Air Force accounting and finance office

Air Force Comptroller, Jan, 2004 by Tom Prochazka

Colonel Williams is on terminal leave with a retirement date of February 1, 2004. He has provided over 27 years of outstanding leadership and innovation to the Air Force and we were fortunate to have him leading the AFAFO and providing oversight to the Accounting and Finance Operations at the MAJCOMs and bases. The entire financial management community will miss him.

Although we are still awaiting Col Williams replacement, we will continue to provide the support the network has come to expect from our office. During this vacancy, we have reorganized to ensure we do not drift off course. I'll be at the controls during this time and will appreciate any vector check feedback from the MAJCOMs.

Let me introduce a couple of new faces we have in our organization. Lt Col Ken Nelson came on board in August 2003 and leads the Finance Division. Lt Col Nelson has already been very active on Military and Travel Pay issues. Lt Col(S) Jeff Manley joined us in September 2003, and has taken over the Accounting Division. Ms Valli Fels came on board in July 2003 replacing Ms Glena Gonzalez. Glena is now a full time member of the TRANSCOM project developing the accounting system of the future. Valli's duties include the Tri-Annual Review, Vendor Pay, and general accounting issues. We recently hired Mr Darryl Brooks in October 2003, who is an analyst for Military Pay, Civilian Pay, and Disbursing. He brings over 30 years of experience to our office. Ms Pat Clayton recently joined our team as a Mission Support Accountant (MSA) and provides us added capability and oversight in the Reserve and Guard Pay area. Finally, our position at our Columbus operation is still vacant. We hope to have a replacement identified and in place soon.

We were very pleased with the feedback and attendance for the August 2003 FSO Worldwide Workshop and our first ever Joint FM and DP Workshop. Over 300 attended this workshop with the theme of supporting our Warfighters--Right Service, Right Attitude, Right Now! Information exchanged and the training provided will further ensure we are all working smarter with the best tools available. The next FSO Workshop is planned for April 2005.

Accounting Division: Update on the Metrics. In June 2003, we provided the first set of MAJCOM metrics that we wrote about in the January 2003 issue of The Air Force Comptroller. We are continuing to work with DFAS to develop a formalized set of metrics for all levels of management. The first phase of the metrics Dashboard will contain 13 metrics, with more to be developed in the coming months. Until Dashboard is fully implemented, we will continue to furnish the current MAJCOM metrics to the field. We have placed the metrics on the AFAFO web site located at http://www.saffm.hq.af.mil/, then click on the AFAFO tab and then on the left-hand side click on Metrics. The metrics are divided into three categories, Finance, Accounting, and Training. Tri-Annual Update: You may have noticed revisions to the way we perform the tri-annual review process. These changes took effect in FY 2004. DFAS, MAJCOMs, and the AFAFO were team members of the Air Force End-to-End Governance Review Transformation Project. The team looked at modifying current processes to meet requirements, but also to decrease duplicate workload. The review schedule for FY 2004 as well as an updated DFAS-DE 7220.4-G is available on the DFAS web site (https://dfas4dod.dfas.mil/library/publication/dfasdepubs.htm).

QA Transformation: Help QA to help you. Not just a spin on a movie line, we need your help to change the cultural mindset around the Quality Assurance Program (QAP), and we need to provide you the tools to do it. Remembering the brief history of QA, it's understandable the Air Force Audit Agency finds the current program ineffective. However, to realize our strategic vision of FM, we need to transform QA to emphasize value-added work, effective self-inspections, and eliminate the perception of the hated inspector levying administratively burdensome tasks.

We are revising the QA instruction, AFI 65-202, and expanding the QA Handbook to emphasize the role of the QAM in process improvement, not just as another auditor or inspector. Today, we have over 19 different formal reviews focused on compliance vice performance. What makes the QAM different? The key is this individual is part of the FM team. They are in a unique position to, not only identify discrepancies, but also take part in problem solving, training, and process improvement. Do not misunderstand us, the reviews required of the QAM are vital to our internal controls. What we've accomplished in the revised AFI is to make those reviews cleaner, clearer, and eliminate redundancy. The QA Handbook will have more step-by-step procedures and details on a value-added QAP.

Contract and Vendor Pay Update: Interest penalty payments (IPPs) for vendor pay has achieved the 40% reduction mandated by USD Comptroller. Through September 2003, vendor pay IPPs were a little over $2.7M--which would put us at an overall reduction in Vendor Pay of 42% from the FY 01 baseline. The Air Force is still responsible for almost 68% of this interest in the form of late receiving reports and late certified invoices. AETC, because of their successful Joint Policy and Procedures Committee and implementation of WAWF-RA are reaping the benefits and have reduced their IPPs over 70% in FY03 (as compared to FY01)!