think federal agencies wear big target signs.

The AGA has created a new fraud prevention online tool kit, designed to help agencies better detect and prevent fraud.

The toolkit allows agencies to search for red flags by different program areas and different types of fraud as well as what they can do to combat them.

-FederalNewsRadio.com
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DISA passes government audit test ahead of most of DOD

2011-12-06T17:07:00.000-05:00

After five years of preparation, the Defense Information Systems Agency has received its first “clean audit” decision under a federal law that mandates financial transparency.

DISA earned the audit green-light through an audit of its fiscal 2011 Defense Working Capital Fund financial statement. It represents DISA’s accuracy in its accounting and financial management for its working capital fund, which includes money coming from its customers. A separate general fund contains money appropriated from Congress, and efforts to get that fund audit-ready are ongoing.

-Amber Corrin, FCW.com
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Education wants to put financial management in the cloud

2011-12-01T15:44:00.002-05:00

The Education Department wants to take its financial management system to the cloud.

Education issued a request for information Nov. 18 seeking ideas for infrastructure-as-a-service and platform-as-a-service for the Education Department's Central Automated Processing System (EDCAPS).

Education's system includes five different components:
•Financial-management support software
•Grants-management system
•Contracts and purchasing support system
•Travel-management system
•Nortridge Loan system

-Jason Miller, FederalNewsRadio.com
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Recovery Board's Devaney to resign

2011-12-01T15:35:00.000-05:00

Earl Devaney, chairman of the Recovery Accountability and Transparency Board, tasked with tracking Recovery Act spending, announced his resignation Thursday.

Devaney's resignation, which is effective Dec. 31, comes after more than four decades of federal service.

Along with resigning his position as chairman of the RATB, he also said he would be stepping down as the chairman of the Government Accountability and Transparency Board.

That office was launched in August with the broader goal of overseeing all facets of federal spending to cut government waste and increase transparency.

-Jolie Lee, FederalNewsRadio.com

DoD's Wennergren works to drive business process changes

2011-12-01T12:35:00.000-05:00

As the Pentagon official charged with reengineering the business operations of the Defense Department, the deputy chief management officer is driving the pursuit of some new business goals for DoD. And those goals are accompanied by a new level of accountability for meeting the seven objectives over the next couple years.

The Pentagon's Strategic Management Plan is an annual document designed to align DoD's business practices with the overarching goals laid out in the Quadrennial Defense Review, the Pentagon's regular study on military strategy. The current version, however covers both fiscal years 2012 and 2013. Some of the areas are updates to goals in previous years' plans, but there are also some new priorities on this year's list, said Dave Wennergren, DoD's assistant deputy chief management officer.

Also new on the list is the goal of rebuilding and using end-to-end business processes, a topic the office of the Deputy Chief Management Officer has been championing.

-Jared Serbu, FederalNewsRadio.com
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Are agency CFOs up for budget battles?

2011-11-28T10:32:00.000-05:00

The federal budget environment — complicated by Congress and the shifting political winds — has only made the job of federal chief financial officer and budget teams that much more difficult.

But the good news is, they say they're looking forward to the challenge, said Jonathan Stehle, president of the American Association for Budget and Program Analysis, in an interview on In Depth with Francis Rose.

That was also the theme that emerged from a recent AABPA report, "The Road Forward, The Federal Budget and Budgeting Profession."

-Jack Moore, FederalNewsRadio.com
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DoD's IG to resign

2011-11-24T10:38:00.001-05:00

Defense Department Inspector General Gordon Heddell is stepping down next month.

In an email to staff on Tuesday, Heddell said, "It is with very mixed emotions that I announce to you today that I have advised President Obama and Secretary Panetta that I intend to step down as Inspector General of the Department of Defense on December 24, 2011."

Heddell was sworn in as IG in 2009. Previously, he had served as the IG at the Labor Department, served 28 years with the Secret Service and was an Army aviator.
-Jolie Lee, FederalNewsRadio.com
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OMB highlights report card of clean audits

2011-11-21T15:46:00.000-05:00

For the first time in two decades, independent auditors said financial books were in order at 23 of 24 applicable federal agencies, the Office of Management and Budget announced Friday.

The Pentagon is now the only department whose finances continued to warrant a disclaimer, while the State and Homeland Security departments have progressed to "qualified" ratings. All others, according to OMB's list, now are "clean."

Since passage of the 1990 Chief Financial Officers Act, major agencies have been required to produce audited financial statements. The Pentagon, in particular, has struggled to make progress toward a congressional deadline of auditability by 2017.

