DOCUMENTATION

Our government’s financial security is dependent upon credentialed and competent government accountants and computer science (CS) professionals.  The role of the Central Agency [General Accountability Office (GAO), Office of Management and Budget (OMB), Treasury, and General Services Administration (GSA)] is to implement a single set of government-wide accounting and financial software standards that are based upon Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP).  Each of the 24 CFO Act agencies is responsible for following both the Central agency accounting and financial software standard.  The role of each of the CFO Act agency's accountants is to critique these Central Agency and financial software standards and also ensure that their related CFO Act agency accounting processes are also in compliance with GAAP.  If everyone does their job, each of the 24 CFO Act agencies will generate their individual agency-level financial statements (with minimal accounting adjustments) and then GAO will summarize that data, at the end of each fiscal, year and, again, generate the U.S. government's Consolidated Financial Statements (CFS).

In order to perform our government accountant and CS jobs and fulfill our fiduciary role to the American taxpayer, we must be able to communicate our concerns regarding: (1) individual CFO Act agency accounting and financial system deficiencies, and (2) any problems regarding the Central Agency (and government-wide) accounting or financial software standards that all CFO Act agencies are required to follow.  And, we should experience no retaliation!!   All managers up the CFO Act agency chain-of-command (including the agency CFO) should report these findings to Congress, as mandated in the various Congressional government accountability legislative acts.  

The documentation below is the hard copy documentation supporting the comments made regarding the "planned" and "inbred" deficiencies of the revolving door bureaucrat (RDB) political appointees at the Central Agency (OMB, GAO, Treasury, and GSA) and each of the 24 CFO Act agencies.  A single representative CFO Act agency, the Environmental Protection Agency, illustrates how political appointee’s reward (with your tax dollars) their GM 13 thru GM 15 supervisor enforcers for covering up all illegal and questionable acts to Congress and the American people. This Documentation Section includes excerpts from GAO's own written Congressional testimony, a letter to the Comptroller General of the U.S. questioning the Federal government’s accounting standard, Emails to the EPA CFO and mid-level managers questioning EPA’ decisions regarding 1) the placement of non credentialed accountants (no 4-year accounting degrees or Certified Public Accountant certificates) in supervisory management positions, 2) the procurement of an 84 million dollars financial software package, and 3) the waste involved in hiring a management consulting firm to address the very deficiencies that EPA’s management created, ignored, and then intentionally lied to Congress about over a 10-year period, a Washington Times OP-ED questioning our government's accounting and financial software standards, letter to Senator Fred Thompson expressing concern with our government’s accounting and financial system standards, and specific incidents involving questionable behavior on the part of other government top and mid-level managers.

The documentation is as follows:

• In October 2006, GAO revealed that it still cannot generate the federal government’s Consolidated Financial  Statements after ten (10) consecutive years of failed attempts -- See GAO Audit 2005/2006.  This is an important revelation because the Central Agencies, the 24 agency (non-accountant) CFO’s, and their corporate friends enforce a single government-wide accounting and financial system standard for an entire bureaucracy.  They, and they alone, are responsible for this on-going government accountability failure.   

• In June 1998, A formal presentation was given to Senator Fred Thompson’s staff, then Chairman of the Government Affairs Committee, questioning the logic of the federal government’s (and AICPA) accounting standard.  It was suggested that Congress require proof of this failed standard before wasting more taxpayer money on related financial software that would never work. See Fred Thompson letter.                      
  

• In June 1999, the Washington Times printed an OP-ED questioning: (1) the logic of the federal government-wide accounting (and AICPA) standard, (2) EPA’s efforts to hide all accounting problems to obtain their unjustified clean audit opinions, and (3) Congress’s lack of interest in holding anyone accountable.  See Washington Times article.  

• In October 1999, the Federal Accounting Standards Advisory Board (FASAB) revealed the AICPA’s support for its failed federal government-wide accounting standard.  (This is only 3 ½ months after the Washington Times article).  Also, note in item 1 above that GAO has failed miserably in its attempt(s) to consolidate the government’s financial statements.  See FASAB News.

