Department of the Treasury – Budget in Brief 

Bureau of the Fiscal Service 

Program Summary by Budget Activity 

Dollars in Thousands

FY 2017 FY 2018 FY 2019

Budget Activity Enacted* Annualized 

CR Request $ Change % Change

Accounting and Reporting $108,312 $107,576 $92,296 ($15,280) -14.20%

Collections $36,197 $35,951 $35,232 ($719) -2.00%

Payments $126,685 $125,825 $120,743 ($5,082) -4.04%

Retail Securities Services $62,559 $62,134 $62,297 $163 0.26%

Wholesale Securities Services $19,304 $19,173 $20,269 $1,096 5.72%

Subtotal, Fiscal Service $353,057 $350,659 $330,837 ($19,822) -6%

Offsetting Collections - Reimbursables $336,076 $377,980 $421,267 $43,287 11.45%

Total Program Operating Level $336,076 $377,980 $421,267 $43,287 100.00%

Direct FTE 1,674 1,693 1,668 (25) -1.48%

Reimbursable FTE 420 427 431 4 0.94%

Total FTE 2,094 2,120 2,099 (21) -0.99%

FY 2018 TO FY 2019

* This column reflects levels appropriated in H.R. 255, the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2017. For further details on 

the execution of these resources see the 2019 Budget Appendix chapter for the Department of the Treasury. FY 2017 

FTE and Reimbursables are actuals.

Summary 

The Bureau of the Fiscal Service’s (Fiscal 

Service) multi-faceted mission supports the 

National Financial Critical Infrastructure of 

the Federal Government and Treasury’s 

Strategic Goal 4 (Transform Government-wide 

Financial Stewardship) and Goal 5 (Achieve 

Operational Excellence). Specifically, Fiscal 

Service: 

 Provides Government-wide accounting and 

reporting services to include managing the 

Government’s daily cash flows 

 Operates the Federal Government’s 

collections and deposit systems by 

managing the Electronic Federal Tax 

Payment System (EFTPS) and 

implementing new and cutting edge tools 

 Provides centralized payment services to 

Federal agencies to include veterans’ 

benefits, Social Security benefits, and 

Internal Revenue Service (IRS) tax refunds 

 Offers investors the ability to buy and 

manage all Treasury marketable securities 

and non-marketable securities, including 

U.S. savings bonds, online via the 

TreasuryDirect system 

 Borrows the money needed to operate the 

Federal Government by performing 

auctions through which investors have the 

opportunity to purchase Treasury securities 

 Manages the collection of delinquent debt 

owed to the Federal Government by 

operating the Treasury Offset Program 

(TOP) and Cross-Servicing Program 

Fiscal Service interacts with almost every 

citizen and business in the country through the 

payments, collections, and debt collection 

programs. 

Fiscal Service works with the Federal financial 

community to identify improvements to core 

programs and streamline operations 

Government-wide, and given the scope of 

work it is looked to as a leader in its functional 

areas. It is through the efficient and effective 

management of these critical programs that 

Fiscal Service demonstrates high performance 

and achieves outcomes and results, including: 
Department of the Treasury – Budget in Brief 

 Financing Federal operations by collecting 

over $4 trillion in revenues 

 Securely and timely disbursing 1.2 billion 

Federal payments, totaling more than $3.4 

trillion, with 95.1 percent delivered 

electronically 

 Making available $8.6 trillion to fund 

critical daily Federal Government 

operations by conducting 275 auctions 

 Developing the new USAspending.gov site 

using a single, Government-wide data 

schema resulting in the first Digital 

Accountability and Transparency Act 

(DATA Act) submission, with data from 

all 24 Chief Financial Officer Act 

agencies, timely published on the new 

spending transparency website 

Fiscal Service has a continuous, deep 

commitment to financial prudence and 

welcomes opportunities to further streamline 

and, where appropriate, reduce costs 

associated with the crucial services provided to 

American taxpayers through centralized, cost 

effective means. Fiscal Service plans to 

accomplish these goals by converting 

disbursement checks to electronic payments; 

centralizing Federal disbursing; reducing 

Government-wide improper payments; 

expanding electronic invoicing through the 

Invoice Processing Platform (IPP); reducing 

collections lockboxes and increasing 

digitization; expanding the Centralized 

Receivables Services; implementing Financial 

Management Innovation Pilots to support the 

Fiscal Service vision to transform financial 

management; expanding eCommerce 

collections solutions to allow all American 

citizens to do business with the Federal 

Government in a more efficient and effective 

manner; and continuing to provide operational 

excellence to customers daily, which includes 

more than 200 agencies and all American 

taxpayers. 