-Charles S. Clark, GovExec.com
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A list of Agency Financial Statement Web Links is provided below.

Department of Agriculture
http://www.ocfo.usda.gov/usdarpt/pdf/USDA%20FY2011%20PAR.pdf
Department of Defense
http://comptroller.defense.gov/afr/fy2011/DoD_FY11_Agency_Financial_Report.pdf
Department of Education
http://www2.ed.gov/about/reports/annual/2011report/fsa-report.pdf
Department of Energy
http://energy.gov/sites/prod/files/IG-0858.pdf
Department of Health and Human Services
http://www.hhs.gov/afr/
Department of Homeland Security
http://www.dhs.gov/xabout/budget/gc_1214235565991.shtm
Department of Housing and Urban Development
http://portal.hud.gov/hudportal/documents/huddoc?id=AFR2011.pdf
Department of the Interior
http://www.doi.gov/pfm/par/afr2011/AFR_FY2011.pdf
Department of Justice
http://www.justice.gov/ag/annualreports/pr2011/par2011.pdf
Department of Labor
http://www.dol.gov/_sec/media/reports/annual2011/2011annualreport.pdf
Department of State
http://www.state.gov/documents/organization/177397.pdf
Department of Transportation
http://www.dot.gov/budget/2012/dot-fy-2011-afr.pdf
Department of the Treasury
http://www.treasury.gov/about/organizational-structure/offices/Mgt/Documents/FY%202011%20Treasury%20AFR%20Nov15%20Final.pdf
Department of Veterans Affairs
http://www.va.gov/budget/docs/report/PartII/2011-VAPAR_Part_II.pdf
Environmental Protection Agency
http://www.epa.gov/planandbudget/FY11_AFR.pdf
National Aeronautics and Space Administration
http://www.nasa.gov/pdf/604052main_NASA-FY2011-PAR.pdf
Agency for International Development
http://www.usaid.gov/performance/afr/afr11.pdf
General Services Administration
http://www.gsa.gov/portal/content/104649
National Science Foundation
http://www.nsf.gov/about/performance/annual.jsp
Nuclear Regulatory Commission
http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/nuregs/staff/sr1542/v17/sr1542v17.pdf
Office of Personnel Management
http://www.opm.gov/gpra/opmgpra/
Small Business Administration
http://www.sba.gov/sites/default/files/Agency%20Financial%20Report%20FY%202011.pdf
Social Security Administration
http://www.ssa.gov/finance/2011/Full%20FY%202011%20PAR.pdf

KPMG Publishes 2011 Federal Word Book

2011-11-21T07:48:00.000-05:00

Published in 2008, the first edition of The KPMG Word Book: A Directory of Financial Management and IT Acronyms, Regulations, and Terms provided a much-needed resource for individuals navigating the often bewildering maze of acronyms, regulations, and commonly used terms in federal financial and IT management. The response was immediate and enthusiastic among members of government , professional associations, students, academia, the media, and others.

The 2011 KPMG Federal Word Book: A Directory of Federal Financial Management and IT Acronyms, Laws and Regulations, Terms, and Agencies and URLs, published by the KPMG Government Institute, provides an expanded and updated version of the original classic, with some 700 terms, including 140 new entries. It has also been expanded to include a new section, Agencies and URLs – a listing of over 350 executive, judicial, legislative, and independent agencies – in addition to the original three: Acronyms, Regulations, and Terms.

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Download the Word Book Here...

The Road Forward: The Federal Budget and Budgeting Profession

2011-11-16T10:55:00.001-05:00

In 2011, Grant Thornton joined forces with the American Association for Budget and Program Analysis (AABPA) for a first-time, online survey of 231 federal budget professionals. Survey topics included budget formulation and execution, budget and performance integration, budget cutting, Congress, budget technology, and human capital. The survey finds budgeteers primed for the coming budget battles.

Other findings include:

Preparing and justifying budgets remains their most important job.
Integrating budget and performance data is critical for program success but underlying difficulties make this problematic.
Budgeteers know how to cut their budgets, but agency bureaucracies seem to have trouble executing the cuts.
They need better budget technology to support large amounts of data.
Analytics, crisp writing, and working cooperatively under pressure are key attributes needed by new budgeteers.
In spite of problems and frustrations, job satisfaction is very good.

Download the report Here..

