Managing the Chaos of Financial Management

摘要

This paper addresses a two-part research question: Do USAF installation-levelfinancial managers confront undue chaos in budget execution. If so, does this chaos result from recent Department of Defense (DoD) initiatives to decentralize control of previously centrally managed accounts. World political changes, domestic spending priorities, and expanding defense missions have complicated budget execution. Financial managers must use limited resources to satisfy less limited requirements despite an environment of external controls, lack of flexibility, and changing rules. Although financial red-tape is not a new phenomenon, decentralization adds new ramifications. Because no systematically developed body of knowledge exists concerning the degree of unnecessary budget chaos or the efficacy of decentralization, this project proposed to define such data. Since this is a perception-based issue, this project developed a methodology dependent on the perception of the individuals most qualified to render an opinion: USAF installation commanders, and major command (MAJCOM) and installation comptrollers. The research team developed a survey of 21 objective and 4 subjective statements and questions. The objective statements and questions required one of five evaluations ranging from Strongly Disagree to Strongly Agree. All current USAF commanders and comptrollers (as of December 1994) previously mentioned received copies of the survey. The survey response rate was 64.1% the team receiving 148 responses of 231 surveys sent directly to USAF commanders and comptrollers. Data analysis compared the statistical reliability of commanders' response to those of comptrollers to determine if position influenced opinion.