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Agencies Comply with Chief Financial Officers
Act
More Clean Opinions, but Systems Still
Unreliable
WASHINGTON - Senate Governmental
Affairs Committee Chairman Fred Thompson (R-TN) today
praised the compliance of every federal agency in producing
financial statements as required under the Chief Financial
Officers Act. For the first time since the Act was enacted in
1990, every federal agency reported on time, and eighteen
agencies passed financial audit, more than in any previous year.
"Most agencies are balancing
their checkbooks. Knowing what you have and what you’ve spent
is the first step in reducing waste, fraud, and abuse in the
federal government," said Senator Thompson. "Now we
need to work on keeping track of this money on a regular basis,
not just once a year."
Agencies are required to prepare
financial statements accounting for how they’ve spent the tax
dollars allotted to them. Prior to passage of the Chief
Financial Officers Act of 1990, agencies routinely failed to
prepare a balance sheet, or ignored evidence that they had lost
track of money and property within their control. Since passage
of the Act, agencies have continued to have difficulty
accurately producing such statements, but have shown steady
improvement.
In his recent High-Risk Series
report, GAO Comptroller General David Walker, the nation’s
chief auditor, agreed that "agencies do not yet have the
financial systems needed to dependably produce annual financial
statements and other financial information needed to manage
day-to-day operations." In fact, according to GAO, 21 of
the 24 largest federal agencies do not have adequate financial
systems.
"Compliance in reporting
agency expenditures is the best we’ve seen it to date. But
there is more to be done," noted Senator Thompson.
"What the reports don’t show is that most agencies still
do not have the procedures in place to track their expenditures,
debts, property, and equipment on a regular basis, and fixing
that is the next challenge."
The Congress passed the Chief
Financial Officers Act in 1990 to require audited financial
statements. In 2000, the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee
authored the Reports Consolidation Act (Public Law 106-531),
which authorized agencies to consolidate many of their
management related reports. The Act also required agencies to
submit their audited financial statements for the previous
fiscal year to Congress no later than March 1st. |
