NASA OIG: Integrated Financial Management Program Budget Formulation Module audit report
IG-04-017 March 30, 2004 A-01-061-05 Integrated Financial Management Program (IFMP) Budget Formulation Module (BFM)
Managing under a full cost concept is a Federal requirement that has been embraced by NASA under its full cost initiative. The full cost initiative consists of three components—full cost accounting, cost-based budgeting, and full cost management. The Budget Formulation Module (BFM), a component of the Integrated Financial Management Program (IFMP), supports NASA’s initiative for cost-based budgeting. The BFM supports formulation of NASA’s institutional, program, enterprise and Agency level budget requirements. NASA is currently implementing BFM in three releases. Release .5 was implemented in October 2003 and designed to contain 80 percent of the module’s functionality as the basis for ‘bottom up’ Center budgeting. Release .5B, was implemented on February 23, 2004, to capture the remaining functionality that would be part of Release .5. Release 1 is to contain the remaining 20 percent of the module’s functionality, and be the basis for ‘top down’ Headquarters budgeting.
Since the initial stages of our audit, which began in May 2003, full implementation dates for BFM have slipped twice. Originally scheduled for implementation in February 2004, the target date is now January 2005, meaning that NASA’s planned use of the IFMP to implement cost-based budgeting—the final component necessary for full cost management—will be delayed until fiscal year 2006. At the time of our audit, we were concerned that the NASA BFM Team had not:
- Engaged key users of the BFM, specifically Headquarters enterprise personnel, in the development of the system until October 2003, nearly 21 months after the project’s inception and less than 5 months before the initial planned implementation (Audit Issue 1);
- Included, as planned, five key BFM requirements in Release .5, which was the first of the three BFM releases (Audit Issue 2); and
- Included sufficient functionality in the BFM document repository system that would have enabled elimination of a legacy budget document repository system (Audit Issue 3).
Due to the fast moving nature of the BFM implementation, we immediately communicated those three issues to the NASA IFMP Program Executive with four recommendations for improvement. NASA management responded to the issues and, as of the issuance of this report, has adequately addressed all issues. We consider two of the four recommendations closed. The other two recommendations are resolved but will remain open pending our review of NASA’s stated actions.