Agencies cut improper payments by $18 billion

2011-11-15T11:26:00.000-05:00

Agencies saved nearly $18 billion in fiscal 2011 by reducing improper payments, the White House announced Tuesday. The administration also unveiled new steps to prevent the government from paying money to the wrong people.

Agencies saved $17.6 billion last year, by reducing payment errors in Medicare, Medicaid, Pell Grants and a food assistance program.

President Barack Obama initiated the crackdown on improper payments two years ago, when he gave agencies the goal of reducing payment errors by $50 billion before 2013. The effort has since become part of the administration's Campaign to Cut Waste, which seeks to apply lessons learned by the Recovery Accountability and Transparency Board to all federal spending.

As part of the crackdown, agencies reduced the 2011 governmentwide payment error rate to 4.7 percent, the administration said. In 2010, it was 5.3 percent.

The Medicare and Medicaid programs shouldered the bulk of savings, avoiding $16 billion in payment errors, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius told reporters.

USDA also prevented $800 million in improper payments under its Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, formerly the food stamps program, according to the administration.

In announcing the reduction of payment errors, the White House also revealed new steps to improve agency suspension and debarment programs.

-Ruben Gomez, FederalNewsRadio.com
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DoD budget planning systems plagued by inefficiencies

2011-11-04T08:51:00.000-04:00

The Defense Department's quest to be auditable in 2017 relies on using Enterprise Resource Planning systems, or ERPs, to perform tasks like accounting and supply chain management.

But according to a GAO report released last week, "To date, however, DOD's ERP implementation has been impaired by delays, cost increases, failures in delivering the necessary functionality, and a lack of compliance with required standards."

Asif Khan, director of Financial Management and Assurance Issues at the Government Accountability Office, has been looking at the ERPs at the Pentagon.
The GAO found six of the 10 ERPs that DoD identified as critical had "time slippages" of between two to 12 years, Khan said. And none of the programs had a master schedule.

A big hang-up for DoD is its collection of 2,000 legacy systems. These 10 ERPs are expected to replace more than 500 legacy systems.

-Jolie Lee, FederalNewsRadio.com
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GFEBS financial management system worldwide

2011-10-27T16:51:00.000-04:00

Washington, D.C. — The most advanced financial management system in Army history, the General Fund Enterprise Business System, or GFEBS, is now operational worldwide.

The GFEBS now has nearly 40,000 users across all service components, and is the most widely implemented of the Army’s Enterprise Resource Planning systems. It’s expected when fully deployed, sometime in Fiscal Year 2012, GFEBS will engage close to 60,000 users at some 200 locations worldwide and will affect almost every Army organization and function.

The GFEBS records financial transactions with supporting documentation, tracks transactions to the detailed level, and will produce an auditable trial balance. The Army Audit Agency’s most recent evaluation found that GFEBS complies with 1,054 of 1,113 requirements from the Federal Financial Management Improvement Act. On-going development of GFEBS will complete the remaining 5 percent for full compliance in FY 2012.

GFEBS received a full deployment decision June 24 from Department of Defense Deputy Chief Management Officer Elizabeth McGrath, the program’s milestone decision authority. The decision affirmed the deployment readiness of the GFEBS solution and authorized Armywide system implementation.

The GFEBS deployment is scheduled to conclude in 2012, providing a core system for managing a significant portion of the Army’s general fund and ushering in a new era in Army financial management.

-Frank Distasio, Army News Service
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Recovery Board testing accountability tools in the cloud

2011-10-27T13:18:00.001-04:00

WILLIAMSBURG, Va.-- The Recovery Accountability and Transparency Board had so much success moving Recovery.gov to the cloud, it is looking there again to give agencies a new set of accountability tools.

Shawn Kingsberry, the board's chief information officer and assistant director for technology, said about four agencies are testing a new suite of data-analysis software to ensure Recovery Act funds are not being subject to waste, fraud or abuse.

The Recovery Board is working with several agencies to test out these accountability tools in the cloud. The tools include data-analysis software that can detect data anomalies on contracts, grants and loans issued with stimulus funding.

-Jason Miller, FederalNewsRadio.com
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Senate committee passes bills on improper payments, whistleblower protections

2011-10-19T16:46:00.000-04:00

The Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee passed three bills today to combat wasteful spending in government, strengthen federal whistleblower protections and improve interagency communications with a rotational program.

The Improper Payments Elimination and Recovery Improvement Act of 2011 expands on legislation passed last year to eliminate improper payments.

