OMB’s latest DATA Act guidance highlights PII, financial assistance

Personally identifiable information and data “validity” are the focus of the Office of Management and Budget’s latest DATA Act guidance.

In a Nov. 6 memo to agencies, OMB delves into detail for reporting certain types of federal financial assistance and awards under the Digital Accountability and Transparency Act.

The guidance does not change or affect any existing policy, OMB clarifies, but does “further [specify] (1) responsibilities for reporting financial information for awards involving Intragovernmental Transfers (IGTs), (2) guidance for reporting financial assistance award records containing personally identifiable information (PII), and (3) guidance for agencies to provide the Senior Accountable Official (SAO) assurance over quarterly submissions to USASpending.gov,” the memo states.

According to the latest guidance, two types of intragovernmental transfers are included under DATA Act reporting: allocation transfers and buy/sell transactions.

OMB directs agencies that starting with their first DATA Act reporting on allocation transfers, the agency will “submit and assure the appropriations information, program activity and object class, and award financial information for allocation transfers for display on USASpending.gov.”

As for buy/sell transactions, both the awarding and funding agencies must submit information for spending reports.

Under the new guidance, if a Federal Award Identification Number (FAIN) is included in details for a single award, the agency should report that award to USASpending “as a single, discrete record.”

If single award-level reporting isn’t possible, agencies can report aggregated awards at a county or state level.

As of the Nov. 6 guidance, however, the DAIMS [DATA Act Information Model Schema] only offers guidance for aggregate county level.

OMB directs agencies to continue the county-level reporting practice until that schema is modified.

The guidance is the latest in a  series of OPM memos and updates for agencies, as they prepare for the May 2017 implementation of the DATA Act.

Officials with OMB and Treasury — the two agencies spearheading the DATA Act’s implementation — stand by the progress toward full adoption, while GAO auditors have repeatedly warned that the federal spending standardization could fall behind if agencies don’t get in line with the legislation’s requirements.

In early August, a GAO report warned that Treasury’s 4-month delay for releasing its schema version 1.0, triggered the delay of industry software patches while companies waited for a “stable version of the schema.”

That assessment came on the heels of another GAO report that said the full rollout of the DATA Act is at risk if OMB and Treasury don’t take steps to improve the review of agency plans and monitoring of progress updates.

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Federal financial report is in, but GAO offers no opinion

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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20 years later, CFO Act needs some freshening up

Congress must standardize the role of the federal chief financial officer and give deputy CFOs more clout to make up for time between political appointments of CFOs.


These are two of the recommendations from a multi-agency review of the impact and shortcomings of the CFO Act of 1990. Congress required the analysis as part of the Improper Payments Elimination and Recovery Act of 2010.

"Over the past 20 years, the CFO Act has played a pivotal role in improving financial accountability and transparency across the federal government," wrote Danny Werfel, the Office of Management and Budget controller in a blog post. "The report highlights several benefits of the CFO Act, including the increased transparency, greater accountability and significant improvements in financial management and internal controls achieved in recent years. Last year, these strides contributed to 21 out of the 24 CFO Act agencies obtaining unqualified 'Clean' opinions on their financial statement audits--only the second time in the last decade that the government reached that milestone."

The CFO Act helped agencies strengthen financial controls and processes over the last 20 years. Previously, the report stated financial operations were ineffective and inefficient, weak internal controls left resources at risk, personnel were not adequately trained and financial systems could not communicate with each other and were often redundant. The report said fund balances with the Department of the Treasury were reconciled inconsistently, and the government had difficulty managing its assets and costs. The lack of a full-time centralized senior official overseeing agency funding also caused agencies problems prior to the act.


But one of the big holes the review group found was the lack of continuity among agency financial leaders since most CFOs are political appointees.


The review group recommended to Congress to give deputy CFOs the same breadth of responsibilities as the CFOs.

-Jason Miller, FederalNewsRadio.com
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OMB Seeks Input on Recovery Act Data Elements

On April 1, 2009, OMB took the significant step of issuing standard data elements that would be used for reporting under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Recovery Act). The public has until May 1, 2009 to comment on the data elements, which will be used in the reporting of grants, loans and cooperative agreement spending under Section 1512 of the Recovery Act. The proposed data elements may be accessed online. Comments may be sent via email to mpridgen@omb.eop.gov. AGA asks that its members also submit their comments on the data elements to us at hsims@agacgfm.org, so that AGA can stay apprised of our members' views on the Recovery Act and implementing guidance. Once the standard data elements are approved, each federal agency must require its recipients of grants, cooperative agreements and loans made under the Recovery Act to report the information and data electronically through a central Government wide portal or through an agency information collection process.

AGA is working to help its members stay abreast of the latest Recovery Act developments. Visit AGA's home page and click on the "Keeping Track of the Recovery Act" button at the top of the page, or click here to access up-to-minute information on the Recovery Act.

Following the Money

Now that the stimulus bill is law, how does a federal agency make sure the money goes where it needs to? You can find one possible answer in a new set of monitoring tools from the Partnership for Intergovernmental Management and Accountability. Tom Cooley is Chief Financial Officer at the National Science Foundation and co-Chair of the Partnership, and he joins us to explain how the tools work.

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AGA's Intergovernmental Partnership Aims to Limit Risks in Stimulus Spending

As agencies scramble to spend stimulus funds under the 2009 American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, an intergovernmental financial management organization is offering up new tools to help ensure that accountability isn't sacrificed for expediency.

The Partnership for Intergovernmental Management and Accountability, which comprises high-ranking financial management officials in federal, state and local governments, has published a number of documents and assessment tools to help agencies monitor funds spent under the economic stimulus package.

