ASMC PDI Recap: Hot Topics

We recently attended the American Society of Military Comptroller (ASMC) Professional Development Institute (PDI) in New Orleans where we hosted a booth as well as had several of our instructors deliver mini-courses and workshops. This year’s event was kicked off with a Welcome Reception at the WWII Museum and showcased Tom Hanks’ film production of “Beyond All Boundaries.” The reception was a fantastic way to bring all attendees together and honor our veterans.

The general focus of the event was the DoD FM Certification Program. Tracy Gifford, DFMCP3, FM Certification Program and Glenda Scheiner, DFMCP3, CDFM-A, Director, Human Capital and Resource Management, Office of the Under Secretary of Defense (Comptroller) both gave very informative presentations on course alignment and Supervisor and Component Certification Authority (CCA), respectively.

The DoD FM Certification Program is well underway and is making progress, slowly but surely! All 53,000 estimated Financial Managers in DoD fall under the program yet only a little more than 3,000 have attained the appropriate certification level for their respective jobs after one year.

Our instructors delivered five separate sessions over the three-day event:

• Rick Hurley, CDFM-A, presented a session on cost-benefit analysis and how it is used to support decision-making in the organization, thereby increasing public welfare and improving efficiency.
• Robert Black presented on Internal Controls, helping participants reduce the risk of waste, fraud, and mismanagement within their agency, and support accountability efforts.
• Phil Davidson presented 12 types of Antideficiency Act (ADA) violations and discussed which ones are automatic and which ones may be correctable.

Key takeaways from other sessions at the event included:

• Dr. Jamie Morin, Director of DoD Cost Assessment and Program Evaluation (CAPE), spoke of the latest ways they are improving reliability and access to good data for cost estimates, critical to any cost analysis or Cost Benefit Analysis (CBA). The new Cost Assessment Data Enterprise (CADE) database tool is an OSD CAPE initiative with the goal to increase analyst productivity and effectiveness by collecting, organizing, and displaying data in an integrated single web-based application. CADE provides the government analyst new authoritative source data which is easily searchable and retrievable. CADE will increase analyst productivity and effectiveness while improving data quality, reporting compliance, and source data transparency. CADE offers the analyst a reduction in the time spent on ad-hoc data collection and validation, allowing more time for in-depth, meaningful analysis in support of DoD’s mission.

• Steve Barth, Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Army (DASA) for Cost and Economics (C&E), gave two workshops covering Decision Support and FM Analysis and highlighted the following:
  • DASA (C&E) does about 150 independent CBA for the Army each year. Since formed in 2009, they have performed almost 1,000.
  • Army now requires CBA on any program which grows $10 million or more in a budget year or $50M over the budget year and four years following.
  • CBA training provided by DASA (C&E) is ramping-up across Army bases nationwide at the many program offices and support installations
  • The size, scope, and rigor of the CBA varies depending on the magnitude of the proposed comparative analysis.  The Army Cost Benefit Analysis Guide is used now throughout DOD for most CBAs.  All eight steps in the Army CBA model are used, but not necessarily in order.

• MG Thomas Horlander, DASA for Army Budget delivered an Army budget overview that focused on: Building Adaptive Leaders; Opportunity, Growth, and Security Initiative ($7.5B); Modernization; and Training Readiness.

Once again ASMC hosted a stellar event in which there was ample time for networking, expert speakers, mini-courses that apply towards the DoD FM Certification, and workshops to discuss key topics and solicit feedback. Keep up the great work, ASMC. We are looking forward to next year in Orlando!