The Chief Financial Officers (CFO) Act of 1990 was enacted to address longstanding problems in financial management in the federal government. The act established CFO positions throughout the federal government and mandated that, within each of the largest federal departments and agencies, the CFO oversee all financial management activities relating to the programs and operations of the agency. Among the key responsibilities of CFOs are overseeing the recruitment, selection, and training of personnel to carry out agency financial management functions. Recognizing that a qualified workforce was fundamental to achieving the objectives of the CFO Act and other related management reform legislation aimed at improving federal financial management, the Human Resources Committee of the Chief Financial Officers Council and the Joint Financial Management Improvement Program (JFMIP) have proposed improvements addressing the recruitment, training, retention, and performance of federal financial management personnel. In November 1995, JFMIP published the Framework for Core Competencies for Financial Management Personnel in the Federal Government, designed to highlight the knowledge, skills, and abilities that accountants, budget analysts, and other financial managers in the federal government should possess or develop to perform their functions effectively in accordance with the CFO Act. JFMIP stressed the need for federal government financial managers to be well-equipped to contribute to financial management activities, such as the execution of budgets, under increasingly constrained resource caps and the preparation, analysis, and interpretation of consolidated financial statements. A primary goal in this body of work is to obtain and share with DOD information on the formal education, professional work experience, training, and professional certifications of key financial managers in the department, including each of the military services and the Defense Finance and Accounting Service. The objective of this assignment is to provide information on the formal education, professional work experience, training, and professional certifications of personnel serving in key financial management positions in the Air Force. We obtained this information from biographies and profile instruments due to concerns regarding the completeness of personnel data bases and personnel files. We worked with Air Force officials to determine the key financial management positions to be included in this review. These positions typically were comptrollers, deputy comptrollers, and budget officers serving at operational and training commands. In agreement with Air Force officials, we did not verify the information contained in the biographies and profiles provided by the respondents. A more detailed discussion of our scope and methodology, including a description of how we obtained qualifications and work experience data, is in appendix I. We performed our audit work from January through September 1997. The Assistant Secretary of the Air Force (Financial Management and Comptroller) provided comments on a draft of this report. These comments are discussed in the “Agency Comments and Our Evaluation” section of this report and are reprinted in appendix VII. Table 1 shows the formal education and careers of the Department of the Air Force’s four executives included in our review. All four had attained both bachelor’s and master’s degrees, with majors including accounting, economics, public administration, operations research, public budgeting and finance, and history and political science. The Assistant Secretary had spent 7 years at DOD, 19 years at the Congressional Budget Office, and 3 years in the private sector. The three Deputy Assistant Secretaries’ DOD careers ranged from 27 to 31 years. In addition to his 27-year career at DOD, one also spent 2 years at the Department of the Interior and 3 years in the private sector. All four executives have served in financial management-related positions during most of their DOD careers. None held professional certifications. In collaboration with Air Force officials, we identified 204 key financial managers across the Department for this review, of which 173 (or 85 percent) provided information on their qualifications and experience. Respondents included all 10 staff from the Office of the Assistant Secretary of the Air Force (Financial Management and Comptroller)—SAF/FM&C, 106 of 129 staff from four operational commands and their installations, 28 of 36 staff from the Air Education and Training Command and its all 29 staff from the Air Force Materiel Command and centers, including 5 air logistics centers responsible for supply and maintenance support and 3 product centers responsible for the research, development, test, and evaluation (RDT&E) and procurement of Air Force aeronautical, electronics, space, and missile systems. The SAF/FM&C respondents performed roles involving financial operations, financial management policy, and/or budget execution. The officials responding from the major commands and installations included 76 comptrollers, 14 deputy comptrollers, 68 budget officers, and 5 working capital fund managers—the last being from the Air Force Materiel Command and its air logistics centers. Of the 173 respondents, almost 70 percent were military officers. Table 2 provides a breakout of the 117 officers by rank and the 56 civilians by grade. The officers served mainly as comptrollers and budget officers at major commands and comptrollers at installations, and