Fiscal Service FY 2019 Budget Highlights 

Fiscal Service FTE Amount

FY 2018 Annualized CR 1,693 $350,659

Changes to Base:

Maintaining Current Levels (MCLs): 0 $3,286

Pay Annualization 0 $1,038

Non-Pay 0 $2,248

Adjustments to Base: (13) ($19,822)

Prior Program Decreases (13) ($19,822)

Subtotal Changes to Base (13) ($16,536)

Total FY 2019 Base 1,680 $334,123

Program Changes:

Program Decreases (12) ($3,286)

myRA (12) ($600)

Mission Support 0 ($2,686)

Total FY 2019 Request 1,668 $330,837

Dollars in Thousands

Note: Prior program decreases include reductions to all 

budget activities identified in the FY 2018 President's 

Budget.

FY 2019 Budget Adjustments 

Adjustments to Request 

Maintaining Current Level (MCLs) 

Pay Annualization +$1,038,000 / +0 FTE 

Funds are requested for annualization of the 

January 2018 pay-raise. 

Non-Pay +$2,248,000 / +0 FTE 

Funds are requested for inflationary 

adjustments to non-labor costs such as travel, 

contracts, rent, supplies, and equipment. 

Program Decreases 

Prior Program Decreases -$19,822,000 / 

-13 FTE 

Prior program decreases include reductions to 

Accounting and Reporting, Collections, 

Payments, Retail Securities Services, Support 

Services, and Streaming Staff/Other 

Efficiencies as first proposed in the FY 2018 

President’s Budget. 

myRA -$600,000 /-12 FTE 

This reduction and savings is a result of the 

plan to wind down the myRA program. 
Department of the Treasury – Budget in Brief 

Mission Support -$2,686,000 / -0 FTE 

Fiscal Service will delay implementation of 

customer self-service portals, on-line chat 

portals, and other mission support contracts 

impacting all budget activities and customers. 

Explanation of Budget Activities 

Accounting and Reporting ($92,296,000 

from direct appropriations, $25,004,000 

from reimbursable resources) 

The Accounting and Reporting activity 

consists of two programs: Central Accounting 

and Data Transparency. 

The Central Accounting program produces 

timely and accurate financial information by 

compiling and publishing daily, monthly, and 

annual reports; managing Federal daily cash 

flows; and tracking the daily balance and 

composition of the public debt of the United 

States. All of these activities significantly 

contribute to the improved quality of financial 

decisions across the Government and support 

the Treasury Strategic Objective 4.1 to 

increase the access and use of Federal 

financial data to strengthen Government-wide 

decision making, transparency, and 

accountability. As part of the Central 

Accounting program, Fiscal Service: 

 Produces timely and accurate financial 

information by operating and overseeing 

the Government’s Central Accounting 

Reporting System and managing $103.2 

billion in daily Federal cash flows 

 Generates and disseminates several reports 

and publications including the Daily 

Treasury Statement, Monthly Treasury 

Statement, Monthly Statement of the 

Public Debt, Treasury Bulletins, the 

Combined Statement of the United States 

Government, and the Financial Report of 

the United States Government (FR) 

 Issues the annual, audited Schedules of 

Federal Debt that report on the single 

largest Federal liability in Treasury’s 

annual Agency Financial Report and 

received an unmodified opinion for each of 

the past 21 years 

 Manages nearly $80.4 billion in State and 

Local Government Series securities for 

over 3,000 customers and administers 

flexible investment alternatives for state 

and local governments to refinance their 

outstanding, tax-exempt debt 

 Issues, redeems and services Government 

Account Series securities totaling nearly 

$5.8 trillion that are held in more than 160 

accounts that have specific statutory 

authority to invest in these special, nonmarketable Treasury securities 

 Administers over 10,500 loans totaling 

$1.4 trillion to nearly 100 accounts held by 

Federal agencies to support programs 

relating to education, housing, flood relief, 

and agriculture 

The Data Transparency program is responsible 

for implementing the Fiscal Service’s data 

strategy, as well as fulfilling the requirements 

of the DATA Act. The DATA Act required 

Fiscal Service, in collaboration with the Office 

of Management and Budget, to develop, 

implement, and manage a system to provide 

Government-wide financial data to the public 

by May 2017. To meet these requirements, 

Fiscal Service developed a Government-wide 

data standard for collecting agencies’ financial 

data, selected a broker to accept and validate 

the data, and implemented a public website for 

data accessibility. Fiscal Service continues to 

implement system enhancements based on 

user feedback using agile development 

techniques. 

