A Bi-Weekly Newsletter from ITA Administration | |
Office of the Chief Financial Officer |
Wednesday, August 06, 2003 |
ITA's Congressionally Mandated Reports The listing of ITA's Congressionally Mandated Reports has been updated. To view this listing go to http://www.ita.doc.gov/mad/cmr.htm. If you have questions or if your office has a new reporting requirement from Congress, please contact Jacqueline Harris at (202)482-4011 or Jacqueline_Harris@ita.doc.gov. ITA Procurement E-mail Mailbox The Office of Organization and Management Support (OOMS) has set up an e-mail mailbox with the address: ITA_Procurement@ita.doc.gov . Please use this e-mail address to send messages to Robin Carpenter, ITA Procurement Liaison, involving procurement issues, questions or comments. If you have any questions, contact Robin Carpenter at (202)482-4989 or via the above email address.In the past, ITA has required its timekeepers to split payroll costs manually for pay periods that are partly in the old fiscal year (FY) and partly in the new fiscal year. This year, timekeepers will not have to manually divide the pay period. The National Finance Center (NFC) will split each ITA employee's payroll costs for pay period 19 (September 21 - October 4) by prorating the costs between the two fiscal years. NFC will apply approximately 70% of the costs to Budget Fiscal Year (BFY) 2003, and the remaining 30% to BFY 2004. The NFC will ensure that the split payroll costs are posted to the current BFY. For more information, contact Lorese Green at (202)482-5232. Employee Express Update on TSP Catch up Contributions Effective July 28, 2003, the Employee Express System was available for employees to enter the TSP catch up contributions. However, the system erroneously accepted the annual or maximum $2,000 amount as the pay period deduction amount. Employees can verify their entry and can reenter the pay period amount in Employee Express. Employee Express will place a notice on its web page informing employees to enter the pay period amount (not the annual or maximum amount) soon. For additional information contact Vanessa Lewis at (202)482-8327 or Dottie Bowling at (202)482-3504.The full House passed the Commerce/Justice/State FY 2004 Appropriations Bill. There has been no Senate action to date. It is anticipated the Senate will take up the Bill after the August/ Labor Day recess. If you have questions, please contact Alan Zegas at (202)482-5739. ITA received the Department's passback on its FY 2005 Secretarial Budget Submission. Under Secretary Grant Aldonas appealed two of the decisions from the passback. Final Departmental decisions are due on August 5, 2003,or soon after. After ITA receives the final Departmental decisions, we will have until August 21, 2003, to submit the OMB Budget Request to the Department. The Office of Financial Management (OFM) will work closely with all the program offices to assure the budget submission is of the highest quality. If you have questions, please call Alan Zegas at (202)482-5739.
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DOC Draft Strategic PlanThe Department of Commerce has
recently developed a new five-year strategic plan. We recently sent the link to this
draft plan to key ITA stakeholders. This affords stakeholders an
opportunity to review and comment on the Department's long -term
strategy. If you are
interested in reading the draft plan, it is available at: http://www.osec.doc.gov/bmi/budget/stake2Plan.htm.
Review by our stakeholders ensures that the Department is able to obtain a
broad variety of perspectives on the DOC strategic plan that can then be
taken into account before the draft is published in final for FY 2004,
which begins October 01, 2003.
If you have any questions about the draft plan, contact Ed Meyer at
(202)482-3304 or e-mail Ed_Meyer@ita.doc.gov. Question: May a traveler receive a travel advance if his/her Citibank Travel Card is cancelled because of delinquent payment or misuse of the card? Answer: No, If your travel card has been canceled because of delinquency or use for non-official purposes, you are expected to fund your trip with personal funds and then file a travel voucher for expenses. Your common carrier transportation will be charged to the centrally-billed travel account through the Travel Management Center. If you have questions, call your travel contact or Sharon Russell at (202)482-3267.
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Send your suggestions or comments about this newsletter to Nina_Harris@ita.doc.gov