**Intragovernmental Eliminations Taskforce (IGET) Meeting Minutes**

PGMC II Room 714/715

Wednesday March 21, 2007

9:30am -- 11:00am

Marsha Morgan from GWA-Financial Reports Division (FRD) began the
meeting by welcoming all those in attendance, both in person and on the
phone teleconferencing from offsite.

She stated the following agencies were teleconferencing:

1\) Bureau of the Public Debt 7) Governmental Accountability Office

2\) Environmental Protection Agency 8) General Services Administration

3\) Department of the Interior 9) National Credit Union Administration
4) National Science Foundation 10) Tennessee Valley Authority

5\) Agency for International Development 11) Department of Agriculture

6\) Department of Homeland Security 12) Department of Defense-DFAS

The following agencies were present at the Prince George's Metro Center
II:

1\) Department of Justice 11) Department of Homeland Security

2\) Department of Defense 12) Department of Energy

3\) Federal Communications Commission 13) General Services
Administration

4\) Dept of Housing and Urban Development 14) Department of the Interior

5\) National Aeronautics and Space Admin 15) Department of Treasury
(FFB)

6\) National Science Foundation 16) Office of Personnel Management

7\) Smithsonian Institution 17) Social Security Administration

8\) Department of State 18) Department of Transportation

9\) Agency for International Development 19) Department of Agriculture

10\) United States Postal Service 20) Department of Veterans Affairs

Marsha asked that all questions be held until the end, and then
introduced the FRD update team: Mary Baldwin, Oscar Castro, and Kathy
Wages.

**[Intragovernmental Updates:]{.underline}**

**Performance Measures (Mary Baldwin):** Once again FMS issued the
Financial Report of the U.S. Government on December 15, 2006 which is
directly attributable to each agency's assistance. Courtesy copies of
the Performance Measures scorecards were sent out to the agencies with
comments due back by March 22. If an agency did not receive their
packet, please contact your FRD review accountant. These measures should
be used as a tool in resolving FY 07 issues. The FY 2006 measures are
the same as FY 2005.

**Intragovernmental Submission Improvements (Mary Baldwin):** When
submitting Intragovernmental "F" data, FRD asks that each agency be sure
and double check their information as issues in the following areas have
been noticed: 1) Missing exchange indicators, 2) missing bureau codes
(if no bureau code, use "00"), 3) incorrect department codes. Also, all
data, with the exception of the amounts MUST BE in text format. Please
note, department code 58 is no longer a valid trading partner. Agencies
should use department code 70 instead of department code 58 for the
Department of Homeland Security. Please refer to the TFM for more
details.

**A-136 Updates (Oscar Castro):** Brief highlights were covered. The CFO
Council has a subcommittee that updates the A-136 each year. Workgroups
within this subcommittee are revising specific topics, including:
restatements; improvements to the Statement of Financing and to
Statement of Budgetary Resources (the latter to ensure better matching
to the SF-133; expected changes related to the new Fiduciary Funds
Standard (effective in FY 09), changes to earmarked funds disclosures
and changes related to Parent/Child reporting. The revised A-136 is
expected to be released in June per Cindy George OMB, A-136 subcommittee
co-chair. With regard to Parent/Child, beginning in FY 2007,
Parent/Child reporting procedures will change to require that the Parent
agency do all the reporting (with few exceptions) related to allocation
transfers. With three exceptions, Child agency (transferee) reporting is
not allowed. The exception relate to transfers from either certain
BPD-managed trust funds, OMB or from the Judiciary branch. In those
three instances, ALL child agencies must report. A question was asked
related to whether the Parent also reports all FACTS I and II
information for the Child. FMS believes that this is the case, but Oscar
was to look into this with OMB and provide further clarification.

