Fiscal Year 1995 Closeout Summary To: "AO - All Administrative Officers" cc: "Alice A Sabatini, Administrative Officer, Reston, VA" , "Catherine L Hill, ACH/Operations, Reston, VA" , "Kelly L Bradley, SUPERVISORY FINANCIAL SPEC, Reston, VA" Subject: Fiscal Year 1995 Closeout Summary Date: Wed, 01 Nov 1995 15:33:37 -0500 From: "Alice A Sabatini, Administrative Officer, Reston, VA" In Reply Refer To: Mail Stop 442 MEMORANDUM To: Administrative Officers From: Alice A. Sabatini Administrative Officer, Water Resources Division Subject: Fiscal Year 1995 Closeout As the closeout activities for Fiscal Year (FY) 1995 come to an end, I would like to thank everyone for their hard work this year. We appreciate the working relationship we have with all of you and your willingness to respond to our questions. The final Federal Financial System (FFS) reports are due out the week of November 6, 1995 and we are sending the final adjustment drawdown reports to each cost center this week. Before we "close the book" on FY 1995, I would like to take an opportunity to discuss some problems and some planned changes for next fiscal year. Problems that May Have Impacted Your Cost Center's Bottom Line: Payroll for PP21 as accrued by the Office of Financial Management (OFM) did not include all of the object classes that were included in the actual costs. The Financial Operations and Reporting Section (FORS) staff tried to fix each district's payroll accruals manually. The fixes occurred in numerous steps because of the information we were receiving from OFM. We did the best we could with the time and information we had available. Some offices may still see differences between the actual costs, as shown on the Report 444 and the accruals shown on the final September Report 268. The accruals will be reversed in November and the actual payroll costs posted, so the problem is a short term one. Some of the travel obligations for the Remote Data Entry sites were difficult to understand and/or correct. The FORS staff tried to obligate and deobligate where necessary. Requests for deobligations for purchase orders or contracts were missing the Contracting Officer's signature. We cannot process an adjustment to an obligation that is not authorized by a Contracting Officer. This was especially a problem with the Environmental Career Organization (ECO) contract. Requisitions were sent to the Office of Procurement and Contracts after their deadlines and as a result, the amended purchase orders/delivery orders were not completed. Opportunities for Improvement Next Year: Most cost centers strive to achieve a zero cost center balance. This practice does not leave any "cushion" for errors or overlooked/unknown charges. We need to change this mode of operation. The September closing balance is only a snapshot. The fiscal year has a life cycle of 6 years (current plus 5 years) until cancelled. The zero balances usually only last until the September accruals are reversed. Districts need to begin leaving a small balance on the books to cover unexpected expenses. Cost centers that have been operating this way have found those monies useful when unanticipated expenses are discovered after the close of the FY (e.g. GSA just asked 7 districts for additional funds to cover vehicle purchases charged against FY 1995. Only one of the 7 had enough funds remaining in their cost center to fund the additional cost.). Planned Changes for Next Fiscal Year: During fiscal year 1996, we will be implementing remote data entry of payments and obligations throughout the Division. This will create changes in our close out processes. We are beginning now to examine each of these processes and will be consulting you to find out which processes you would like to see continued. It is feasible that all offices could enter adjustments on-line in FFS with supporting documentation and screen prints forwarded to Headquarters. This will allow cost center's to retain control while providing for the necessary review by Headquarter's personnel. This change would greatly expedite the adjustment process. Please give some thought to these changes in the next few months. (The described change will mean that the AIS Adjustment Drawdown Report will no longer be available because no transactions will be entered into AIS until after they are processed in FFS.) We are working with the OFM to eliminate the requirement to obligate travel. We anticipate that travel obligation for area and trip travel will not be necessary next fiscal year. (We will continue to obligate change of headquarters travel, however.) This change is being made in anticipation of the Travel Manager Interface installation. With the interface, travel will be expended as soon as it is vouchered and sent electronically to the FFS. Because of the decreased lag time, we have determined that it is not cost effective to obligate the travel costs. We meet with the OFM on Friday to address issues and concerns from the FY 1995 closeout and to document the changes that need to be made to improve future closeouts. If you have specific areas that you would like to see addressed in these discussions, please send them to Kelly Bradley. The meeting will documented and action items tracked to completion. We will forward information from this meeting to WRD field offices so that you can be aware of the areas being addressed. Thanks again for all of your hard work!