Collections ($35,232,000 from direct 

appropriations, and $9,287,000 from 

reimbursable resources) 

The Collections budget activity supports 

National Financial Critical Infrastructure and 

the Treasury Strategic Goal 4 (Transform 

Government-wide Financial Stewardship) by 

administering the world's largest Government 

funds collections systems through a network of 
Department of the Treasury – Budget in Brief 

Fiscal and Financial Agents. In FY 2017, the 

bureau collected over $4.1 trillion in Federal 

revenues, including individual and corporate 

income tax deposits, customs duties, fees for 

Government services, fines, and loan 

repayments. Within that, $2 trillion in tax 

payments were processed through EFTPS and 

approximately 186.5 million transactions 

worth nearly $155 billion were processed 

through Pay.gov. 

Payments ($120,743,000 from direct 

appropriations, and $120,109,000 from 

reimbursable resources) 

The Payments budget activity supports the 

National Financial Critical Infrastructure and 

Treasury Strategic Goal Four – Transform 

Government-wide Financial Stewardship by 

disbursing more than 87 percent of the Federal 

Government’s payments, equating to 1.2 

billion payments worth $3.4 trillion in FY 

2017. Fiscal Service uses the Payment 

Application Modernization (PAM) investment 

to disburse payments for Veterans’ 

Compensation and Pension, Social Security 

Benefits, Federal and Railroad Pensions, IRS 

tax refunds, Supplemental Security Income 

(SSI), etc. PAM supports the production and 

delivery of Federal payments on behalf of 

more than 250 Federal entities with a single 

application that generates check, Automated 

Clearing House (ACH), International ACH 

Transaction (IAT), and wire transfer 

payments. PAM prevents improper payments 

and collects delinquent debt owed to the 

Federal Government by automatically 

interfacing with core Treasury systems such as 

Do Not Pay (DNP) and TOP. Fiscal Service 

will eliminate redundancies in the Federal 

Government through FY 2019 by centralizing 

the payment activities for a large portion of 

Department of Defense and other nonTreasury disbursing agencies. This will allow 

those agencies to better align mission-critical 

resources and possibly identify future savings. 

The Payments budget activity also includes the 

IPP and the DNP programs. A secure, 

Government-wide, web-based electronic 

invoice exchange network, IPP promotes the 

efficient use of resources by enabling federal 

agencies to electronically receive vendor 

invoices and transform existing paper-based 

invoice processes into a streamlined electronic 

process that integrates with existing agency 

core financial systems. In FY 2017, while 

supporting the Financial Innovation and 

Transformation initiative to develop a standard 

for electronic invoicing Government-wide, 

agencies electronically received and processed 

more than 450,000 vendor invoices valued at 

$25 billion. DNP provides a single, 

centralized point of access to timely, accurate, 

and actionable data for informed decisionmaking and can help identify, prevent, detect, 

and recover improper payments throughout the 

payment life cycle while protecting 

individuals’ privacy. Through FY 2019, DNP 

analytics will continue to mature and provide 

customer agencies with additional tools to 

identify potential improper payments at all 

payment stages. 

Retail Securities Services ($62,297,000 

from direct appropriations, and 

$17,854,000 from reimbursable resources) 

Retail Securities Services (RSS) enables 

Americans to save for their future by investing 

in Treasury securities, most notably, U.S. 

savings bonds. This program is responsible 

for processing millions of transactions 

annually on behalf of more than 50 million 

investors. RSS also provides Americans the 

opportunity to participate noncompetitively in 

the auction of Treasury marketable securities. 

RSS is developing the Treasury Retail 

Investment Manager (TRIM), which will 

effectively replace the current TreasuryDirect 

system over time. TRIM will be a userfriendly system that will allow individual 

investors to purchase, view, redeem, and 

manage their investments electronically via 

laptop or mobile phone. Furthermore, TRIM 
Department of the Treasury – Budget in Brief 

will ultimately allow the unbanked and the 

under-banked to electronically purchase 

investments by providing alternative payment 

mechanisms, unlike TreasuryDirect, which 

requires a bank account. 

Over the next few years, RSS will continue to 

develop new and unique ways to reach 

underserved audiences, improve customer 

service, and, ultimately, encourage more 

Americans to save for their future. 

