OMB controller Danny Werfel said the Treasury Department should be finished testing and analyzing systems in the next six months. The CFO Council highlights priorities for 2011, and among them is the further reduction of improper payments. Werfel said agencies will begin using the software tool first utilized by the Recovery Board to identify potential problems.
OMB said $687 million was recovered across all agencies this year in improper payments.
The White House is offering a peek into its plans for the coming months as Barack Obama enters the third year of his presidency. Chief Performance Officer Jeffrey Zients discussed the future at the Excellence in Government conference Monday.
Most of the systems the GAO has put on the high-risk list are customized systems that agencies have created from scratch, but a new model is emerging.
The Office of Management and Budget wants to expand the use of Extensible Business Reporting Language to expand access to structured data. However, the technology to ensure widespread adoption still has a way to go. But two pilots with industry shows it can be done.
The head of the Office of Management and Budget\'s Office of Federal Financial Management said the federal audit community has a powerful new tool to battle improper payments and fraud. Danny Werfel said for most citizens, battling improper payments may even trump the accounting community\'s holy grail of a clean audit opinion.
VA, SBA, EPA and HUD are the first to go through the review process and see dramatic changes. OMB controller Werfel said the goal for each agency is to invest only in top priorities, saving $1 billion a year by eliminating or reducing the size of agency modernization projects.
OMB controller understands why average citizens are simply not interested in the typical agency financial statement.
The federal government\'s top accountant says it\'s time for agencies to transform the way they report on their financial health. It all starts with citizens demanding to know how their tax dollars are being spent.
OMB is using the same data analysis tools to monitor stimulus spending at CMS to reduce their improper payments. Other agencies also are taking advantage of the lessons learned from the creation and operation of the board. Recovery.gov also will receive new features this fall to let citizens track individual projects on their own websites.
The Office of Management and Budget is taking aim at approximately 30 agency financial management modernization systems. Part of the new oversight is a Financial Systems Advisory Board made up of CFOs and CIOs across the government. The administration\'s goals are lower costs and improve performance by addressing long standing project problems.
The administration issues two new memos focusing on all IT projects and specifically on financial management systems. OMB will issue guidance in the next month detailing how they will evaluate which programs are at most risk. OMB\'s Zients says programs worth more than $10 billion are significantly off track in cost, schedule or both.
Recently, Federal IT officials have been talking about important changes to the way that financial management systems at federal agencies are upgraded. But now one of the government\'s top financial managers is also speaking out on the need for new thinking when the time comes for modernizing those systems.
The four senior Office of Management and Budget officials who are leading the Obama Adminstration\'s management efforts detail the strategies they\'re using to move forward.