**Intragovernmental Business Rules (Oscar Castro):** The new Business
Rules, effective FY 07, supersede OMB Memo M-03-01. There are certain
important changes. The Business Rules state that a dispute resolution
entity will have the authority to resolve disputes between trading
partners. This is the most significant change, but there relatively
small changes with regard to all other transactions. Trading partners
must now include TAS-BETC information in all inter-agency agreements to
help the agencies reconcile their activities with each other. Changes
related to fiduciary activities, include the requirement for Marketable
Treasury securities that are purchased outside of the Bureau of Public
Debt (BPD) are to be reported by agencies to the BPD within 3 days. In
addition the Business Rules covers how Treasury Inflation Protected
Securities are to be amortized. Oscar noted that OMB currently feels
that the agencies are implementing the rules based on comments and
questions received by OMB. The revised Business Rules can be found in
TFM Bulletin 2007-03.

**Dispute Resolutions (Oscar Castro):** The Dispute Resolution Committee
was created by the new Business Rules and is expected to begin operation
in FY 2007. Currently, OMB is still drafting the charter for the
Committee, which will stipulate its membership and general operating
rules. OMB is also drafting the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) to be
signed by the 24 CFO Act Agencies to ensure they will actively
participate in the process and will abide by the decisions made by the
Committee. The rules will apply to accounting and contractual disputes.
For accounting disputes, agencies will have sixty (60) days to settle
their dispute between themselves, at which time it will be turned over
to the committee. Each disputing agency will provide the dispute
committee with enough information as possible regarding the dispute. The
committee will mediate the dispute within ninety (90) days. For
contractual disputes, only the Committee will have the final say. For
accounting disputes, the Committee may refer the matter to the FASAB
Auditing and Accounting Planning Committee (AAPC) for final mediation,
within 90 days, of the dispute. This Entity will allow the government to
eventually eliminate one of the material weaknesses noted in the
Consolidate Financial Report. The Dispute Resolution Committee should
also help the agencies in resolving their significant intragovernmental
differences.

**BPD Investments Conference (Oscar Castro):** The BPD Investment
seminar will take place on April 12^th^, 2007 at the Federal Deposit
Insurance Corporation (FDIC) in Arlington, VA. During this meeting,
topics such as Intragovernmental Accounting, Eliminations, Updates to
the GWA Project, and credit borrowings will be discussed.

**TFM Updates/Acctg Policy Guide/IG Agreed Upon Procedures (Kathy
Wages):** It was announced that the draft TFM was to be issued for
agency comments on Wednesday March 28^th^. The comments were to be due
back by Wednesday April 11^th^. The final 2007 TFM was scheduled to be
issued on Monday April 30^th^. However, the TFM is currently on hold.
Agencies will be notified when the draft will be sent out for agency
review. All updates to the TFM and SGL will be incorporated in the
Accounting Policy guide by the end of May or the first month following
the issuance of the TFM. As of the date of this meeting, the IG Agreed
upon Procedures (AUPs) will be mandatory for FY 2007 -- they were
optional for FY 2006. Please refer to the TFM for updates.

**[Presentations]{.underline}**

There were three presenters for this year's IGET meeting. They were
Robert Darragh from USDA, David Burgman from Treasury-FMS, and Marsha
Morgan from Treasury-FMS.

**Eliminating Material Differences (Robert Darragh):** Robert explained
that most of USDA's business is done with the Treasury Department. This
is due to USDA's large loan programs. USDA had identified areas of
improvement regarding their material differences. They determined that
the material differences on the Material Status of Disposition report
weren't real differences at all. Many of the differences arise due to
how the law is set up. USDA is working to solve these problems with the
Treasury. Robert gave examples regarding issues with different agencies.
He explained that some issues, such as with OPM Milk Marketing
activities, arise because of different reporting techniques. Ted
Kuchlewski from OPM spoke up and explained that the differences with OPM
and USDA for Milk Marketing activities have since been resolved with the
first quarter FY 2007 reports. Robert pointed out who USDA really does
business with which shows where some of their real differences come
from. He further went on to offer suggestions for remedying some of
their problems. He suggests that FMS provide contact information down to
the Bureau level of each agency, expressing that he feels that better
communication will help with differences between agencies. He also is in
favor of more communication *during* the quarter, rather than at the end
to resolve differences. Kathy Sherrill from the Defense Department
commented that a contract with an agency may specifically state that
there are to be "no advances"; yet the other agency records the activity
as an advance. This causes an out of balance condition between the
agencies. Another issue was raised by an attendee asking Robert if USDA
was experiencing differences with other agencies due to other agencies
performing IPAC transactions with USDA and not informing them. Robert
offered a non definitive answer. Finally, Robert asked if agencies will
have access to other agency's data in the new Agency Generated Reports
processing using the Discoverer viewer query when running reports.
Because of the security restrictions, this will not be possible. The
answer from FRD was "No".

