Recently in Financial Management Category

NASA OIG Report: NASA's Grant Administration and Management

"NASA Inspector General Paul K. Martin today released a report that examined how well the Agency manages the $3 billion in grants its has awarded over the past 5 years to fund scientific research, scholarships, fellowships, and educational activities. The Office of Inspector General (OIG) review found that NASA does not have an adequate system of controls in place to ensure proper administration and management of its grant program."

NASA Financials Get Clean Bill Of Health

"It marked the first time since the 2002 fiscal year that independent auditors issued a qualified opinion, with no material weaknesses, rather than a disclaimer of opinion on NASA's financial statements."

NASA Administrator's Internal Memo: FY 2010 Performance and Accountability Report

"Going forward, I am confident that we will remain vigilant in maintaining the public trust through safeguarding our assets, promoting integrity in financial stewardship, and pursuing teamwork in accounting and budgeting. Thank you for your hard work on behalf of the American people."

Keith's note: Alas, despite this audit, the agency still missed a huge budgetary and accounting issue with Webb's cost overruns. I wonder how the auditors missed this ...

This week at Cape Canaveral saw the red, white and blue honored by one of the most historic of American traditions. It also saw local leaders both working to improve the economic future of the Space Coast region and acknowledging the benefits of the shuttle era extending into another year.

Subcommittees Hold Oversight Hearing to Examine Audit of NASA's Financial Operations

"It only took about half as long to get to the moon as it has taken to clean up NASA's financial performance, but three tries, hundreds of millions of dollars and the hard work of many NASA employees later they have shown definite improvement," said Subcommittee Chairman Brad Miller (D-NC). "I feel the responsibility of ensuring that NASA is a good steward of the resources they are given--resources which ultimately come from the American taxpayers," said Subcommittee Chairwoman Gabrielle Giffords (D-AZ)."

NASA OIG: NASA's Most Serious Management and Performance Challenges

"Through various Agency initiatives and by implementing recommendations made by the Office of Inspector General (OIG) and other evaluative bodies, such as the Government Accountability Office, NASA is working to improve Agency programs and operations. However, challenges remain in the following areas:

* Transitioning from the Space Shuttle to the Next Generation of Space Vehicles
* Managing Risk to People, Equipment, and Mission
* Financial Management
* Acquisition and Contracting Processes
* Information Technology Security"

NASA OIG: Audit of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's Fiscal Year 2009 Financial Statements

"In the "Report of Independent Auditors" (Enclosure 1), E&Y disclaimed an opinion on NASA's financial statements for the fiscal years ended September 30, 2009 and 2008. While the Agency made significant progress in improving its financial processes and systems, the disclaimer resulted from continued weaknesses in internal controls over accounting for legacy property, plant, and equipment (PP&E)."

NASA OIG: Audit of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's Fiscal Year 2008 Financial Statements (Report No. IG-09-006)

"In the "Report of Independent Auditors", E&Y disclaimed an opinion on NASA's financial statements for the fiscal years ended September 30, 2008 and 2007. The disclaimer resulted from continued significant weaknesses in NASA's financial management processes and systems, including issues related to internal controls for property accounting.

The E&Y "Report on Compliance with Laws and Regulations" identifies certain instances in which NASA's financial management systems did not substantially comply with the requirements of the Federal Financial Management Improvement Act of 1996 (FFMIA)."

Commentary: NASA's new tenets for doing business, Federal Times

"As the new assistant administrator for procurement, I have tried to take a fresh look at NASA's procurement practice based on data from our current contracts. As a result of this assessment, I developed some principles for procurement that, if implemented, could improve our return on investment. These principles have become NASA's procurement tenets, nine guidelines that describe a new way of doing business:"

Governmentwide Purchase Cards: Actions Needed to Strengthen Internal Controls to Reduce Fraudulent, Improper, and Abusive Purchases. GAO-08-333, March 14.

Page 8: "At the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), a cardholder used the government purchase card to acquire two 60GB iPods. Although NASA officials maintained that the iPods were essential for official data storage, we found that the cardholder personalized the iPods with the requester's and agency's names and used the iPods to store songs and music videos. Although the iPods had some business files on them, we concluded that the purchase was abusive because other data storage devices without video and audio capabilities were available at lower costs."

Improper Payments: Weaknesses in USAID's and NASA's Implementation of the Improper Payments Information Act and Recovery Auditing, GAO

"While both USAID and NASA took steps to assess their payment activities for risk, including conducting a review of select payment streams for improper payments, we identified numerous deficiencies in their procedures. USAID and NASA lacked a systematic method to review and analyze program operations to determine if risks exist, what those risks are, and the potential or actual impact of those risks on program operations. For example, neither USAID nor NASA had developed a process to (1) identify risks that exist in their payment activities or (2) evaluate the results of their payment stream reviews, such as weighting and scoring the effectiveness of existing internal control over payments made and results from external audits."

Marshall Space Flight Center names deputy chief financial officer, WAFF

"Previously, Brown was executive director of finance operations for ConAgra Food Ingredients of Omaha, Neb., a $1 billion specialty food ingredients business. He was responsible for managing finance, information technology and supply chain initiatives for 34 ConAgra plants nationwide."

Editor's note: On one hand he has zero experience with NASA. Yet on the other hand, he has zero experience with NASA. Perhaps he won't know any better than to do things the right way!

NASA Deputy Administrator Shana Dale's Blog: Integrated Enterprise Management Program (IEMP) - Gap Analysis

"Last week and this week, I have been going into a fair amount of detail on subjects that will be fairly dry to many. These issues, though - financial management and IEMP - are some of the very important foundations for NASA."