Letter from the Chief Financial Officer
 Kathleen Turco |
Last year I began by noting that regaining our unqualified “clean” opinion in fiscal year (FY) 2006 had imbued the General Services Administration (GSA) financial management community with a renewed sense of purpose and optimism. In FY 2007, the Office of the Chief Financial Officer (OCFO) worked hard to build on that success, making steady progress and laying the ground work for sustained excellence. I am happy to be able to report that GSA received another unqualified opinion on its 2007 financial statements. In addition, our Performance and Financial Performance Improvement initiatives under the President’s Management Agenda (PMA) were rated by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) as “green” for both status and progress.
A major accomplishment this past year was the publication of the new GSA Strategic Plan. The plan establishes a new mission, new goals, and re-affirms our core values. The plan fulfills requirements of the Chief Financial Officers (CFO) Act and the Government Performance and Results Act (GPRA) related to the integration of performance management and budgets. The plan guides GSA operations, including financial services, and provides meaning and significance to the financial statements.
GSA made significant progress in FY 2007 toward full integration of performance management into our budget process. Such integration provides the Agency’s senior leaders with the robust financial analysis required to support timely and effective strategic planning and decision-making.
Throughout the GSA financial management community, we are continuing to further improve internal control. For example, two years ago the Federal Acquisition Service (FAS) was required to adjust its books by hundreds of millions of dollars from statistical sampling efforts. In FY 2007, our financial statement auditors concluded that they could rely on FAS internal control and no statistical samples were necessary. In addition, we pursued a variety of financial management and systems initiatives designed to improve our ability to provide professional, value-added financial services to our customers at the lowest possible cost.
As the OCFO becomes increasingly reliant on its Information Technology (IT) systems, it needs to ensure that system controls are designed and implemented effectively. Recently, IT system control requirements have increased without increases in staffing or financial resources. To address this challenge, the OCFO has endeavored to work closely with others to ensure that IT system controls are managed in a risk-based and cost-effective manner. During FY 2007, certain vulnerabilities were noted with respect to information and system access controls. Actions were initiated to effectively limit information and systems access on a need-to-know basis, thereby improving IT security controls.
Our commitment to providing transparency and accountability in budget, financial management, policy, and operations remains strong.
Kathleen M. Turco
Chief Financial Officer
November 9, 2007