• Developing and Implementing a Management Information System: Early in FY 1998, the BLM implemented the first module, Budget Execution, of its Management Information System (MIS). By the end of FY 1999, the Performance Measurement module, the Property, Space, & Motor Vehicle module, the Billing and Collections module, Customer Survey module and the Managerial Cost modules were all implemented. This system will meet the requirements of a finance system with integrated cost accounting, and will provide timely, meaningful business information to managers in the field. With the modules already in place, the MIS provides on-line access and is updated daily from the bureau finance system. MIS uses low maintenance equipment, is web-based on the bureau intranet, and has ad hoc query capability. The MIS is already providing users with the capability of extracting data at whatever level of detail desired into individually designed report formats and is reducing the number of paper management reports distributed to the field.

• Imprest Fund Reductions: BLM reduced the total funds in its 138 imprest and currently only have change making funds. Reductions occurred as field offices have received and started using convenience checks. Through effective use of small purchase charge cards and convenience checks, and mandatory use of processing travel advances and awards through electronic payment systems, the closure of BLM imprest funds, as mandated by the Debt Collection Improvement Act, has effectively occurred.

• Collection and Billing System: In 1998, BLM had no common process for managing billing and collections in its State and District offices. As a result, each office has addressed the problem of processing bills and recording receipts in its own way. These offices then forward information, usually in the form of paper or email documents, to the BLM National Business Center (NBC) in Denver for manual entry into the Federal Financial System, resource tracking systems, and other Federal government systems.

Therefore, a project was initiated to create a new Billing and Collections system to standardize and automate the existing process. The project has the following vision: "To have a single system for billings and collections that is easy for the customer, provides BLM managers and staffs with accurate and timely information on collections and receipts, minimizes the opportunities for errors, makes funds available for BLM and Treasury use rapidly, meets electronic funds transfer requirements, and from the time of initial data input at the field level the data are processed and loaded into FFS without additional manual actions."

The design objectives of the project will support:

¨ Assisting BLM managers in recognizing business risks, consequences, costs, and solutions in analyzing processes and systems, and in making decisions;

¨ Providing accurate and timely collection information in order to more effectively manage receipts and collections;

¨ Meeting the increasing demands for data and service to customers;

¨ Providing on-line access by the public to purchasing BLM products;

¨ Providing information that will help managers make the proper investments in people, systems, and technology so that the agency will work better in the future;

¨ Reducing the amount of time needed to deliver services to customers;

¨ Meeting new requirements of the CFO Act and other recently enacted financially-oriented legislation; and

¨ Making BLM processes and procedures easier to understand and perform.

• Deferred Maintenance Systems: The BLM has initiated a major effort within the bureau to update the condition assessment of the assets within its purview and to systemically record and track the maintenance requirements of those assets, including that maintenance which has been deferred. Previous reviews by the OIG has determined that the system in place, the Facilities Inventory and Maintenance Management System (FIMMS), adequately records and tracks assets, but was not always kept current and was not designed to provide accounting information. In response to this shortcoming, the BLM has started an effort to assess every asset group (bridges, tunnels, roads and trails, recreation sites, administrative sites, and dams), to assure that adequate documentation is in place to support the assessments and the maintenance (current and deferred) cost estimates, and to improve the FIMMS to make property and financial data more accessible and reliable. BLM completed administrative sites, recreation sites bridges and dams. In FY 2000, BLM will continue our schedule of condition surveys and begin on roads and trails.

• Implementation of Activity Based Costing: The BLM has chosen Activity Based Costing (ABC) as the methodology it will employ to develop managerial cost accounting data for reporting and performance measurement purposes. The ABC pilots demonstrated to management that ABC is an effective vehicle that BLM can use to meet the requirements of the cost accounting standards and performance measurement under the Government Performance and Results Act. This new system approach will provide managers with meaningful information regarding program effectiveness and will facilitate comparative measurement of programs across the bureau, so that best practices can be identified and emulated. In FY 2000, BLM will revise its cost accounting system so that it will not only track the source of funds but at the same time track the cost of output that it produces. All of the outputs will be aligned with its responsibility segments.

• Implementation of IDEAS: BLM has implemented the Interior Department Electronic Acquisition System throughout its major offices. Since it interfaces with FFS, IDEAS eliminates the need for separate data entry for commitments and obligations and provides the capability to track most procurements. In FY 2000, BLM plans to have the IDEAS data incorporated into the Management Information System.

• Implementation of ASAP: BLM plans to implement Treasury’s Automated Standard Application for Payments system in FY 2000. This system will provide BLM’s grantees the ability to draw down on payments through BLM’s cooperative agreements.

• Implementation of Southern Nevada Public Land Management Act: Under the Southern Nevada Public Land Management Act, the BLM has begun an investment program in Treasury securities. The Act authorizes the disposal of certain federal lands in Clark County, Nevada with 10 percent of the proceeds paid to the Southern Nevada Water Authority, 5 percent paid directly to the State of Nevada, with the remaining 85 percent to the BLM. These monies collected by the BLM are being invested in Treasury securities until expended as authorized under the Act. The invested amounts will vary over time, due to the timing of the land sales and expenditures authorized under the Act. However, for FY 2000 we expect the invested amounts to approximate 20 million.

