FY 2019 AGENCY FINANCIAL REPORT | U.S. DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION 31

Treasury borrowings – effective internal controls over the 

Department’s business processes and financial activities are 

essential to responsibly delivering our mission outcomes.

I would like to highlight several of the Department’s 

management accomplishments during FY 2019:

 We implemented a major upgrade to our core financial 

system. This critical upgrade modernized the technical 

infrastructure of the system and will reduce potential 

cybersecurity risks.

 We also successfully merged the following offices: Office 

of the Chief Financial Officer, Budget Service, and 

Office of Management, to create a new Office of 

Finance and Operations. By bringing our offices 

together, we are making strides to reduce redundancy 

in our work, maximize employee and organizational 

efficiency, and better leverage our staff’s substantial 

knowledge and expertise.

 We completed a Department-wide transition of 

all information technology services; improving the 

performance of the Department’s operations and 

strengthening performance measurement 

and accountability. 

As we move into the new fiscal year, I am confident that 

we will continue to integrate enterprise risk management 

concepts into our internal control framework and develop 

innovative tools and practices to expand support to mission 

offices; building on our accomplishments and providing 

even more effective and efficient financial management of 

the federal resources entrusted to us.

We continuously strive to improve the quality and 

usefulness of the information provided in the AFR and 

encourage feedback or suggestions to be sent to us at 

AFRComments@ed.gov.

Denise L. Carter

Delegated the authority to perform the functions and 

duties of the position of Chief Financial Officer

November 15, 2019

MESSAGE FROM THE CHIEF FINANCIAL OFFICER

MESSAGE FROM THE CHIEF FINANCIAL OFFICER | FINANCIAL SECTION

As a Federal entity, the Department of Education must be 

transparent and accountable to its broad community of 

stakeholders. To that end, I am proud to report that the 

Department received an unmodified or “clean” opinion 

on its financial statements for the 18th consecutive year. 

This year, the internal control report identified a repeat 

of one material weakness, “Controls over the Reliability 

of Information Used in the Modeling Activities Need 

Improvement” for which the Department will continue to 

address and resolve. We also received external validation of 

our sustained efforts to produce user-friendly, transparent 

financial reporting by earning the Department’s 15th award 

of the prestigious Certificate of Excellence in Accountability 

Reporting (CEAR) from the Association of Government 

Accountants, as well as the “CEAR Best-in-Class” award for 

Articulation of Future Challenges.

While states have the greatest role to play in achieving 

and sustaining the provision of an excellent and equitably 

accessible education system for American students, the 

Department supports students by working with parents, 

students, educational institutions, school districts and states 

to foster educational excellence and ensure equal access 

to it in support of the country’s global competitiveness. 

As a critical mission support organization, the Office of 

Finance and Operations has the Department’s primary 

responsibility for maintaining financial integrity over 

the federal resources entrusted to the agency and for 

preparing its Agency Financial Report (AFR), such that 

our stakeholders are empowered with reliable information 

about our financial stewardship and achievements relative 

to the costs of executing our mission. With approximately 

$1.3 trillion in total assets, comprised primarily of credit 

program receivables that were funded by $1.3 trillion in