Wholesale Securities Services ($20,269,000 

from direct appropriations, and $5,505,000 

from reimbursable resources) 

The Wholesale Securities Services (WSS) 

program supports the National Financial 

Critical Infrastructure by managing a critical 

Treasury High Value Asset that enables the 

Federal Government to finance daily 

operations through reliable, accurate, and 

secure electronic systems. The WSS program 

also supports Treasury Strategic Goal 4

(Transform Government-wide Financial 

Stewardship) and Treasury Strategic Objective 

5.2 to better enable mission delivery by 

improving the reliability, security, and 

resiliency of Treasury’s infrastructure. 

Fiscal Service is responsible for the 

announcement, auction, issuance, and 

settlement of marketable Treasury bills, notes, 

bonds, Treasury inflation-protected securities 

and floating rate notes. The program also 

oversees the portion of the Federal 

infrastructure that provides for the transfer, 

custody, and redemption of all Treasury 

marketable securities, purchased mostly by 

commercial market participants. 

Legislative Proposals 

Fiscal Service has four legislative proposals: 

 Increase delinquent Federal non-tax debt 

collections by authorizing administrative 

bank garnishment for non-tax debts of 

commercial entities. Estimated collections 

of $320 million in commercial debts over 10 

years. 

 Increase and streamline recovery of 

unclaimed assets owed to the United States 

by authorizing Treasury to locate and 

recover assets of the United States and to 

retain a portion of amounts collected to pay 

for the costs of recovery. Estimated 

recoveries of $77.2 million over 10 years. 

 Expand Treasury's authority to access the 

National Directory of New Hires to include 

prevention, identification, and recovery of 

improper payments. Total increase in 

improper payments identified by Treasury: 

$3.24 billion over ten years. 

 Allow Treasury to access the Death Master 

File for improper payment and debt 

collection purposes. Total increase in 

improper payments identified by Treasury: 

$49.9 million over 10 years. 
Department of the Treasury – Budget in Brief 

Fiscal Service Performance Highlights 

FY 2015 FY 2016 FY 2017 FY 2018 FY 2019

Budget Activity Performance Measures Actual Actual Actual Target Target

Accounting and 

Reporting

Percentage of Government-Wide 

Accounting Reports Issued Timely 99.5 N/A 100.0 100.0 100.0

Collections 

Percentage of Total Federal 

Government Receipts Settled 

Electronically (in dollars) 

98.0 98.2 98.3 98.0 98.0

Payments Percentage of Treasury Payments 

Made Electronically (%) 94.68 94.9 95.1 95.2 95.2

Retail Securities 

Services 

Cost Per Customer Assisted 

Transaction ($) N/A N/A 124.44 124.78 115.29

Retail Securities 

Services 

Cost Per Electronic Transaction 

($) N/A N/A 2.65 3.46 4

Wholesale 

Securities Services

Percent of Auction Results 

Released Accurately (%) 97.0 100.0 98.9 100.0 100.0

Debt Collection 

Amount of Delinquent Debt 

Collected Through All Available 

Tools ($ billions) 

7.28 7.41 7.61 7.56 7.48

Description of Performance 

Accounting and Reporting: Fiscal Service 

collects, analyzes, and publishes Governmentwide financial information, made available to 

both the public and private sectors, to provide 

transparency on the Government’s financial 

status. In FY 2017, Fiscal Service timely 

issued Government-wide accounting reports 

100 percent of the time. 

The Percentage of Summary Debt Accounting 

reports submitted timely measure established 

an FY 2017 target of 100 percent. Fiscal 

Service met its target in addition to taking 

significant strides with the FR to address the 

material weaknesses previously identified and 

continuing to implement corrective actions 

outlined in the remediation plan. 

Fiscal Service will meet its FY 2018 and 

FY 2019 performance measure targets by 

transforming the quality, effectiveness and 

transparency of Federal financial management 

data; delivering value-added business process 

and system improvements; and 

expanding/enhancing relationships with 

stakeholders and customers. 

Collections: In FY 2017, Fiscal Service 

exceeded its target of electronically settling 98 

percent of all Federal Government receipts 

through continued commitment to agency 

outreach efforts. Fiscal Service expects to 

maintain an annual electronic collections rate 

of at least 98 percent through FY 2019 by 

continuing to promote the use of electronic 

systems in the collections process and to assist 

agencies in converting collections from paper 

to electronic media. 

Payments: Fiscal Service continues to 

increase the electronic payment rate each year. 

