page_title: Robert F. Hale
section_title: Defense comptroller
hierarchical_section_title: Robert F. Hale / Defense comptroller
caption_attribution_description: 100203-N-0696M-051 Under Secretary of Defense, Comptroller, Robert Hale, Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates and Navy Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff testify to the House Armed Services Committee on the FY 2011 Department of Defense budget request at the Rayburn House Office Building on Feb. 3, 2010 in Washington, D.C. (DoD photo by Mass Communication Specialist 1st Class Chad J. McNeeley/Released)
context_page_description: Robert F. Hale was the United States Under Secretary of Defense from 2009 until 2014 and before that the Assistant Secretary of the Air Force. Hale has over thirty years of experience as a professional financial manager serving in a wide range of national defense related roles. In addition to his most recent position as Under Secretary of Defense and his previous appointment as Assistant Secretary of the Air Force, Hale has also served in the National Security Division of the Congressional Budget Office and as Executive Director of the American Society of Military Comptrollers. Hale is a fellow of the National Academy of Public Administration and a former member of the Defense Business Board. He was appointed to the National Commission on the Future of the Army by Representative Adam Smith.
context_section_description: President Barack Obama nominated Hale to be Under Secretary of Defense (Comptroller) on January 9, 2009. During his confirmation hearing on January 15, 2009, Hale reminded the Senate Armed Services Committee that he had over thirty years of experience in defense related financial management. The United States Senate confirmed his appointment on February 9, 2009. As chief financial officer for the Department of Defense, Hale is the principal advisor to Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel on all fiscal matters including the development and execution of the department’s annual budget, which at time of his appointment, was over $600 billion (including war supplemental spending). Hale is also responsible for financial policy, accounting and financial reporting, financial management systems, and business modernization efforts within the Defense Department.
  In a briefing on September 27, 2013, Hale warned that lapse in funding caused by the federal government shutdown of 2013 would cause a delay in military death-benefit payments for the families of U.S. troops killed in action (such as the $100,000 "death gratuity," the burial benefit, and the survivors' housing allowance). Hale called the situation a "ghoulish" legal consequence of the shutdown. Despite Hale's warnings, "it took until the second week of the crisis for members of Congress to propose doing anything about it." On October 10, 2013, Congress eventually passed a bill authorizing emergency payments to the families of deceased soldiers during the government shutdown, which President Obama signed into law the same day.
caption: Robert Hale along with Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates and Navy Adm. Mike Mullen testify to the House Armed Services Committee on the FY 2011 defense budget
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