the civilians most often served in budget officer positions at installations. Over 90 percent of the respondents (all 117 officers and 41 of 56 civilians) reported having attained bachelor’s degrees, and about 75 percent had also attained master’s degrees. Two of the respondents also reported holding doctoral degrees. For bachelor’s degrees held, table 3 shows the number reported in accounting, other business, and nonbusiness majors. About 30 percent of these 158 respondents majored in accounting, while approximately 50 percent had other business-related majors. Six of the respondents reported more than one major. Table 4 shows the majors reported by the 99 officers and 30 civilians holding master’s degrees. While none of the respondents held master’s degrees in accounting, about two-thirds of these staff listed other business-related majors. Four respondents reported holding more than one major. Of the two civilians reporting doctoral degrees, one majored in business administration and the other in law. The key financial managers were also requested to provide information on the number of accounting-related subjects completed as part of their formal education. Of the 173 respondents, 163 had completed one or more of these subjects, as follows: 1-2 subjects: 29 (22 officers and 7 civilians), 3-5 subjects: 55 (37 officers and 18 civilians), and 6 or more subjects: 79 (55 officers and 24 civilians). Included in this latter group were 75 (or about 43 percent of the respondents) who reported completing both principles of accounting and intermediate accounting along with at least 4 other subjects. By completing this level of education in accounting-related subjects, these 75 staff also appear to meet the educational requirements to serve in federal GS-510 accountant positions. Figures 1 and 2 show the average number of years of work experience by rank for the officers and by grade for the civilians, respectively. As the figures show, both officer and civilian respondents have spent most of their careers in DOD. About 50 percent of all respondents, officers and civilians, reported performing tasks in several financial management-related functions included in our review throughout their careers. The officers’ careers ranged from 3 to 38 years, averaging 18 years, while the civilians’ careers ranged from 12 to 44 years, averaging 27 years. Officers and civilians at the ranks of first lieutenant and captain and grades of GS-11 and 12 typically served in budget officer positions at installations. In collaboration with DOD officials, we identified five functions and associated tasks which are often performed by personnel serving in key financial management positions, including: financial statement preparation—preparing annual financial statements and footnotes; financial reporting/accounting policy—preparing financial reports and consulting on the application of accounting policy; financial analysis—performing tasks associated with cost accounting, business process improvements, budgeting, cash flow analysis, cost analysis, revenue and expenditure forecasting, and other analysis of financial position and operations; accounting operations—recording and reporting accounting transactions; and accounting systems development and maintenance—performing tasks associated with functional design and maintenance of accounting and finance systems. Fifty-five officers and 28 civilians, or almost one-half of each group, reported that they had performed tasks in 3 or more of these functions during their careers. Figures 3 and 4 show the number of officers and civilians who indicated that they had performed each function and the average number of years of experience in that function. For example, as shown in figure 3, 114 of the 117 officers have performed financial analysis-related tasks for an average of 9 years. During 1995 and 1996, about 75 percent of the officers and 80 percent of the civilians reported completing some form of training. Of the 86 officers and 45 civilians receiving training, 9 out of 10 listed general topics, such as computers and supervision, as examples of the training they had completed. Meanwhile, about one-half of both officers and civilians reported completing some training in financial-related topics, while only about 2 out of 10 reported completing training in accounting-related topics, such as accounting standards and financial reporting. Figure 5 shows the type of training completed during the 2-year period as reported by the 173 respondents. As indicated in the figure: total receiving accounting-related training: 26 (18 officers and 8 civilians), total receiving financial-related training: 63 (42 officers and 21 civilians), total receiving training in general topics: 120 (79 officers and 41 civilians), and total not receiving training: 42 (31 officers and 11 civilians). Almost 20 percent of the respondents reported holding financial management-related certifications. Figure 6 shows the numbers and types of professional certifications reported by the Air Force financial managers. Of the 32 respondents holding one or more financial management-related certifications, 6 were CPAs (3 officers and 3 civilians), 6 were CGFMs (3 officers and 3 civilians), and 24 held other financial management-related certifications (11 officers and 13 civilians). Also, 24 staff reported nonfinancial management-related certifications, including 15 officers and 9 civilians. Of the 128 staff that did not hold any professional certifications, 91 were officers and 37 were civilians.