Administration
Falls Well Short of Goal on Financial Management
Only 11
Agencies Can Balance Their Books on Time
HUD, EPA Fall Back After Previous Progress
WASHINGTON
-- Senator Fred Thompson, Chairman of the Committee on Governmental
Affairs, today said he is, "deeply disappointed that only 11 of
24 major federal agencies are able to produce reliable financial
statements for Fiscal Year ‘99." Agencies are required, under
the Chief Financial Officers Act, to report on their financial
statements by March 1 of each year.
Requiring
agencies to submit financial statements is one way to ensure that
federal operations have the benefit of basic information with which to
manage the expenditure of taxpayer dollars. Without basic financial
information, agencies cannot accurately and in a timely manner,
measure the full cost and financial performance of programs, cannot
effectively and efficiently manage their operations, and/or cannot
ensure compliance with laws and regulations.
Senator
Thompson said, "We’ve been working under the Chief Financial
Officers Act since 1990. Ten years later, less than half the agencies
can demonstrate that they have adopted the sound financial management
practices that the act requires. Perhaps that’s because OMB’s
goals for implementation of the act are somewhat of a moving target.
And if agencies couldn’t produce satisfactorily audited financial
statements by March 1, they certainly didn’t have the information
they needed to manage their operations last year."
In June
‘99, OMB set a goal of clean opinions on 21 of 24 agency financial
statements. On February 7, 2000, OMB revised that goal downward to 18
clean opinions on agencies’ FY ‘99 financial statements. As of
today, only 11 federal agencies have received a clean opinion on their
financial statements.
Two
agencies -- the Department of Housing and Urban Development and the
Environmental Protection Agency -- fell back in their efforts to
implement sound financial management practices. HUD, which last year
received a clean opinion on its financial statements, this year
received a disclaimer of opinion on its financial statements. The
audit shows that HUD suffers from severe financial management
weaknesses which, for instance, caused it to make over $900 million in
excess subsidy payments and prevented it from spending $151 million
which Congress had authorized for public housing.
"Many
people think that financial management is an issue that doesn’t
affect ordinary people," said Chairman Thompson. "But, at
HUD and other agencies, poor financial management means that crooks
are stealing from the government and people that need these funds are
going without."
Information
provided to the Committee on Governmental Affairs by agency Inspectors
General showed that 11 agencies received an unqualified (clean)
opinion on their financial statements, four agencies received a
qualified opinion, five agencies received a disclaimer of opinion, and
four agency Inspectors General were unable to complete their audit of
financial statements by the March 1, 2000 deadline. An unqualified
opinion means the agency's financial statements were reliable. A
qualified opinion means segments of the statements were not reliable.
A disclaimer of opinion means the auditor could not determine if the
information in the statement was reliable for reasons that could
include lack of documentation or otherwise unavailable information.
Agency
Financial Statement chart is attached.