The new bill would:

Require more consistent reporting of improper payments and eliminate voluntary disclosures by contractors.
Create a "Do Not Pay List" of contractors who have been convicted of fraud or for a similar reason.
Improving data on deceased beneficiaries.
Set up a pilot program that uses private companies to help agencies identify improper payments.

-Jolie Lee, FederalNewsRadio.com
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Panetta wants full budget audit by 2014

2011-10-14T14:14:00.000-04:00

Defense Secretary Leon Panetta wants the Pentagon to complete a full audit of its budget by 2014, moving the deadline up by three years.

While this puts the pressure on the Pentagon to get its books in order, it is only one of four steps to completing a full financial audit.

Speaking before the House Armed Services Committee on Thursday, Panetta said the accelerated timeline would help Pentagon financial managers identify waste and track spending.

The Pentagon's latest status report on its Financial Improvement and Audit Readiness Plan — the effort to make DoD auditable by 2017 — said the vast majority of the department remains unauditable, although some small agencies are ready, and the Marine Corps by far the smallest and least complex of the military services, is likely to become the first major branch to join them.

-Kate Brannen, FederalTimes.com
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EPA plagued with poor budgetary and workforce organization, GAO reports

2011-10-14T13:14:00.000-04:00

The Environmental Protection Agency has struggled to produce accurate budget reports and deploy its workforce in an efficient manner, the Government Accountability Office reported this week.

In studies conducted from 2009 to 2011, EPA "has struggled for years to identify its human resource needs and to deploy its staff throughout the agency in a manner that would do the most good," stated the GAO report released Wednesday. The government watchdog also found the department consistently failed to provide detailed budget justifications to Congress and did not make proper use of "unliquidated balances," or funds that were appropriated to EPA but not spent.

-Andrew Lapin, GovExec.com
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OMB outlines expanded roles for federal CIOs

2011-10-13T10:23:00.001-04:00

The White House budget director, Jack Lew, directed agency leaders to ensure their chief information officers are responsible for "true portfolio management for all IT [information technology]" and not "just policymaking."

In a new memo, Lew outlined four areas where CIOs should have a lead role:

Governance of agencies' IT portfolios.
Commodity IT purchases, such as data centers, desktops, email and business systems.
Management of large IT projects and programs.
Information security programs.

-Nicole Blake Johnson, FederalTimes.com
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Effort to require online governmentwide spending reports advances on the Hill

2011-10-07T09:25:00.000-04:00

Congressional supporters of a plan to pull all federal spending reports onto one uniform, searchable database believe they've put together a package of cost savings to offset the legislation's more than $500 million price tag, Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., said Thursday.

Issa would not reveal what's included in the offset package, saying he wanted to get the details hammered down first.

The Digital Accountability and Transparency Act, which Issa sponsored in the House, essentially would take processes developed by the Recovery Accountability and Transparency Board, which tracks and reports on spending on the $787 billion stimulus bill, and apply them to all government spending.

Supporters say the database will save billions of dollars by making it more difficult for contractors and others to defraud the government, by lowering information technology costs and by reducing errors in transferring spending data between different systems.

The Transparency Caucus also is pushing legislation to expand whistleblower protections to members of the federal intelligence community and to prohibit agency inspector generals' offices being left vacant or filled by an acting IG, Issa and Transparency Caucus co-chairman Rep. Mike Quigley, D-Ill., said.

-Joseph Marks, NextGov.com
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DOD Readies Financial Managers to Meet Goals

2011-10-06T16:26:00.000-04:00

WASHINGTON, Oct. 6, 2011 – Recognizing the importance of people in its financial management improvements, the Defense Department is exploring new ways to recruit, retain and train its financial management workforce, a senior defense official told Congress today.

Maintaining a capable financial management workforce is a priority in Pentagon Comptroller Robert F. Hale’s financial management strategy, Sandra A. Gregory told the House Armed Services Committee’s Defense Financial Management and Auditability Reform Panel.

About 60,000 civilian and military financial managers within DOD are key players in efforts to improve financial information, analytics and decision support within the department and to achieve audit readiness, Gregory told the panel.

Among initiatives being advanced is a new DOD financial management certification program. This plan, Gregory explained, will provide “enterprisewide roadmaps on what training is most important at various points throughout federal careers.”

By next summer, DOD officials plan to code financial management positions to three different certification levels, she said. From that point, the department will develop competency assessment tools to assess the current workforce’s proficiency, identify gaps and develop plans to close those gaps.

-Donna Miles, American Forces Press Services
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