**Use of Central Accounting Data (UCAD) - (David Burgman):** David began
by asking for a show of hands for all those with Accountant Statement
knowledge. Few hands were raised. UCAD was started last year (July) and
being developed to improve/resolve interagency eliminations by providing
agencies a tool to reconcile transactions and balances directly to
Treasury Central Accounting Data. Reciprocal categories have been
modified to have a direct relationship to central accounting data. The
reconciliation process will be enhanced to include STAR/GWA to the FIRST
system. FY 2007 reporting will be effective 3rd quarter of this year.
Refer to the TFM and the Intragovernmental Accounting Policy Guide for
these changes in reporting. Reports will be able to be viewed at the
agency's convenience and will be available in Summary form, Detail, etc.
down to TAS and Document number. For more information, please contact
Dave Burgman at [David.Burgman@fms.treas.gov]{.underline}.

**Agency Generated Reports (Marsha Morgan):** Marsha first explained
that the Recertification process is well underway and that supervisors
of users will receive a recertification e-mail notification (in
mid-April) to recertify access for users of the three systems (IFCS,
GFRS, and FACTS I). Supervisors MUST perform the recertification for
each user for **EACH** system they use by checking either "yes" or "no"
for continued access (e.g., if a user has access to all three systems,
the supervisor will receive and must complete three recertification
surveys). Further, users will also receive an e-mail notification to
complete the Security Awareness agreement. Users of either of the three
systems must read the Security Awareness agreement and check "agree" to
ensure continued access to the systems. The notifications for Security
Awareness are expected to be sent out by the end of April.

Marsha performed a walk-through of the hand out provided which contained
the nstructions/screen prints to produce the agency reports through the
Discoverer Viewer Query to be accessed through GFRS. All persons
expected to generate these reports are to ensure they have access to
GFRS. If not, an ESAAS form must be completed. ESAAS forms were made
available to the attendees, if needed. Marsha advised that this is the
first phase of this effort and currently includes the Summary and
Detailed Reciprocal Categories and Trading Partner Reports, the OPM and
DOL reports, and the Material Differences Report. Agencies were asked to
provide a list of "special" reports they'd like to be able to generate
for consideration in later phases of this effort.

**[Questions and Answers]{.underline}**

1)  USDA-Robert Darragh: Question: For the new Agency Generated Reports
    process, how will agencies be able to tell when material differences
    information is ready for report processing by the agencies? Answer:
    An e-mail notification will be sent informing the agencies when the
    information is ready to be pulled. The agency will then generate the
    reports rather than having it provided by FMS. The due dates are
    still the same as previously established. Refer to the FMS website
    for these dates. Question: Is the system available now for agency
    viewing? Answer: No, it is not.

2)  DHS-Margaret LoHing: Question: Will the CFO be required to perform
    certain requirements to support the IG AUPs? Answer: Yes, this has
    not changed. Details will be provided in the TFM.

3)  USDA-Robert Darragh: Question: Would all users have access for
    Discoverer? Answer: Access is automatically granted for users that
    already have GFRS access. Question: USDA has 24 different agencies
    within the Department, should all 24 agencies have access for
    generating these reports? Answer: The persons who currently receive
    the quarterly intragovernmental reports in the Departmental CFO
    offices should, at a minimum, have access for generating these
    reports.

4)  CCC-Zayra: Question: Regarding Parent/Child reporting, in A-136 if
    the parent agency is reporting both sides of a transfer (to the
    child agency), then this activity is eliminated at the parent agency
    and therefore there is nothing to report in FACTS I or FACTS II, is
    that correct? Answer: You will still have to report to FACTS I
    and II. Children **must** provide information to the Parent. Oscar
    stated that he would try and get clarification from OMB regarding
    this type of situation.