• The private sector adheres to a single American Institute of Certified Public Accountant (AICPA) standard despite the unlimited diversity of the private sector businesses required to follow that standard.  The same logic should (and does) apply to a single government accounting (and budgeting) standard.  However, under the current arrangement, the AICPA oversees two (2) two separate and independent government accounting standards – a federal (FASAB) accounting standard and yet another (GASB) state and local accounting standard.  However, neither government (and AICPA) accounting standard is in compliance with Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP) and, therefore, incapable of generating all accounting and budgeting financial statements from a single trial balance.   
  
  
• In keeping with the U.S. Congress's recent passage of the Executive Branch Reform Act (H.R. 984) and attempt to provide a more open and transparent government, it is fitting that all governments (federal, state, and local) not only adhere to a single accounting standard but that this government-wide accounting standard be designed and administered by an entity that is free from any corporate intereference. Also, this single government-wide accounting standard should be based on GAAP and, as in the case of the AICPA private sector accounting standard, all accounting (and budgeting) financial statements should be generated from a single trial balance.  A good starting point for developing this government-wide accounting standard is an integrated accounting and budgeting model that appears in the Taxpayers Government Accounting Reform website -- http://www.tgar.org.  This model was developed over a 20-year period and based upon all facets of the Federal government's operation.  Before making this information available on the internet, the applicant, Larry Fisher, applied for and received a copyright.  The idea was not for personal enrichment but to identify and expose others who may use this information for their own financial gain (as noted in t he June 5 GOVEXEC.com article below). It is important to understand that just as the current government (and AICPA) accounting standard should have been reviewed (by government credentialed accountants) this accounting model should stand up to the same scrutiny.  The logic is that financial software is designed around a single accounting standard.  If this accounting model is flawed (i.e. accounting formulas are inaccurate), then the financial software produced from this model will have the same result of the Central Agency (and AICPA) standard -- massive adjustments, more manually prepared financial statements, and more government waste, fraud, and abuse of our tax dollars.  Larry Fisher is not interested in personal enrichment but in working with other government credentialed accountants in producing accounting standards, supporting texts, and financial software that can be easily explained and that do generate accurate and integrated accounting and budgeting financial statements for all governments (federal, state, and local) and at no cost to the taxpayer. 

• In September 2002, Ollie Darby, Larry Fisher, and an EPA contract specialist,William Newby sent a letter to David Walker, Comptroller General of the U.S., offering our assistance in explaining this accounting model and integrating the government’s accounting, budgeting, procurement, and property financial processes in a single, easily explained process.  See Comptroller General of the United States letter.

• In June 2005, a GOVEXEC.com article treported that Congress is now paying contractors to examine “disconnects’ that they found in the government’s accounting and budgeting process.  This is the same information that was provided to both Congress and David Walker by government accountants and procurement professionals.  Why is Congress now paying contractors to analyze information that was provided free by government personnel?  See GOVEXEC.com article. 

• April 7, 2006 email -- OCFO Gallup Survey where concern was raised over our government’s: (1) systematic elimination of its 4-year degreed accountants and replacement with minimally qualified people, (2) the problem of still alluding to these “managers” as accountants, and (3) the very real internal and self-imposed threat to our country’s financial security.   

• April 11, 2006 email – Feedback on Booz Allen Hamilton (BAH) Contract where the BAH contract was characterized as a gross waste of our tax dollars.  Details were also provided on how the government had intentionally used deficient software over the past 20 years and provided the title of the RDB bureaucrat responsible along with the names of the contractors involved.

• April 25, 2006 email – EPA’s future financial software purchase included comments identifying EPA’s currently proposed $84 million dollar software purchase as a repeat of the same failure (and gross waste) that has occurred over the past 20 years when a joint OMB, Treasury, GAO task force made available "untested" fianncial software to an entire Federal bureaucracy.  The only basis for allowing this government-wide procurement of deficient financial software in 1987 (through 2007) was a meaningless questionaire that this joint task force prepared and the vendors certified as being in compliance with all government requirements.   
                                                                                           
• October 23, 2006 email – Government Accounting Sweat Shops where a contrast is made with the very high educational requirements of private sector accountants and computer science professionals compared to the very minimal requirements in the federal government.  
   
