Several Agencies have improved their work processes tenfold and have identified opportunities for future enhancements in the upcoming fiscal years. One suggestion is to encourage those Departments to participate in more meetings, so that problem areas can be identified and corresponding solutions developed. Mr. DeSeve challenged the Council to address these questions during the meeting. He believes that the CFO must have a handle on the financial logic of the Agency, in order for the Agency to be successful. The CFO has to know more about what's going on than anyone else in the Agency and has to be able to present financial information in a way that everyone can understand.
Technology offers a variety of ways to assist in collecting, sorting and presenting information.
In addition, the question was posed as to whether the CFO and IG offices are working together to assist management in addressing issues before they become problematic. Agencies need strong l auditors to help identify material weaknesses. The next big step for the Federal Government is the Fiscal Year 1999 goal of obtaining a clean opinion on the consolidated financial statements. OMB is communicating the importance of this goal to senior managers and is providing assistance necessary to achieve the Administrations goal. He suggested that Agencies have an internal CFO Council so that managers can take ownership of the process.