The 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 made proposals 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 the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense (Comptroller), 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 Army. We obtained this information from biographies and profile instruments due to the concerns of Army officials regarding the completeness of personnel databases and personnel files. We worked with Army officials to determine the key financial management positions to be included in this review. These positions typically included resource managers, deputy resource managers, and budget officers serving at Army major commands and installations. As agreed with the Army, we did not verify the information contained in the 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 March through December 1997 in accordance with generally accepted government auditing standards. The Assistant Secretary of the Army (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 IX. Table 1 provides information on the formal education, careers, and professional certifications of the Department of the Army’s four executives included in our review. All four held both bachelor’s and master’s degrees. Bachelor’s degree majors included mathematics, education, accounting, and engineering, while those associated with master’s degrees included public administration, business administration, and civil engineering. The Assistant Secretary had spent 30 years at DOD. The three Deputy Assistant Secretaries’ DOD careers ranged from 29 to 38 years. In addition to his 38-year career at DOD, one of the Deputy Assistant Secretaries also spent 4 years in the private sector. A review of biographical information provided to us showed that three executives had served in financial management-related positions during most of their DOD careers. These positions involved the functional areas of accounting, auditing, budgeting, programming, costing, and manpower requirements at all levels of DOD, including another military department and various Defense agencies. While the fourth executive had served mainly in engineering-related positions during his 33-year DOD career, he had also recently served as Director of Resource Management at the U.S. Army Forces Command. Two executives were Certified Government Financial Managers. In collaboration with Army officials, we identified 301 financial managers across the department for this review, of which 233 (or 77 percent) responded by providing information on their qualifications and experience. Respondents included the 14 managers from the Office of the Assistant Secretary of the Army (Financial Management and Comptroller)—ASA(FM&C); 85 of 108 managers from eight operational commands and their 43 of 46 managers from the U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command (TRADOC) and its installations; 30 of 43 managers from the U.S. Army Materiel Command and its (1) Industrial Operations Command and the Army arsenals and depots responsible for maintenance and manufacturing support and (2) seven systems commands responsible for the research, development, test, and evaluation (RDT&E) and procurement of Army systems, such as aviation, missiles, communications, and electronics; 32 of 59 managers from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and its 29 of 31 managers from other Army commands, including the Criminal Investigation Command, Military Entrance Processing Command, Medical Command, and Military District of Washington and their installations. The 14 ASA(FM&C) respondents performed roles involving financial operations, financial management/accounting policy, and/or budget execution. The 219 respondents from major commands and installations included 132 resource managers, 26 deputy resource managers, 60 budget officers, and 1 working capital fund manager—the last being from the Industrial Operations Command. Of the 233 respondents, 27 percent were military officers. The 63 officers served mainly as resource managers at major commands and installations, and the 170 civilians served most often in resource manager and budget officer positions at installations. Table 2 provides a breakout of the officers and civilians by rank and grade, respectively. Of the 233 respondents, over 90 percent (including the 63 officers and 148 of 170 civilians) reported holding bachelor’s degrees, and about 57 percent (53 officers and 79 civilians) reported holding master’s degrees. One of the respondents also reported holding a doctoral degree. Of the 211 respondents holding bachelor’s degrees, 17 reported more than one major. A review of the profiles showed that 69 managers, or about one-third of the 211 respondents, reported accounting majors, 85 managers reported one or more other business-related majors, and 68 managers reported that one or more of their majors were not business related. Table 3 shows the bachelor’s degree majors reported by the 211 Army financial managers. Of the 132 respondents holding master’s degrees, 17 reported more than one major. A review of the profiles showed that, of these 132 managers, 5 reported accounting majors, 99 reported one or more other business-related majors, and 41 reported one or more nonbusiness-related majors. Table 4 shows the master’s degree majors reported by the 132 respondents. One civilian also reported holding a doctoral degree in public administration. 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 233 respondents, 207 reported completing one or more of these subjects, as follows: 1-2 subjects: 32 (6 officers and 26 civilians), 3-5 subjects: 51 (19 officers and 32 civilians), and 6 or more subjects: 124 (28 officers and 96 civilians). Included in this latter group were 119 managers (or 51 percent of the respondents) who reported completing both principles of accounting and intermediate accounting along with at least four other subjects. Based solely on a review of their formal education, these 119 managers appear to have met the requirements to serve in federal GS-510 accountantpositions. A review of the profiles showed that the 63 officers’ careers ranged from 10 to 31 years, averaging 23 years, while the 170 civilians’ careers ranged from 15 to 42 years, averaging 27 years. Both officer and civilian respondents, with few exceptions, had spent most of their careers in DOD. Also, about 42 percent of all respondents, officers and civilians, reported performing several financial management-related functions during their careers. 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. In collaboration with Army officials, we identified four functions and associated tasks which are often performed by personnel serving in key financial management positions, including financial statement preparation/financial reporting/accounting policy—preparing annual financial statements and footnotes and any interim financial reports, as well as those advising the preparers in their application of accounting policies; 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; accounting systems development and maintenance—performing tasks associated with functional design and maintenance of accounting and finance systems. Seventeen officers and 49 civilians (or about 30 percent of each group) reported that they had performed three or more of these functions during their careers. Figures 3 and 4 show, for the officers and civilians responding to this survey, which of these functions they had performed at sometime during their careers, and the average number of years of experience in each function. For example, as shown in figure 3, 50 of the 63 officers had performed financial analysis-related tasks for an average of 7 years. During 1995 and 1996, about 56 percent of the officers and 75 percent of the civilians reported completing some training in one or more of the categories included in our review. Of these 163 respondents (35 officers and 128 civilians) receiving training, (1) about 90 percent listed general topics, such as computers and supervision, as examples of the training they had completed, (2) about 50 percent reported completing training in financial-related topics, and (3) about 25 percent reported completing training in accounting-related topics, such as accounting standards and financial reporting.