  
• December 14, 2006 email  - An Out-of Control Federal Bureaucracy where a  Washington, D.C. EPA financial manager, further up the chain-of-command, is provided with a quick overview of the repercussions of allowing technically unqualified staff and managers to fill EPA's (and our government's) accountant and computer science positions.  Also noted was an absence of the most basic internal accounting controls and checks and balances needed to validate the legitimacy of our government's (GAO, OMB, and Treasury) accounting (AICPA) and finanancial (off-the-shelf) system standards.  

• November 24, 2007 MSPB letter challeges EPA's (and previous OSC and MSPB) written statements that: (1) my allegations of illegal activity and wrongdoing against the Central Agencies (GAO, OMB, Treasury, GSA, and OPM) and EPA are without merit, (2) my allegations are frivolous, and (3) I am not now nor was I ever a government whisleblower. 
   
• March 10, 2008 email, EPA's Clean (and unjustified) audit opinions, includes an email that I sent to EPA's Chief Financial Officer and his staff detailing the gross distortion of facts concerning both EPA's  clean audit opinions and GAO's ten year record of misleading Congress regarding our government's failed outsourcing effort (that actually began in 1987).  The resultant coverup includes our  government's top bureaurcrats at GAO, OMB, Treasury, GSA, OPM, and EPA.  OMB's claims of 19  clean audit opinions for our government's 2006 financial statements are equally suspect based upon my experience and feedback that I have received from other accountant whistleblowers. 
  
  
• May 8 and May 17, 2008 internal emails to EPA's internal workgroup and management documenting my concern with EPA management's failure to include reported accounting and financial system deficiencies in the agency's annual FMFIA reports to Congress, replacement of its credentialed accountant managers with unqualified managers (former GS 6 accounting technicians who are now GM 14s and GM 15s) to hide all wrongdoing, outsourcing its accounting operation to PricewaterhouseCoopers (an AICPA firm) and CGI (a financial software vendor), and the resultant lack of checks and balances to redflag (an already) twenty year failure of this government-wide outsourcing effort.  
   
•  June 9 and June 10, 2008 internal emails document the Director, RTP Finance Center's TWIST on the facts concerning an Office of the Inspector General audit finding relating to his office.  His postion was to blame another office, the Property Management Office (PMO), when, in fact, the audit finding occured because EPA's Finance managers ignored and never addressed all reported accounting and financial system deficiences over an eleven year period (since 1997).   
  
  
• June 16, 2008 internal email documents (but one) of the myriad of EPA's accounting and financial system deficiencies that its political appointees (and their former GS 6 accounting technicians who are now GM 14s and GM 15s) covered up since 1997.  The fallout is that the taxpayer is paying six figure salaries to "financial" managers (with no credentials) to use very expensive financial software to replicate the agency's very deficient (and ill conceived) manual processes.  To further increase the level of government waste, EPA just entered into an $83 million financial software contract with CGI (formerly known as American Management Systems who also oversaw their previous contract from 1990 thru 2008).  By the way, PricewaterhouseCoopers is overseeing the implementation of the CGI software for only about $7 million.  Then, there is the additional cost of retraining EPA's employees.
  
  In order to gain some perspective and urgency regarding the EPA fiasco, consider that there are 23 other agencies like EPA (called Chief Financial Officer Act agencies).  If each of the 24 CFO Act agencies, like EPA procures new financial software every eighteen years, at an average cost of $90 million (for direct and indirect costs), that is a $ 2 billion dollar (plus) pricetag.  If the financial software generates accurate, timely, and meaningful financial statements, that is taxpayer money well spent. The only problem is that David Walker (the former Comptroller General of the U.S) has acknowledged as recently as July 7, 2007 in written Congressional testimony that our government still has no ability to generate accurate financial statements, at any level.  In fact, after all this effort, the federal government is still preparing its financial statements manually.  It is not an understatement to say that the financial security of this Country is in peril.  Look at the facts in this website;  you be the judge.