In FY 2017, the electronic payment rate rose 

to 95.1 percent with the number of electronic 

payments increasing by 17.8 million, and 

paper check volume decreasing by 1.4 million. 

Tax refund payments continue to total more 

than half of the Treasury-disbursed check 

volume. The processing of electronic invoices 
Department of the Treasury – Budget in Brief 

also realized a large increase of more than 

41,000 over the FY 2016 volume. 

The target of 95.2 percent for FY 2018 and 

FY 2019 was determined by using historical 

data trends to determine the rate of 

increase/decrease to apply to future EFT and 

check volumes. The percentage 

increase/decrease differs for each of the 

payment types (veteran’s benefits, Social 

Security benefits, SSI, tax refunds, etc.). 

Fiscal Service will meet FY 2018 and FY 2019 

targets by promoting and increasing EFT 

payments with emphasis on tax refunds, 

vendor payments, and benefit payments; and 

exploring, developing, and deploying 

innovative electronic payment solutions. 

Retail Securities Services: Fiscal Service 

issued and serviced $31.8 billion in savings 

and marketable securities held by 611,000 

investors in TreasuryDirect. A total of 2.4 

million retail payments worth $13.6 billion 

were made timely and accurately. 

The Cost Per Customer Assisted Retail 

Transaction measure demonstrates the 

efficiency of customer service operations for 

all retail securities currently offered. The 

customer service staff handles phone and 

email inquiries, offline authentications, paper 

savings bond conversions, changes in bank 

information, and transactions requiring legal 

evidence. In FY 2017, RSS experienced an 

increase in the percentage of overall customerinitiated transactions requiring intervention by 

the customer service staff, as well as higher 

than anticipated personnel costs directly 

attributed directly to the ongoing remediation 

of a backlog of customer service cases. The 

FY 2018 and FY 2019 targets are $124.78 per 

customer assisted retail transaction. 

The Cost Per Electronic Retail Transaction 

measure demonstrates the efficiency of 

investor self-service for all retail securities 

currently offered. Customers are able to 

conduct several transactions independently of 

customer service representatives, including 

creating online accounts to purchase and hold 

securities, updating account information, 

purchasing and redeeming electronic 

securities, etc. In FY 2017, in combination 

with the shift in volumes noted above, a 

decrease in anticipated information technology 

provider charges resulted in lower than 

expected costs for electronic retail 

transactions. The FY 2018 and FY 2019 

targets are $3.46 per electronic retail 

transaction. 

Fiscal Service will focus on meeting its 

FY 2018 and FY 2019 targets by increasing 

customer self-sufficiency and satisfaction 

through streamlined processes; eliminating 

aging technology and decreasing operation and 

maintenance costs; and leveraging current 

and/or emerging enterprise technologies. 

Wholesale Securities Services: Fiscal Service 

awarded $8.6 trillion in Treasury marketable 

securities during FY 2017, funding critical 

daily Federal operation by conducting 275 

auctions. Fiscal Service will continue to track 

the percent of auction results released 

accurately and expects to achieve the 100 

percent accuracy level in FY 2018. 

To achieve FY 2018 and 2019 performance, 

Fiscal Service will complete a multi-year 

initiative to modernize the system’s 

application software and technology 

components and will continue to test the 

tertiary backup system. 

Debt Collection: Fiscal Service exceeded its 

Amount of Delinquent Debt Collection target 

for five consecutive years. This was the result 

of expanding the use of the administrative 

wage garnishment collection tool, improving 

macroeconomic conditions in the country, and 
Department of the Treasury – Budget in Brief 

enhancing analytics. However, analysis has 

shown offsets declining against projections in 

the past two years. Combined with declining 

referrals from agencies, this has resulted in 

more modest forecasts for FY 2018 and 

FY 2019. 

The performance targets for FY 2018 and 

FY 2019 are to collect $7.56 billion and $7.48 

billion in delinquent debt, respectively. A 

sophisticated planning model using debt data 

and macroeconomic variables is the basis for 

this target forecast. The model is designed to 

take into account economic fluctuations, as 

well as debt referral changes, in order to 

forecast collections one and two years out. 

To meet FY 2018 and FY 2019 delinquent 

debt performance targets, Fiscal Service will 

continue to develop and implement strategies 

to increase automation, standardization and 

overall process efficiencies. In addition, new 

payment streams and individual payments will 

be added to TOP that produce offsets and 

increase delinquent debt collection.