• In FY 1999, Reclamation assisted the Department in the consolidation of its administrative centers. On April 1, Reclamation transferred management and financial balances and accounting responsibilities for the Denver Administrative Services Center to the Department’s National Business Center, the purpose of which is to realize efficiencies and the benefits of consolidating similar activities under one management structure.

• In July 1999, Reclamation began successfully transferring eligible debt (60 days and older delinquent) to Treasury for cross-servicing. This process uses an in-house developed automated program to perform this function.

• Reclamation successfully implemented the PD-IDEAS/FFS interface in six major purchasing locations and all of the smaller field units in two of those major locations.

• Reclamation achieved a 98 percent electronic funds transfer rate to the financial institution accounts for all vendors and travelers it pay. Waivers have been kept to a minimum for employees and commercial vendors.

• Reclamation implemented a pilot program to centrally bill lodging costs with the Bank of America charge card program. This program has (1) streamlined the travel process, (2) provided improved service to traveling employees by reducing the complexity of the travel voucher eliminating lodging costs as an individual employee payment responsibility, and (3) obtained significant charge card rebates for the Department.

• Reclamation received an unqualified opinion on its financial statements for the sixth consecutive year, which validates the integrity and reliability of Reclamation’s accounting system, practices, and financial data.

• Reclamation is adopting the standard software used by the Department for the preparation of financial statements. Hyperion is expected to result in a streamlined approach for both the preparation and audit of the statements (quicker results and fewer people), and will convert from a manual to an automated communication protocol of financial data to the Department necessary for the preparation of its consolidated financial reports.

• Reclamation continued to successfully keep its prompt pay interest below the DOI standard. Total interest amounts paid are 66 percent lower than projected for FY 1999.

• Reclamation continued efforts to improve the interagency agreement process for reimbursement with other federal agencies, and provide technical guidance, support, and training on the reimbursable standard general ledger reporting.

• Reclamation made required changes to custom accounting report programs and procedures to ensure that all are Year 2000 compatible and has coordinated changes and Year 2000 systems requirements with other internal and external clients that access our accounting data, files, and reports.

• FFS table clearing programs were executed to archive large volume of historical records from the Purchases, Payables, and Travel related tables and also the Auto Disbursement tables in an effort to reduce systems maintenance costs and enhance the performance of the accounting system. A total of approximately 4.8 million records were archived.

• Reclamation continued to provided key resource support (dollars and staff) in assisting the Department in the development of a plan and strategy for the acquisition and implementation of replacement financial management system within the next five-to-seven years. Reclamation assumed leadership positions on three of thirteen sub-teams: core accounting, acquisitions, and facility management.

• Reclamation converted to the standard budget object class codes adopted by the Department. The conversion will promote greater standardization throughout the Department and more easily accommodate data roll-up at a higher level.

• Reclamation implemented improved controls over the source and disposition of certain project revenues. These controls will further protect the government’s assets, help Reclamation comply with requirements established by project legislation, and more accurately identify proper credits to the project beneficiaries.

• Reclamation initiated an effort in reviewing and testing the functionality and capability of Interior’s FFS Labor Cost Interface System in an effort that will lead to replacing Reclamation’s custom Labor Cost interface in the interest of being consistent with other Interior bureaus and in reducing operating costs and improving efficiency. The initial testing has surfaced a need for further enhancement of the DOI Labor Cost interface to allow Reclamation to provide for the cost accounting requirements currently in place and consistent with FASAB No. 4. Specifically, the system must accommodate direct charging, leave surcharge, and general overhead for Reclamation to consider converting to DOI’s system.

• Software Advisory Board

• Standard Accounting Classification Advisory Team

• Financial Statement Guidance Team

• Finance Officers’ Partnership

• Benchmarking

• FFS Migration

• Charge Card Implementation

• Deferred Maintenance

• Managerial Cost Accounting

• Travel Management Centers

• Emergency Firefighting Payroll

• MMS re-engineered its front-end microfilming process by replacing the microfilm camera and reader with state-of-the-art data imaging technology. This front end is fully integrated with ABACIS, which allows accounting technicians and other users to access images based on any known information about the document. This initiative saves resources by making data images of documents easily available electronically for review by accounting technicians, program staff, and auditors.

• MMS expanded its efforts to increase EFT payments to vendors and employees. Over 94 percent of disbursements to MMS vendors are via EFT. Also, over 98 percent of travel and miscellaneous payments to MMS employees are made via EFT.

