The Board's rules of procedure provide that it may hold one or more public hearings on any exposure draft. No hearing has yet been scheduled for this exposure draft. The CFO Council requested that the effective dates of both standards be delayed until fiscal years beginning after September 30, 1998. Until those are defined, it will not in all cases be possible to know how to assign costs. They also emphasized that some agencies need more time adequately to involve program managers, budget staff, and top agency officials in the process.
Earlier implementation is encouraged.
The Board did agree that disruption and wasted efforts might be caused by hasty efforts to implement cost accounting systems. This involvement will help make the cost information more meaningful to those groups and help assure that it will meet their needs. The Board notes that requirements for cost accounting are not new. The Board believes that most agencies should have had sufficient time to develop at least basic cost accounting processes. The first annual performance plans, covering fiscal year 1999, are to be provided to Congress after the President's budget is submitted to Congress in 1998.