The Partnership was established by the Association of Government Accountants in 2007 to improve accountability across governmental jurisdictions.

- Katherine McIntire Peters, GoveExec.com

FederalNewsRadio - AGA - Your Money, Your Government

Intergovernmental Cooperation

Martin J. Benison - CGFM, Comptroller, Commonwealth of Massachusetts

David R. Bennett - CGFM, CPA, Director of Accounts and Budgets, Assistant County Mayor, Blount County, TN

Thomas N. Cooley - Chief Financial Officer, National Science Foundation

Jeanette Franzel - CGFM, CPA, Director, Financial Management and Assurance, Government Accountability Office

Intergovernmental revenue flows involve hundreds of billions of dollars per year. The finances of state, local and federal government are inextricably linked.

The financial challenges faced by the federal government have received increased scrutiny since the economy imploded in mid September. Challenges faced by state and local governments are also increasingly in the spotlight. With most states five months into their 2009 fiscal years, 18 states have already cut budgets. Sales tax revenues - the largest single source of state and local revenue - are showing dramatic erosion and retail sales are expected to remain sluggish as we enter an economic downturn that the Economist magazine projects will be long and severe.

This show will explore how a cohesive, intergovernmental response can be developed for dealing with the current economic downturn and other intergovernmental challenges.


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Officials outline financial management problems

Federal agencies need to strengthen accounting practices and internal controls in high-risk spending areas if they are going to prove themselves responsible to taxpayers, a senior White House official told House lawmakers on June 5.

“The financial management community is not only responsible for reporting on the extent and nature of our fiscal challenges, it also plays a critical role in developing and implementing strategies to control federal spending and otherwise ensure that the fiscal health of the federal government remains sound,” Daniel Werfel, Office of Management and Budget deputy controller, said in prepared testimony.

To achieve these ends, agencies need to reduce improper payments, eliminate the misuse of government charge cards and make financial reports more transparent and readable, Werfel told the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee.

By making these improvements, agencies will be able to meet OMB’s goal of getting a clean audit opinion from the Government Accountability Office, he said. Several agencies have already taken part in pilot programs to make financial reports more understandable, Werfel said. Agencies are also getting better at catching improper payments, he said.

Despite these improvements in financial reporting, GAO for the 11th year in a row could not offer an opinion of the government’s financial audits, GAO’s Gene Dodaro, acting comptroller general, said in written testimony.

An audit opinion remains elusive in part because the Defense Department is not able to fix weaknesses in its financial statements, Dodaro said. GAO is also held back by agencies’ inability to reconcile their intergovernmental transactions balances with each other and government’s ineffective process for preparing the governmentwide financial statement, Dodaro said.

-Elise Castelli, FederalTimes.com

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Officials: Government's finances still are not in order, despite progress

While touting significant improvement in financial management and reporting for fiscal 2007 and in recent years, key officials said Thursday they know it's not enough.

For the 11th consecutive year, long-standing roadblocks prevented the Government Accountability Office from issuing an opinion on the government's fiscal 2007 consolidated financial statements. Serious financial management problems at the Defense Department, the government's inability to account for and reconcile transactions among agencies, and ineffective processes for preparing financial statements were the primary factors preventing GAO from signing off on an opinion, acting comptroller general Gene Dodaro said in testimony prepared for a scheduled hearing of the House Oversight and Government Reform subcommittee.

While GAO couldn't vouch for the reliability of the government's consolidated financial statements, many agencies were successful in financial management and reporting in fiscal 2007. Nineteen of 24 agencies covered under the 1990 Chief Financial Officers Act received unqualified audit opinions on their financial statements last fiscal year. In 1996, only six accomplished that feat.

-Elizabeth Newell, GovExec.com

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Delayed Conversation

The feds don’t spend much time hashing out mutual problems with states and localities. It’s time they started.

What do you call it when eight federal officials and eight state and local leaders convene voluntarily to discuss intergovernmental fiscal affairs? Well, if you’ve watched the downward trajectory that has characterized intergovernmentalism in Washington over the past decade or so, you might call it a minor miracle.

But last month, that’s just what happened. A 16-member panel whose leaders included Danny Werfel, acting director of the U.S. Office of Management and Budget, and Martin Benison, the Massachusetts state controller, sat down to develop plans for a new standing group that will focus on how the three levels of government might work more rationally through the broad range of intergovernmental fiscal issues that leave state and local officials alternatively exasperated, confused and, on some days, entertaining notions of open rebellion.

The effort, which is being called the “Partnership for Intergovernmental Management and Accountability,” is being jointly sponsored by the Association of Government Accountants and the Chief Financial Officers Council, a group made up of the top fiscal officials from the 24 largest federal agencies.

The partnership has a wide range of issues and activities it might tackle, from serving as a forum for sharing best practices in fiscal management to working through proposed rules and regulations for specific federal grants and transfer programs.

The partnership emerged out of what might seem an unlikely issue: the Bush administration’s concern about “improper payments” that the feds might have made to states and localities. Relmond Van Daniker, the executive director of the Association of Government Accountants, didn’t think the prospect of federal liens against states and localities due to perceived overpayments was a very practical investment of federal time or energy. “That just wasn’t going to work,” says Van Daniker. “What we really need is to get states, locals and feds talking to one another again.”

The partnership does have one important thing going for it: Those who are represented by AGA and the CFO Council clearly are getting tired of all the confusion and conflict when it comes to intergovernmental fiscal affairs. This potentially powerful source of grassroots and high-level discontent just might hold the new partnership together.

-Jonathan Walters, Governing.com
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