• Financial Statements/Accounting Standards: OSM has fully implemented the managerial cost accounting standard. Managerial cost accounting reports are being produced at the output and office level, as specified by OSM managers. Managerial cost reporting will also continue at the segment and GPRA level. OSM has streamlined the compilation of its financial statements and has created a system of automated checks to simplify its quality assurance process. OSM anticipates receiving its ninth straight clean opinion on its financial statements.

• Financial Management Systems: In December 1998, OSM implemented a module to ABACIS for processing the integrated credit card centrally billed transactions. The cardholder inputs transactions which are matched against the invoice download from the Bank of America (Nations Bank) to allow next day pay of the invoice. All non-matched charges are automatically paid to default accounts. The module which is fully integrated with ABACIS allows for up to ten default accounts and permits the cardholder to adjust the accounting information at anytime. Useful management reports are produced by the system including reports showing all the purchases by an office, a purchase report by cardholder, and reports that show detailed accounting information by purchase and cardholder.

• The Management Accounting and Performance System (MAPS) was enhanced during FY 1999. MAPS is an online reporting tool that utilizes a parallel data warehouse of ABACIS as a data source. MAPS provides decision-makers with valuable information regarding the status of funds, labor and payroll, grant and personnel management information. The effort involved enhancing internal and quality controls regarding data integrity, system availability, and increasing the user base. A report library was developed to ease data access to recurring information requests. During FY 2000, OSM plans to utilize MAPS as the platform to auto-generate quarterly GPRA/managerial cost accounting reports. Other planned enhancements include increasing the number of "canned" reports in the report library and enlarging the physical size of the data warehouse to accommodate future data.

• Receivables: OSM has established two performance goals and measures under the Government Performance and Results Act relating to receivables. The first one states that OSM will continue the reduction of outstanding delinquent debt (excluding bankruptcy and payment plans) over 180 days old. The base line date for this measure is 9/30/97. Since that date OSM has reduced the number of cases by 47.2 percent. The second measure states that OSM will attain a 98 percent debt processing rate within the first 180 days. For the quarter ended 3/31/99 this rate was 97.1 percent. The rate for the third quarter is being determined.

• In FY 2000, OSM will focus on determining the net realizable value of its accounts receivable. This is consistent with the Administration and Congress’ focus on reducing the significant Federal non-tax delinquent debt. We estimate that approximately 50 percent of all outstanding debt over two years old is of dubious realizable value. By focusing on net realizable value, more accurate economic information will be reported to OMB in OSM’s TROR.

• We plan to review the use of a credit card collection program. This may enable OSM to eliminate lockbox payments and decrease the number of collection officers in the field. It may also increase our customer satisfaction by allowing alternative methods of payments.

• Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) Pilot Project: OSM is developing a pilot project for the electronic transmission of information on the OSM-1 form, Coal Reclamation Fee Report, currently submitted on paper by all reporting coal companies. The information provided on the OSM-1 form determines the quarterly Abandoned Mine Land (AML) reclamation fee liability due. The completed form also provides additional information to OSM that is required by the Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act of 1997 (SMCRA), as amended.

• Payments And Business Methods: OSM reduced Prompt Payment Act interest from 1.2 percent at the start of FY 1999 to a cumulative rate of .95 percent in June 1999.

• OSM implemented an aggressive policy to comply with the EFT provisions of the Debt Collection Improvement Act of 1996. During FY 1999, OSM increased vendor compliance from 62.6 percent to 81.9 percent and travel/miscellaneous payments from 93.0 percent to 99.5 percent.

• Delinquent Debt Transfer to Treasury: The National Park Service implemented the Treasury Offset program in FY 1997. As of the end of FY 1999, the Service has transferred 95 percent of the eligible debt.

• Reduction/Elimination of Imprest Funds: In compliance with the Debt Collection Improvement Act of 1996, the National Park Service reduced the maximum fund balance for most of its designated cashiers to $100.

• Travel Advance Management: As of the end of FY 1999, 98 percent of the Service’s outstanding travel advance balances are related to permanent change of station and emergency travel advances.

• Prompt Pay Interest Reduction: During FY 1999, the National Park Service successfully continued in its efforts to meet the Department’s late payment goal of less than five percent. The prompt pay interest reduction was attributable to the corrective actions taken by both the field offices and the Accounting Operations Center.

• Expansion of Credit Card Usage: During FY 1999, the National Park Service’s usage of the Bank of America’s Master Card for purchases, travel, and fleet costs increased by approximately 63 percent. The projected totals for the credit card transactions and dollars that the Service will process are 383,000 transactions for nearly $76 million during FY 1999.

• Implementation of Federal Financial System Fixed Assets Subsystem: The National Park Service successfully converted from the Department of Agriculture’s Property Management System (PROP) to the Federal Financial System’s Fixed Asset subsystem at the beginning of FY 1999. Prior to conversion, Servicewide Fixed Asset training was provided to 600 over employees responsible for property management. Custom reports were developed for the parks and central office as inventory and reconciliation tools.

• Job Corps Accounting System: The National Park Service converted the Job Corps accounting to the Federal Financial System on July 1, 1999.